Topic: Linux launch

Jeff,

Many congratulations on launching Simply Fortran for GNU/Linux systems.  I will certainly be downloading and registering the Debian/Ubuntu version versions over the next few days, just as soon as can bring some sanity to bear in my current workload.  And one for Raspberry Pi ARM distros as well!  A full-featured Fortran compiler and IDE on a Linux computer costing twenty five quid.  Now that, I just HAVE to install! 

I note from the release announcement that, save for a few very small details, your Debian/Ubuntu versions are now fully functioning and ready to use, and that the few remaining small details still to be added will then bring this fully up to feature parity with the Windows versions, with ongoing development thereafter continuing in unison under Linux and Windows.  But the superb Appgraphics is now an established, and for many users, I think, a core, feature of SF, and you surely can't be including this of in feature parity, can you?  I ask, because I have always Appgraphics plugged into Windows low-level libraries (or something like that), so would not be portable.  Are you really going to make it so that code developed under SF for Windows can be fed straight into SF for Linux, and compiled unchanged, including Appgraphics calls?  That would be considerable achievement.
---
John

Re: Linux launch

I've just downloaded and installed it. 

Talk about fast! 
- Download, 2 minutes. 
- Install, 1 minute. 
- Hello World, 5 seconds.

I see that the 'Help' menu isn't active yet.
---
John

  • jeff
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Re: Linux launch

John,

Thanks for the kind words!  Please do post any additional comments as you notice missing features. 

JohnWasilewski wrote:

I ask, because I have always Appgraphics plugged into Windows low-level libraries (or something like that), so would not be portable.  Are you really going to make it so that code developed under SF for Windows can be fed straight into SF for Linux, and compiled unchanged, including Appgraphics calls?  That would be considerable achievement.

There are no immediate plans to port AppGraphics.  It would indeed be a considerable task since all drawing is handled by Windows API calls.  It would have to be a reimplementation rather than a port.  I was more speaking of development environment feature parity.  Furthermore, using something like GTK-Fortran on GNU/Linux is substantially easier than on Windows.

JohnWasilewski wrote:

I see that the 'Help' menu isn't active yet.

Can you expand upon that?  It seems to be working on my test systems.  Is the whole menu grayed out, or are certain items not working/responding?

Jeff Armstrong
Approximatrix, LLC

Re: Linux launch

I'm sitting waiting for visitors, in the arrivals hall at Abu Dhabi airport, so I can't recheck this just now, but I recall from early this morning was that clicking the HELP button produced a help menu as normal, selecting 'About' worked OK, but selecting the ' help' contents triggered some kind of 'not found' error.
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J.

  • jeff
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Re: Linux launch

JohnWasilewski wrote:

I see that the 'Help' menu isn't active yet.

I've found the bug.  There was an uninitialized pointer that was causing the help files to fail to open.  Oddly, it works "by chance" on some systems.  There should be an update shortly to fix it.

Jeff Armstrong
Approximatrix, LLC

Re: Linux launch

Glad you cracked it, Jeff.  Sorry I've not contributed more lately.  My professional commitments have been rather pushing everything else out of the way over the last few months.
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J.

7 Reply by JohnWasilewski (edited by JohnWasilewski 2016-01-26 21:28:15)

Re: Linux launch

Jeff,

Has one small detail slipped past your final checks?

I've just registered the Linux version.
After registering it, I was taken to this page [https://licenses.simplyfortran.com/register.html] showing inter alia this information:

Registration Keys
User                                  Registration Key       Platform
My@email.address             AAAAAAA-BBBBBB     GNU/Linux

To register your software, please follow these steps:

    Download the latest version and install Simply Fortran if you haven't already done so
    Start Simply Fortran 2 from Start screen or menu
    In the Help menu, click Registration...
    In the Personal Registration tab, enter your User and Registration Key information from above.
    Click the Ok button

I clicked it the 'latest version' link and downloaded it. 
I was slightly surprised that the file seemed much larger than expected (94,560,256 bytes) and was a .msi file not a (much smaller) .deb file. 

On re-running the Linux version, I found it was still ver.2.25 build 2106, and that the 'Help' link was still broken.

I think the the 'latest version' link must have caused me to download and re-install, not the latest Linux version, but another copy of the Windows version that I also have on my Linux laptop, running perfectly under WINE.

This is completely not a problem because I have subsequently been to http://simplyfortran.com/linux/download/, where I did re-download and install the latest .deb version, and on running it, I see it is ver.2.25 build 2113, which includes your corrected code for the 'Help' facility.

Just looks as if you may have a wrong address in the clickable 'latest version' link on the post-registration web-page.
---
John

  • jeff
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Re: Linux launch

John,

Sorry about that confusion.  The final page with the download link is indeed wrong.  I'll have to get that fixed.

Jeff Armstrong
Approximatrix, LLC