Windows snapshot builds

Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Inspired by the upcoming release of Emacs-26 RC1, I've released some
snapshots windows builds for Emacs-27.

https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Jostein Kjønigsen]

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Hey Phil!

I'd just like to report that I've downloaded and tested this updated
installer on my "regular" Windows developer-machine.
It worked as expected, and I'm glad to see most of my comments from last
time you published an installer has been addressed :)
Compared to the "old" way of getting Emacs up and running on Windows,
this is a night and day difference. This actually feels "natively
Windowsy", as opposed to that clunky "ZIP, UNZIP... Get more ZIPs,
hope you UNZIP them the right place" Windows users were previously
forced to endure.
If you keep publishing these, this might be my new way to keep my Emacs
updated on my Windows-machine!
They -are- very convenient and with an installer like this, I believe
the basic installation procedure should no longer be a road-block for
Windows-users to try out Emacs. As such, this is a major milestone.
There's still the issue about the lack code-signing, and Windows' GUI
isn't getting any friendlier about that, but I guess that's a
technicality we can leave for later, when there are no other issues
to sort out.
Ladies and gentlemen: I believe this man deserves some applause.
Great work!
--
Regards
Jostein Kjønigsen

jostein@kjonigsen.net 🍵 jostein@gmail.com
https://jostein.kjonigsen.net


On Thu, Mar 22, 2018, at 11:50 AM, Phillip Lord wrote:
> 
> 
> Inspired by the upcoming release of Emacs-26 RC1, I've released some
> snapshots windows builds for Emacs-27.
> 
> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
> 
> 


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Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Aurélien Aptel]

Hm, the link points to an empty directory listing.

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Jostein Kjønigsen <jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net> writes:
> If you keep publishing these, this might be my new way to keep my
> Emacs updated on my Windows-machine!

I plan to, but even if I don't the code is in the repo now and it's
relatively easy to do.


> They -are- very convenient and with an installer like this, I believe
> the basic installation procedure should no longer be a road-block for
> Windows-users to try out Emacs. As such, this is a major milestone.

Yeah, I've watched people try to install Emacs before and the look of
confusion is terrifying to see. Even the fact that the file is called
"-installer.exe" should help significantly.

It's a shame it's slated for Emacs-27. Too late to merge into Emacs-26
now, although I guess it could be back-ported.


> There's still the issue about the lack code-signing, and Windows' GUI
> isn't getting any friendlier about that, but I guess that's a
> technicality we can leave for later, when there are no other issues
> to sort out.

Code-signing is a significant problem. The certificates are not free, I
don't have any need for a personal one and, anyway, it should probably
be done with a certificate from Gnu. AFAICT, though, technologically
it's simple enough.


> Ladies and gentlemen: I believe this man deserves some applause.
> Great work!

I appreciate the compliment. I shall be even happier if it gets lots of
downloads.

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Aurélien Aptel <aurelien.aptel+emacs@gmail.com> writes:

> Hm, the link points to an empty directory listing.

Yeah, not my brightest moment. Email an annoucement, then delete all the
files. I've been fiddling, so wanted to update the files for some new
snapshots. Deleted the old files, didn't upload the new ones.

There's some more up their now.

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Rasmus]

Hi Phillip,

phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) writes:

> Inspired by the upcoming release of Emacs-26 RC1, I've released some
> snapshots windows builds for Emacs-27.
>
> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/

Are you making the wonderful "*-deps-*.zip" packages?  If so thank you!

I recently convinced the nice IT admin to install Emacs on my Windows work
PC on which I have zero fun rights.  So far, it has been working great in
that it makes it somewhat bearable to use a Windows PC.

If possible, I might humbly request three other dependencies be included
in the future.

  - zip.exe and unzip.exe (Info-Zip, I guess) are used when exporting ODT
    documents with Org and would be nice to include.

  - spellcheckers like hunspell and maybe aspell would be really, really
    nice to have!  It’s admittedly a very soft dependency, but at least when
    you rely on Windows IT Admins, they get a bit confused when you first
    send them to the hunspell github page, only to tell them that the binary
    version can be gotten from Eli’s Sourceforge page...

Thanks,
Rasmus

-- 
Don't panic!!!

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us>
> Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:10:11 +0200
> 
>   - zip.exe and unzip.exe (Info-Zip, I guess) are used when exporting ODT
>     documents with Org and would be nice to include.

This dependency could be removed, at least in principle, by using
w32-shell-execute with proper arguments, as the Windows Explorer can
handle zip files just fine.  (I say "in principle" because I never
tried that, so maybe there's some obstacles.)  Patches to this effect
are welcome.

