I've gone both routes for staying current with the nightlies, and IMO, for most Windows users it make a lot more sense to download the nightlies and run the EXE version. Bandwidth is cheap for most of us and I'm sure Slim Devices is more than happy to spend the money for bandwidth on their end for anyone willing to test the alpha/beta/etc nightlies. If you can set up your system to automatically download and expand the nightlies every day, then more power to you.
Setting up the perl version on Windows requires some or all of the following: - Installing perl. Easy enough, but if you have no other use for perl, then you'd probably rather not. - Figuring out how to get the perl version running as a service - most likely using servany.exe or firedaemon, and perhaps hacking the registry as per the wiki instructions. If you're going to use slimtray, make sure you get the Windows service name correct or you'll be unable to stop and start the service from slimtray. - Installing slimtray.exe if you want it, and a program group and the other niceties of the Windows installer. This can be done manually by extracting the files from a zip file version of the software, and manually creating the program group, or by using the EXE installer once, then deleting everything in the ./server/ directory, then switching over to use SVN. - Installing SVN. TortoiseSVN is easy enough. And then what will you end up with? A 75+ MB installation of SlimServer that only a developer needs. It will have every conceivable bit of code for every coceivable platform on which SlimServer runs. Some advantages to using SVN: - Updates are quick. Even if you don't stay totally current, a couple days worth of updates takes only a matter of seconds. - You can stay up to the minute on revisions. If you subscribe to the checkins mailing list, you might see something you want to try out right now. I'm not certain that it's necessary, but I always stop the Windows service before performing a SVN update. This can be conveniently done from slimtray, then start SlimServer up again afterwards. Prior to doing this, I'd often get an error while doing the update, as TortoiseSVN was unable to overwrite a file - usually the main slimserver.pl file. One _MAJOR_ disadvantage to running the perl version as a service on Windows using servany (and I presume, firedaemon) is that the service is actually running servany.exe and not slimserver.pl or even perl.exe. If SlimServer completely crashes, then the service just keeps on running and is unaware of the crash. SlimTray shows little green lights and you wonder why nothing is working. Startup crashes/problems can be particularly confusing. I wouldn't recommend going through all the trouble for most users, even those who are willing to test the betas. -- JJZolx Jim _______________________________________________ beta mailing list beta@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/beta
