code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - admin/nt/README-ftp-server

   1 Copyright (C) 2001-2011  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   2 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   3
   4                       Precompiled Distributions of
   5                            Emacs for Windows
   6
   7                             Version 24.1
   8
   9                               January 1, 2011
  10
  11   This directory contains precompiled distributions for GNU Emacs on
  12   Windows (versions before Windows 95 and NT4 are not supported).
  13   This port is a part of the standard GNU Emacs distribution from the
  14   Free Software Foundation; the precompiled distributions are provided
  15   here for convenience since the majority of Windows users are not
  16   accustomed to compiling programs themselves.  Corresponding source
  17   can be found in the parent directory in emacs-24.1.tar.gz.
  18
  19   If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
  20   your favorite web browser to the following document (if you haven't
  21   already):
  22
  23         http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
  24
  25 * IMPORTANT LEGAL REMINDER
  26
  27   If you want to redistribute any of the precompiled distributions of
  28   Emacs, be careful to check the implications of the GPL.  For instance,
  29   if you put the emacs-24.1-bin-i386.tar.gz file from this directory on
  30   an Internet site, you must arrange to distribute the source files of
  31   the SAME version (i.e. ../emacs-24.1.tar.gz).
  32
  33   Making a link to our copy of the source is NOT sufficient, since we
  34   might upgrade to a new version while you are still distributing the
  35   old binaries.
  36
  37
  38 * Files in this directory
  39
  40   + emacs-24.1-bin-i386.zip
  41     Windows binaries of Emacs-24.1, with all lisp code and documentation
  42     included.
  43
  44     Download this file if you want a single installation package, and
  45     are not interested in the C source code for Emacs. After
  46     unpacking, you can optionally run the file bin/addpm.exe to have
  47     Emacs add icons to the Start Menu.
  48
  49     If you need the C source code at a later date, it will be safe to
  50     unpack the source distribution on top of this installation.
  51
  52   + emacs-24.1-barebin-i386.zip
  53     Windows binaries of Emacs-24.1, without lisp code or documentation.
  54
  55     Download this file if you already have the source distribution.
  56
  57     Unpack this over the top of the source distribution. It contains the
  58     bin subdirectory and etc/DOC file.
  59
  60   + libxpm-3.5.7-w32-src.zip
  61     Source code required to compile libXpm-3.5.7 on Windows. Contains
  62     a basic Makefile for compiling with mingw32 and a .def file for
  63     generating a DLL with the appropriate exports in addition to the
  64     source code to provide the subset of functionality Emacs uses from
  65     libXpm. This corresponds to the libXpm.dll in emacs-24.1-bin-i386.zip
  66     and emacs-24.1-barebin-i386.zip.
  67
  68 * Prerequisites for running Emacs on Windows 9X
  69
  70   Using Emacs in GUI mode on Windows 95/98/Me requires the UNICOWS.DLL
  71   dynamic library, which provides MSLU, the Microsoft Unicode Layer
  72   for Windows 9X.  You can freely download it from the Microsoft site.
  73
  74 * Image support
  75
  76   Emacs 24.1 contains support for images, however for most image formats
  77   supporting libraries are required.  This distribution has been tested
  78   with the libraries that are distributed with GTK for Windows, and the
  79   libraries found at http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. The following image
  80   formats are supported:
  81
  82       PBM/PGM/PPM: Supported natively by Emacs. This format is used for
  83       the black and white versions of the toolbar icons.
  84
  85       XPM: a Windows port of the XPM library corresponding to the x.org
  86       release of X11R7.3 is included with the binary distribution, but
  87       can be replaced by other versions with the name xpm4.dll,
  88       libxpm-nox4.dll or libxpm.dll.
  89
  90       PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.2 or later, which will
  91       be named libpng13d.dll, libpng13.dll, libpng12d.dll, libpng12.dll
  92       or libpng.dll. LibPNG requires zlib, which should come from the same
  93       source as you got libpng.
  94
  95       JPEG: requires the Independant JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
  96       which will be called jpeg62.dll, libjpeg.dll, jpeg-62.dll or jpeg.dll.
  97
  98       TIFF: requires libTIFF 3.0 or later, which will be called libtiff3.dll
  99       or libtiff.dll.
 100
 101       GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
 102       called giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
 103
 104       SVG: not compiled into the binary release, but available if you
 105       compile Emacs yourself if you have development packages for all the
 106       dependencies. Requires many libraries from GTK and Gnome
 107       as well as the base librsvg library. Known to crash Emacs on many
 108       sample images.
 109
 110 * Distributions in .tar.gz and .zip format
 111
 112   Emacs is distributed primarily as source code in a large gzipped tar
 113   file (*.tar.gz).  Because Emacs is quite large and therefore
 114   difficult to download over unreliable connections, the Windows
 115   binaries are provided in two combinations. The complete lisp source
 116   plus executables (bin), and executables only (barebin) for unpacking
 117   over the top of the source distribution.  Formerly, we used the same
 118   .tar.gz format but since there are no longer legal problems with
 119   .zip files, and the latest versions of Windows support these
 120   natively, the Windows binaries of Emacs are now distributed as .zip
 121   files.
 122
 123 * Distributions for non-x86 platforms
 124
 125   Distributions for non-x86 platforms are no longer supplied. Older
 126   platforms supported by Windows NT no longer seem to be in demand,
 127   and Emacs is yet to be ported to 64 bit Windows platforms. If you
 128   are willing to help port Emacs 24 to 64 bit versions of Windows,
 129   your contribution will be welcome on the emacs-devel mailing list.