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> Hi Phillip,
>
> phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) writes:
>
>> Inspired by the upcoming release of Emacs-26 RC1, I've released some
>> snapshots windows builds for Emacs-27.
>>
>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>
> Are you making the wonderful "*-deps-*.zip" packages?  If so thank you!

I am, although they are no the default -- "no-deps.zip" contain the ones
without.


> I recently convinced the nice IT admin to install Emacs on my Windows work
> PC on which I have zero fun rights.  So far, it has been working great in
> that it makes it somewhat bearable to use a Windows PC.
>
> If possible, I might humbly request three other dependencies be included
> in the future.
>
>   - zip.exe and unzip.exe (Info-Zip, I guess) are used when exporting ODT
>     documents with Org and would be nice to include.
>
>   - spellcheckers like hunspell and maybe aspell would be really, really
>     nice to have!  It’s admittedly a very soft dependency, but at least when
>     you rely on Windows IT Admins, they get a bit confused when you first
>     send them to the hunspell github page, only to tell them that the binary
>     version can be gotten from Eli’s Sourceforge page...


Hmmm. It's a good question. I mean, it's trivial to do, but there are
two ways of looking at it.

Currently, these files contain the build dependencies and all their
dependencies. This, admittedly, turns out to be a pretty large
collection of things, but still it falls short of a full msys
install. So, one argument says we should keep to this.

The other argument says, we should add stuff which is directly used by
Emacs, and accept the fact, that we might end up with the best part of
msys.

Or we sit in the middle and install on a case-by-case basis.

I'd be inclined to do with the latter one, with the knowledge that it
might end up being two unwieldly.

Thoughts from anyone else?

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Rasmus]

phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) writes:

> Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:
>
>> Hi Phillip,
>>
>> phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) writes:
>>
>>> Inspired by the upcoming release of Emacs-26 RC1, I've released some
>>> snapshots windows builds for Emacs-27.
>>>
>>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>>
>> Are you making the wonderful "*-deps-*.zip" packages?  If so thank you!
>
> I am, although they are no the default -- "no-deps.zip" contain the ones
> without.

Yes, that was the version I used last time I had to work on Windows PC.

>> I recently convinced the nice IT admin to install Emacs on my Windows work
>> PC on which I have zero fun rights.  So far, it has been working great in
>> that it makes it somewhat bearable to use a Windows PC.
>>
>> If possible, I might humbly request three other dependencies be included
>> in the future.
>>
>>   - zip.exe and unzip.exe (Info-Zip, I guess) are used when exporting ODT
>>     documents with Org and would be nice to include.
>>
>>   - spellcheckers like hunspell and maybe aspell would be really, really
>>     nice to have!  It’s admittedly a very soft dependency, but at least when
>>     you rely on Windows IT Admins, they get a bit confused when you first
>>     send them to the hunspell github page, only to tell them that the binary
>>     version can be gotten from Eli’s Sourceforge page...
>
>
> Hmmm. It's a good question. I mean, it's trivial to do, but there are
> two ways of looking at it.
>
> Currently, these files contain the build dependencies and all their
> dependencies. This, admittedly, turns out to be a pretty large
> collection of things, but still it falls short of a full msys
> install. So, one argument says we should keep to this.
>
> The other argument says, we should add stuff which is directly used by
> Emacs, and accept the fact, that we might end up with the best part of
> msys.
>
> Or we sit in the middle and install on a case-by-case basis.
>
> I'd be inclined to do with the latter one, with the knowledge that it
> might end up being two unwieldly.
>
> Thoughts from anyone else?

If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
MSYS2.

On the other hand, they do know that you need your favorite "IDE" if your
work involves "programming", and as such it was no issue to have Emacs
installed.  The "deps" version is great because it is directly hosted by
GNU and contains mostly everything an Emacs user would need.  It would
just be great to have a few more "batteries" included.

Rasmus

-- 
Not everything that goes around comes back around, you know

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) writes:
>>
>> Hmmm. It's a good question. I mean, it's trivial to do, but there are
>> two ways of looking at it.
>>
>> Currently, these files contain the build dependencies and all their
>> dependencies. This, admittedly, turns out to be a pretty large
>> collection of things, but still it falls short of a full msys
>> install. So, one argument says we should keep to this.
>>
>> The other argument says, we should add stuff which is directly used by
>> Emacs, and accept the fact, that we might end up with the best part of
>> msys.
>>
>> Or we sit in the middle and install on a case-by-case basis.
>>
>> I'd be inclined to do with the latter one, with the knowledge that it
>> might end up being two unwieldly.
>>
>> Thoughts from anyone else?
>
> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
> MSYS2.
>
> On the other hand, they do know that you need your favorite "IDE" if your
> work involves "programming", and as such it was no issue to have Emacs
> installed.  The "deps" version is great because it is directly hosted by
> GNU and contains mostly everything an Emacs user would need.  It would
> just be great to have a few more "batteries" included.

