Forum OpenACS Q&A: Windows and OpenACS3/4

Posted by Paul Moody on 11/18/01 05:27 PM

Is anyone working on Cygwin with OpenACS 4. We have OpenACS 3 working
with some problems parsing the open index file using Windows binaries
of AOLServer4-UH (early beta). But, do to missing modules in this
version, OpenACS 4 does not run. We have this running in Redhat. But,
we are preparing presentations on how OpenACS may be very useful to
European firms and organizations running diverse platforms. We will
get all the source code together and the problem fixed. But, I do not
want to reinvent to wheel. So, if someone has already done this, we
would sure appreciate any pointers or help to the required source
code and dll's.

2: Response to Windows and OpenACS3/4 (response to 1)

Posted by Paul Moody on 11/18/01 05:30 PM

Sorry, I forgot to point out that we are using Postgres.

3: Response to Windows and OpenACS3/4 (response to 1)

Posted by Jamie Rasmussen on 11/19/01 06:15 PM

I'm trying to install OpenACS 4 with PostgreSQL on top of Cygwin. I haven't gotten it to work yet; the main problem right now is that the team developing AOLserver 4 have decided not to continue work on a native port for Win32. As of AOLserver 4 beta 2, they were actively removing Windows specific source code. I looked briefly at running the new AOLserver code under Cygwin, but some of the POSIX threading functions that are needed haven't been implemented in Cygwin yet.

I've also had a few problems installing OpenACS 4 itself (using older AOLserver binaries), but I need to do some more debugging to track them down. I know at least some are Windows specific. I'd be happy to trade notes with anyone else attempting a Win32 installation - perhaps we could even compile a more formal installation guide.

4: Response to Windows and OpenACS3/4 (response to 1)

Posted by C. R. Oldham on 11/19/01 06:21 PM

Jamie,

Are you on the Cygwin mailing lists? My experience is that they are fairly helpful--maybe the threading problems are not too difficult to fix.

As an aside--we really need to have AOLserver running on Win32, even if it is under Cygwin. This way, you can duplicate your development environment entirely on a Windows box so you don't have to be attached to the server (or even to the Internet).

In fact, I did about 80% of the development of one of my OpenACS 3.2 backed sites on a laptop computer in the basement of the student union here at ASU...

5: Response to Windows and OpenACS3/4 (response to 1)

Posted by Yon Derek on 11/20/01 08:30 AM

Another solution would be to stick with AOLServer3.3ad13. I'm pretty sure this version could be made to work natively on windows with minor changes and it would be good enough as long as OpenACS doesn't rely on anything specific in AOLServer 4 (which, as it looks now, isn't coming anytime soon anyway). It would only take one dedicated soul to compile it & all necessary for OpenACS modules (ns_xml, ns_cache, ns_sha1) and make a binary tarball. That being said my soul doesn't feel dedicated. I've fixed all the windows compilation issues for ns_xml, ns_cache & ns_sha1 and versions on http://acs-misc.sourceforge.net should compile on windows out of the box. All that probably is left to be done is some tweaking of VS6 project files and maybe some minor portability changes in version 3.3ad13.

And the missing modules in AOLServer4-UH are my fault, my apologies. I had it working at some point a few months ago but forgot to update the site with a tarball. And now I don't have the tarball (and time to prepare a new one).