 130
 131 * Unpacking distributions
 132
 133   Ports of GNU gzip and GNU tar for handling the source distribution file
 134   format can be found in several places that distribute ports of GNU
 135   programs, for example:
 136
 137     Cygwin:   http://www.cygwin.com/
 138     GnuWin32: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
 139
 140   Many other popular file compression utilities for Windows are also
 141   able to handle gzipped tar files. 7zip is one free Windows graphical
 142   program that is able to handle many archive formats.
 143
 144   Open a command prompt (MSDOS) window.  Decide on a directory in which
 145   to place Emacs.  Move the distribution to that directory, and then
 146   unpack it as follows.
 147
 148   If you have the gzipped tar version, use gunzip to uncompress the tar
 149   file on the fly, and pipe the output through tar with the "xvf" flags
 150   to extract the files from the tar file:
 151
 152     % gunzip -c some.tar.gz | tar xvf -
 153
 154   You may see messages from tar about not being able to change the
 155   modification time on directories, and from gunzip complaining about a
 156   broken pipe.  These messages are harmless and you can ignore them.  On
 157   Windows NT, unpacking tarballs this way leaves them in compressed
 158   form, taking up less space on disk.  Unfortunately, on Windows 95 and
 159   98, a large temporary file is created, so it is better to use the
 160   djtarnt.exe program, which performs the equivalent operation in one
 161   step:
 162
 163     % djtarnt -x some.tar.gz
 164
 165   You may be prompted to rename or overwrite directories when using
 166   djtarnt: simply type return to continue (this is harmless).
 167
 168   Zip files can be unpacked using unzip.exe from info-zip.org
 169   if you do not already have other tools to do this.
 170
 171     % unzip some.zip
 172
 173   The precompiled binaries can be unpacked using unzip.exe from info-zip.org
 174   if you do not already have other tools to do this.
 175
 176     % unzip some.zip
 177
 178   Once you have unpacked a precompiled distribution of Emacs, it should
 179   have the following subdirectories:
 180
 181         bin     etc     info    lisp    site-lisp
 182
 183
 184 * Unpacking with other tools
 185
 186   If you do use other utility programs to unpack the distribution, check
 187   the following to be sure the distribution was not corrupted:
 188
 189   + Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will
 190     be unusable.  Older versions of WinZip would enable this
 191     translation by default when unpacking .tar files.  If you are
 192     using WinZip, disable it.  (I don't have WinZip myself, and I do
 193     not know the specific commands necessary to disable it.)
 194
 195   + Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3.  For example, there
 196     should be a file lisp/abbrevlist.el; if this has been truncated to
 197     abbrevli.el, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking
 198     and Emacs will not start.
 199
 200   + Check that filenames were not changed by your web-browser.  Some
 201     proprietary web-browsers save .tar.gz files as .tar.tar. You might
 202     like to consider switching to a Free modern browser if your browser
 203     has this bug.
 204
 205   + I've also had reports that some older "gnuwin32" port of tar
 206     corrupts the executables.  Use the latest version from the gnuwin32
 207     site or another port of tar instead.
 208
 209   If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
 210   still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
 211   below.
 212
 213
 214 * Compiling from source
 215
 216   If you would like to compile Emacs from source, download the source
 217   distribution, unpack it in the same manner as a precompiled
 218   distribution, and look in the file nt/INSTALL for detailed
 219   directions.  It is recommended to use GCC 2.95 or later with MinGW
 220   support to compile the source.  The port of GCC included in Cygwin
 221   is supported, but check the nt/INSTALL file if you have trouble
 222   since some builds of GNU make aren't supported.
 223
 224
 225 * Further information
 226
 227   If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
 228   your favorite web browser to following the document (if you haven't
 229   already):
 230
 231         http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
 232
 233   This document serves as an FAQ and a source for further information
 234   about the Windows port and related software packages. Note that as
 235   most of the information in that FAQ is for earlier versions, so some
 236   information may not be relevant to Emacs-24.1.
 237
 238   In addition to the FAQ, there is a mailing list for discussing issues
 239   related to the Windows port of Emacs.  For information about the
 240   list, see this Web page:
 241
 242         http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows
 243
 244   To ask questions on the mailing list, send email to
 245   help-emacs-windows@gnu.org.  (You don't need to subscribe for that.)
 246   To subscribe to the list or unsubscribe from it, fill the form you
 247   find at http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows as
 248   explained there.
 249
 250   Another valuable source of information and help which should not be
 251   overlooked is the various Usenet news groups dedicated to Emacs.
 252   These are particuarly good for help with general issues which aren't
 253   specific to the Windows port of Emacs.  The main news groups to use
 254   for seeking help are:
 255
 256         gnu.emacs.help
 257         comp.emacs
 258
 259   There are also fairly regular postings and announcements of new or
 260   updated Emacs packages on this group:
 261
 262         gnu.emacs.sources
 263
 264   Enjoy!
 265
 266   Jason Rumney
 267   (jasonr@gnu.org)
 268
 269   Most of this README was contributed by former maintainer Andrew Innes
 270   (andrewi@gnu.org)
 271
 272 \f
 273 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 274
 275 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 276 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 277 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 278 (at your option) any later version.
 279
 280 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 281 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 282 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 283 GNU General Public License for more details.
 284
 285 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 286 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.