On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Dr. David Kirkby<david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > > Minh Nguyen wrote: >> Hi, >> >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 3:35 PM, DigDug_the_2nd<dugthemath...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> I installed Sage binary under WINDOWs Vista using the VM Player >>> as described in the Installation Manual . . . so far so good . . . but >>> I'm a little unsure what the VM Player is actually doing. Sage is not >>> installed in the ordinary sense that a program is usually >>> installed . . . right? What I'd really like to do is put the Sage_ROOT >>> on the PATH and then access all the packages in Sage and the >>> additional ones added to it. Can I do this by pointing the PATH to the >>> folder that contains the VM Player files that I downloaded as the >>> binary distribution for WINDOWs? >> >> Short answer: No. >> >> Longer answer: Currently the best way to run/use Sage under Windows is >> to use the VMware image. This essentially is an Ubuntu Linux image >> that is loaded using the WMware player. That means that the compiled >> version of Sage in that VMware image has been compiled for a Linux >> system, where the binary format is different from Windows. It's like >> you can't execute a Linux binary under Windows and vice versa (unless >> you use an emulator or a virtual machine). > > > Though I use Windows as little as possible, does the VMware image slow > if there is not hardware support for some instructions?
Yes. > I believe there are some instructions in modern processors which make > running one OS inside another quite practical, which should be good news > for users of modern machines. Yes, it's called "VTX". It's amazing. Even without it, vmware is quite fast. > However, on my Sony VAIO laptop, Sony in their infinite wisdom has > written the BIOS so they can't be used. So for me, running XP inside > OpenSolaris would be slow, despite the fact the processor would support > it. It has been suggested that the BIOS is an AMD one, and I could > download a BIOS from AMD not Sony, but that is a bit risky. > > If there are issues like this, it would be worth mentionnig them on the > Sage page, as it could give the impressions Sage is a lot slower than it > needs to be. > > It might in some cases be possible for users to enable these > instructions in the BIOS, but Sony for whatever reason have decided not > to - perhaps they get Vista at a lower price from Microsoft if they > agree to disable the hardware support that makes running on OS inside > another more difficult. I'm so glad Blair Sutton and Jason Moxham have been working hard on porting Sage to windows. I hope others (including me) will find time soon to help. It's really easy to distribute work. William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
