For the hell of it, I tried this installer on a "spare" Windows VM.
Bravo, bravissimo ! Now, there might be some use to all those Windows boxes... I tried to install some optional package ; it turns out that the installed setup isindeed minimal : (sage-sh) charpent@DESKTOP-P0B7HOE:~$ time ( for i in database_gap dot2tex giac giacpy_sage ; do sage -i $i ; done ) /opt/sagemath-7.4/src/bin/sage: ligne 302: make : commande introuvable /opt/sagemath-7.4/src/bin/sage: ligne 302: make : commande introuvable /opt/sagemath-7.4/src/bin/sage: ligne 302: make : commande introuvable /opt/sagemath-7.4/src/bin/sage: ligne 302: make : commande introuvable Either that or the necessary utilities are out of Sage-subshell's reach. A bit of Windows-specific documentation is needed. A (relatively) inexperienced user should not have to struggle to find : - How to open a cygwin console (as opposed to a Sage subshell) in the setup created by the installer. - What (and how) to install in order to install optional packages. - What (and how) to install in order to recompile (e. g. testing a git branch). - A pointer to Cygwin docs. - Advice about what should be installed under cygwin and what should be installed outside (e. g. emacs, TeX, various Unix-like tools). - Advice about how to use Sage-installed programs outside of Sage (e. g. Maxima, lisp, Python, etc...). I'll play a bit more with that setup (and, of course, report errors an quirks). But my first impression is that it *is* a vast improvement over the VM solution. A big "thank you" on behalf of Windows-stranded users ! -- Emmanuel Charpentier Le mercredi 7 décembre 2016 16:39:25 UTC+1, Erik Bray a écrit : > > Hi all, > > TL;DR: if you have a 64-bit Windows (Windows 7 and up should work) > please demo and give me your thoughts on the new build of Sage for > Windows using the installer at [1]. > > Some of you may recall that this spring I worked on a Windows > installer for Sage [2] based on Docker. The use of Docker was an > attempt at an end-run around a working Sage for Windows--the installer > was a complicated contraption that installed and configured Docker for > Windows and tried to make Sage work on that in a manner as transparent > as possible to the user (the point here being that while Sage works > well in Docker, configuring and using Docker--especially on > Windows--is complicated enough to present a significant hurdle > especially to novice users who should have a simple "point and click" > experience). > > Many of you were very helpful in testing out my builds of that > installer and providing feedback, and I was grateful. However, while > I was able to make this approach work on some level it was still > fragile and at times difficult. I outlined the problems with the > approach at [3]. > > Since then I have worked to create a build of Sage that works 100% > "natively" on Windows using Cygwin (the quotes indicating that while > it is ultimately, through Cygwin, using native Windows system calls > that fact is significantly obscured by Cygwin, and relatively few > actual source code changes are needed to Sage or its dependencies to > support that :) > > Although no official release of Sage yet supports Cygwin fully, I have > a branch of Sage 7.4 with a few additional fixes needed for full > Cygwin support. This is a "fully functional" build insofar as all > `sage -t -a --long` tests pass* (though no optional packages are > included yet). There may also be as of yet unseen issues with > parallel processing--although all the tests do pass, Cygwin's fork() > implementation can be fragile, and I wouldn't count out the > possibility of problems even if I haven't seen them yet. Otherwise > the system is pretty functional, especially for beginners--this > includes running the Jupyter notebook with the Sage kernel. > > The only other issue to be aware of is due to the large number of > files installed and heavy compression the installer takes a while to > run (around 15 minutes on my machine) so get it started, then go get a > coffee and chat with some colleagues before coming back to it :) > > Thanks, > Erik > > > * The tests pass in my local build system, but still have some > failures in the "installed" build from this installer--this still has > a few failures mostly due to issues with the installation environment, > but nothing serious AFAICT. > > §FAQs > ===== > > - Why can't Windows just use the Sage VM appliance? > > They can, but I hope it shouldn't need to be said that this is hardly > ideal. Windows users, especially students and researchers, should be > able to run Sage on their own computer without the hassles associated > with virtualization. > > - Have you tried the Windows Subsystem for Linux (aka "Bash for Windows")? > > I've addressed this before, but since it seems to come up every time I > mention Sage on Windows: Yes, this has been considered and has > promise. Early experiments with running the Sage binary build on WSL > showed some success, but with caveats. Bill Hart has a nice writeup > at [4]. I have also heard of issues with building Sage from source on > the WSL. > > That said, in its current form the WSL does not address all the goals > of this installer. For one it is not accessible to all Windows > users--it is only available as of the Windows 10 "Anniversary Update", > and not on any earlier Windows versions many of which (especially > Windows 7 and up) are still common in the wild. Second of all, by > Microsoft's own insistance it is designed to be a tool for developers, > so that developers working on Windows can more easily test their > software against and run POSIX-based development tools. It is not > meant for production environments or as a software installation > system. While it certainly *could*, in theory, be used that way it is > not well set up for that. Enabling the feature is a somewhat involved > process (especially for novices) and requires some large downloads > (larger even than the Sage installer :) It is not a particularly > accessible process, and is not easily encapsulated in some kind of > stand-alone installer. > > Finally, at least for now, it's still in "beta" and has a number of > known issues anyways. While it may eventually as people learn to > exploit it more effectively, for now Cygwin remains the most portable > and well-tested POSIX emulation layer for Window, even if it has its > own issues. > > [1] > https://github.com/embray/sage-windows/releases/download/0.1a1-7.4/SageMath-7.4.exe > > [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-devel/To6wNO7FSxw/7YNmr7WqDQAJ > [3] > https://github.com/OpenDreamKit/OpenDreamKit/blob/3ad46237fc71cb6ec2fde568ea1d0f7525e2a8dc/WP3/D3.1/status-report.md#caveats > > [4] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-devel/MHyD5tcyO5Y/_guoPVQUBwAJ > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