I entirely appreciate the use-case.

I am just thinking about whether there is a good, principled way on
deciding on what to support. And, moreover, whether we can make a list
of all the relevant packages upfront. That would also give me some idea
of how much stuff we are going to add.

It's probably not going to be significant -- the dependencies as given
are already pretty extensive (including python for instance!). But it
would be good to know.

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Stefan Monnier]

>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>> MSYS2.

Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
system from which you can install further tools?


        Stefan

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Rasmus]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
>>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>>> MSYS2.
>
> Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
> system from which you can install further tools?

Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful!

Rasmus

-- 
I feel emotional landscapes they puzzle me

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Richard Copley]

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On 9 April 2018 at 22:45, Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> wrote:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
> >>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued
> Windows
> >>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
> >>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
> >>> MSYS2.
> >
> > Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
> > system from which you can install further tools?
>
> Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful!
>
> Rasmus


You can get that now, by installing MSYS2 then installing
"mingw-w64-x86_64-emacs" using the package manager.
How about if we provide official binaries in the form of MSYS2 packages,
alongside the formats we already provide?

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Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Stephen Leake]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
>>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>>> MSYS2.
>
> Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
> system from which you can install further tools?

msys2 already has an Emacs package, so it would be better to point this
out to people. People who would be willing to use mays2 to add packages
would probably be happier using the msys Emacs package in the first place.

On the other hand, including msys2 in an Emacs installer might be a good
way to introduce people to msys2. Depends on which is more popular/well
known.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> writes:

> On 9 April 2018 at 22:45, Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> wrote:
>
>> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>>
>> >>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued
>> Windows
>> >>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>> >>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>> >>> MSYS2.
>> >
>> > Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
>> > system from which you can install further tools?
>>
>> Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful!
>>
>> Rasmus
>
>
> You can get that now, by installing MSYS2 then installing
> "mingw-w64-x86_64-emacs" using the package manager.

This is my thought also. I don't want to replicate msys2
functionality. I also think it might not answre Rasmus' use case -- if
he is having packages installed for him, they might be admin installed,
so updating may well not be possible.

> How about if we provide official binaries in the form of MSYS2 packages,
> alongside the formats we already provide?

Two reasons: it's more work for me; and, msys2 already provides
packages. What would "official" binaries bring?

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Phillip Lord]

Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> writes:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>>>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued Windows
>>>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>>>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>>>> MSYS2.
>>
>> Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
>> system from which you can install further tools?
>
> msys2 already has an Emacs package, so it would be better to point this
> out to people. People who would be willing to use mays2 to add packages
> would probably be happier using the msys Emacs package in the first place.
>
> On the other hand, including msys2 in an Emacs installer might be a good
> way to introduce people to msys2. Depends on which is more popular/well
> known.

The installer does, in fact, contain a substantial chunk of msys2 now,
although it perhaps does not advertise the fact, nor was it deliberate.

Phil

Re: Windows snapshot builds

[Rasmus]

Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> writes:

> On 9 April 2018 at 22:45, Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> wrote:
>
>> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>>
>> >>> If I could, I would use MSYS2 to manage programs on my work-issued
>> Windows
>> >>> PC.  I am not sure the admins have experience with GNU/Linux systems in
>> >>> particular and UNIX in general, and as such are reluctant to install
>> >>> MSYS2.
>> >
>> > Maybe we could have an emacs-installer package which includes an msys2
>> > system from which you can install further tools?
>>
>> Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful!
>>
>> Rasmus
>
>
> You can get that now, by installing MSYS2 then installing
> "mingw-w64-x86_64-emacs" using the package manager.
> How about if we provide official binaries in the form of MSYS2 packages,
> alongside the formats we already provide?

I mostly took Stefan’s suggestion as a joke, as bundling MSYS2 with Emacs
would be a way to get MSYS2 past pesky Windows system administrators.
That was, at least, what I had in mind when I replied.

If one has enough "rights" on a Windows PC to install MSYS2 that’s
probably the most preferable approach if one ordinarily works on GNU/Linux
systems (or so I imagine, I have never actually tried MSYS2).

