[gecode-users] Adventures in installation

[David Barton]

Christian, thank you for your time in writing.  I have downloaded the MSVC 
as you suggested, and am one frustrated puppy (as described below) which is 
why this Email is late.  You wrote:

> As said, I use cygwin every day but together with the freely available
> Express Edition of Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. It works as follows:
> download, install, set up the environment that cygwin can pick up the
> necessary environment variables for the commandline version of the 
> compiler
> (easy, has been discussed before on this list) and then ./configure CC=cl
> CXX=cl (the documentation discusses compiling for MSVC).
>
> The benefits are enormous. Compilation is much much faster and so is the
> generated code.
>
> I stopped using gcc on cygwin completely as it is so outdated and any
> improvement is not in sight. But I have to admit that even if a recent gcc
> would be available on cygwin I still would use MSVC.

Very well.  I am a believer!  I downloaded MSVC, and installed it.  Full of 
confidence, I run .configure CC=cl CXX=cl.

It fails.

Why does it fail?  Cygwin cannot find cl.  Ah, but the installation of MSVC 
went perfectly.  Why can cygwin not find cl, I ask?  I start up a command 
shell.  The cmd command shell cannot find cl either.  Something is amiss!  I 
start up their fancy user interface.  It has a tool for starting up a Visual 
C++ command shell.  I do so, which looks like an ordinary command window. 
Surprise!  It finds cl just fine.  I examine its path.  It has a bunch of 
extra things on its path that the ordinary path does not.  I place these on 
the default path.  Now cygwin can find cl.  Success, I think.

But I'm wrong.

Now .configure still fails, because cl cannot find the standard libraries 
(specifically, it fails on LIBCMT.LIB).  Somehow the environment variables 
(or something or other) is still not set correctly.  Only this time it is 
not as obvious as the path, but is some variable (or something or other) 
that I know not of, and therefore cannot check.

Obviously, this is a new version of MSVC.  I cannot find where they will 
allow me to download an old version, or what I can do to avoid the lovely 
paternalistic Microsoft setting of environment variables (or something or 
other) that disallows batch routines outside of their little environment.

Is there something I can do to address this situation?

Have I mentioned this has added to my dislike of Microsoft?  Even when it 
gives out free software?

David L. Barton
Director, Rosetta CoE
EDAptive Computing, Inc.
1245-G Lyons Road, Dayton, OH 45458
(937) 433-0477

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