Rasmus

-- 
Tack, ni svenska vakttorn. Med plutonium tvingar vi dansken på knä!

Windows Snapshot Builds

[Phillip Lord]

I've just uploaded the latest "weekly" snapshot builds for Emacs-27 on
windows.

https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/

Comments welcome.

Re: Windows Snapshot Builds

[Boris Buliga]

Hi Phillip,

Are there any plans on weekly Emacs 27 builds for macOS?

Cheers,
Boris
On 8 Oct 2018, at 18:57, Phillip Lord wrote:

> I've just uploaded the latest "weekly" snapshot builds for Emacs-27 on
> windows.
>
> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>
> Comments welcome.

Re: Windows Snapshot Builds

[Phillip Lord]

Not from me, no.

Phil

"Boris Buliga" <boris@d12frosted.io> writes:

> Hi Phillip,
>
> Are there any plans on weekly Emacs 27 builds for macOS?
>
> Cheers,
> Boris
> On 8 Oct 2018, at 18:57, Phillip Lord wrote:
>
>> I've just uploaded the latest "weekly" snapshot builds for Emacs-27 on
>> windows.
>>
>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>>
>> Comments welcome.

Re: Windows Snapshot Builds

[Jostein Kjønigsen]

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Hey Phillip.

Thanks for the great service!

Looking at the binaries uploaded, I see that the "installer" version
seems about the same size as the Emacs-version without additional
dependent DLLs, with all DLLs included being about twice that size.
Is this intentional? Do we get the "full" Emacs with this installer?

--
Regards
Jostein Kjønigsen

jostein@kjonigsen.net 🍵 jostein@gmail.com
https://jostein.kjonigsen.net


On Tue, Oct 9, 2018, at 1:15 PM, Phillip Lord wrote:
> 
> Not from me, no.
> 
> Phil
> 
> "Boris Buliga" <boris@d12frosted.io> writes:
> 
>> Hi Phillip,
>> 
>> Are there any plans on weekly Emacs 27 builds for macOS?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Boris
>> On 8 Oct 2018, at 18:57, Phillip Lord wrote:
>> 
>>> I've just uploaded the latest "weekly" snapshot builds for
>>> Emacs-27 on>>> windows.
>>> 
>>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>>> 
>>> Comments welcome.
> 


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Re: Windows Snapshot Builds

[Alan Third]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2018 at 07:30:43PM +0300, Boris Buliga wrote:
> 
> Are there any plans on weekly Emacs 27 builds for macOS?

I was going to suggest emacsformacosx.com, but it looks like his
nightly builds have been broken for a few months now.
-- 
Alan Third

Re: Windows Snapshot Builds

[Phillip Lord]

The installer version *should* be the same as the full deps tar ball (I
make the tar ball first, then the installer version). The lzma
compression is just a lot better than the zip (especially for a large
number of small files). Which is probably why the installer takes a long
time to build.

Still, I checked. The uncompressed size is about the same:

~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Emacs/x86_64$ du -shc *
311M	bin
1.3M	etc
16M	include
194M	lib
8.6M	libexec
262M	share
844K	ssl
792M	total


emacs-windows$ du -shc *
276M	bin
1.3M	etc
16M	include
193M	lib
8.2M	libexec
262M	share
844K	ssl
755M	total

Why it isn't *exactly* the same size I don't know and worries me a bit.

Phil

Jostein Kjønigsen <jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net> writes:

> Hey Phillip.
>
> Thanks for the great service!
>
> Looking at the binaries uploaded, I see that the "installer" version
> seems about the same size as the Emacs-version without additional
> dependent DLLs, with all DLLs included being about twice that size.
> Is this intentional? Do we get the "full" Emacs with this installer?
>
> --
> Regards
> Jostein Kjønigsen
>
> jostein@kjonigsen.net 🍵 jostein@gmail.com
> https://jostein.kjonigsen.net
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 9, 2018, at 1:15 PM, Phillip Lord wrote:
>> 
>> Not from me, no.
>> 
>> Phil
>> 
>> "Boris Buliga" <boris@d12frosted.io> writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Phillip,
>>> 
>>> Are there any plans on weekly Emacs 27 builds for macOS?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Boris
>>> On 8 Oct 2018, at 18:57, Phillip Lord wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I've just uploaded the latest "weekly" snapshot builds for
>>>> Emacs-27 on>>> windows.
>>>> 
>>>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/
>>>> 
>>>> Comments welcome.
>>