Hello,

The Free Pascal Team is pleased to announce that FPC version 1.9.6 (or 2.0.0-RC1) is available and ready for download.

This is a pre-release of version 2.0. As such, it is considered a beta of the upcoming 2.0 release, which is expected to be released in one or two months from here.

While this is officially a beta, we believe that this version is release quality. We would very much like you download and install this version, and give any feedback regarding bugs and other issues.

If no major bugs are found, version 2.0 will be released in a short timeframe.

Highlights in this version:

Compiler:
+ New platforms:
- Linux: x86_64, amd64, sparc, PowerPC architectures.
- Mac OS and Mac OS X (Darwin).
- Netware Libc.
- MorphOS.
+ Code generation improvements:
Register variable support (-Or) for all targets, better inlining support.
+ MacPas compiler mode (-Mmacpas).

RTL/FCL/FV:
+ New heap manager that releases memory back to the OS.
+ TThread.Synchronize support.
+ Further additions for improved Delphi compatibility.
+ Many other additions (RTTIUtils, new Datasets, FPCUnit test framework).
* Free Vision Updated to fvision implementation, first official release.

IDE:
* Lots of improvements and stability fixes.
* Support latest gdb 6.2.x and 6.3.x releases.

Docs:
+ Lots of updates.
+ Easier to navigate html documentation.
* fpDoc is used to generate all unit documentation.

And of course many many bugfixes.

A complete list of changes can be found in the whatsnew.txt file in the distribution.

Downloads are available from the website for the following platforms:
- Darwin (Mac OS X)
- Dos (Go32V2)
- FreeBSD
- Linux (I386/Sparc/PPC/x86_64 (amd64))
- Mac OS
- Netware (clib and libc)
- OS/2 (native)
- Win32

To download, go to
http://www.freepascal.org/sdown.html
and select a mirror near you. Look in the section 'official beta releases' and select the platform of your choice; then follow the download instructions.

If you choose the SourceForge mirror, the download instructions are different. Also note that sourceforge mirrors are not immediatly up-to-date.

Enjoy it, and a Happy New Year from

The Free Pascal team.

If no major bugs are found, version 2.0 will be released in a short timeframe.

I would like to test the Win32 distribution, but the archives are too big for an download (narrow band) :-(

So let me list the problems I encountered with a preceding version:

- Mouse buttons inoperative (W2K, wireless USB mouse: no menu selection...)
- Install dialog: last tab not reachable (no mouse support, Alt-C -> Continue!)
- "\\" contained in all stored pathes, IMO due to input of the FPC directory ending with an "\".

DoDi

In a message dated 1/2/2005 12:31:43 P.M. Central Standard Time, () writes:

The Free Pascal Team is pleased to announce that FPC version 1.9.6 (or 2.0.0-RC1) is available and ready for download.

Thanks, Michael.

Downloaded it this morning and it seems to be working nicely. Do have a couple issues a couple questions and a monster KUDO. Will do the issues first:
1) The Win32 installer does not install the utils folder. It's in the download, but doesn't get installed. Easily corrected by just unzipping it manually.
2) There is no demo folder, and hence, can't do the simple check with hello.pp that is referenced in the README
3) The source directories on the download sites are still empty. Are they still coming or am I looking in the wrong place,
which leads to my first question:
1) I have been keeping up-to-date at the source level with CVS updates every couple days. Can I just keep building on my current source tree with CVS updates or do I need to do a complete new CVS checkout (please say yes, my network connection stinks!!)
2) It's really nice to have debugger (gdb) support in the IDE again. I get it every time I load a new binary and lose it again every time I install a snapshot compiling the sources. What the heck do I have to do to keep getting the IDE and GDB connected under Windows. I've downloaded every concievable flavor of GDB I can find (the GNU .gz version, Cygwin, MingW) I'm sure I've got every thing I need to keep it working but I'll be darned if I can figure out what I need to do/configure to make it all work together.

And now the praise and adulation:
Michael et al, your work on the documentation is nothing short of herculean. While not directly related to this release, the Doc-HTML library is great and provides a great context-sensitive help under Lazarus. The new RTL.PDF file that came with this release is OUTSTANDING. For a non-Delphi (and basically non-OOP) oldtimer like me, I think this will become my "Newest Testament".

Thanks for all the hard and great work

Dave

There are separate downloads available. And if you want even smaller download use CVS and build it from source.

Please only report bugs on the latest version.

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 21:41:59 +0100, DrDiettrich wrote

.
.

You can always download just the needed parts from ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/beta/i386-win32-1.9.6/separate/ (for win32). You should always get install.exe and install.dat, then base.i386-win32.zip which contains the compiler and RTL. Whatever else is up to you (IDE, FCL, FV, miscellaneus other packages, documentation and individual source files).

Hope this helps

Tomas

Maybe we should start making CDs and sell them for the price of CD+Shipping. Like Marco proposed.
(He's been shouting in the desert since years... ;-) )

Michael.

If you go this way I'd suggest adding also Lazarus. I know the thing is "just another project made with FPC" but I think it would be good for both.

I wouldn't DREAM of creating a CD with Lazarus NOT on it!!

How dare you think this ? ;-)

Michael.

If you go this way I'd suggest adding also Lazarus. I know the thing is "just another project made with FPC" but I think it would be good for both.

lazarus and freepascal are far closer than that.

lazarus is essentially what completes the cloning of delphi by freepascal.

peter green wrote

lazarus is essentially what completes the cloning of delphi by freepascal.

I prefer to think that we're much more than just a clone of Delphi :) In fact, I've never even used Delphi in my entire life (nor really used Lazarus, for that matter).

Jonas

By the qotes I ment that someone might think so. I view lazarus as sometimes more important than FPC itself when it comes to spreading the word(tm).

Ales

Tomas Hajny wrote

You can always download just the needed parts from ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/beta/i386-win32-1.9.6/separate/ (for win32). You should always get install.exe and install.dat, then base.i386-win32.zip which contains the compiler and RTL. Whatever else is up to you (IDE, FCL, FV, miscellaneus other packages, documentation and individual source files). Hope this helps

Sounds good :-)
When I looked first I only found 25 and 30 MB monster files.

DoDi

Peter Vreman wrote

>> If no major bugs are found, version 2.0 will be released in a short >> timeframe.

Only one major problem so far. Congratulations! :-)

The above bugs still apply :-(

Here the bugs with W2K:

- The mouse buttons don't work. The clicked character is highlighted, but that's all. Applies to installer and IDE.

- The colors in the install dialog make the (inactive) text almost unreadable.

- When text is entered for the path, the previous text is entirely erased.
- This is why I entered the path with a trailing backslash, whereupon the fpc.cfg contained "\/" in all pathes. When the installer suggests to use backslashes, and then adds further parts with forward slashes, then it should check for both. The display of the path to enter, for using fpc, shows all forward slashes, i.e. "//" instead of the stored "\/".

Now for Win98, same machine:

- In the dialog "directory already exists" the buttons are empty, no graphics, no text. (a common problem?)
- Same problem with pathes in fpc.cfg.
+ The mouse works, so far.
+ The colors make the text better readable.
+ The path text is not erased, can be edited.

Let me know when the installer is updated, then I will check this again. Somebody else should check with WinXP!

Some more instructions were nice for the Win32/separate distribution. The readme.txt refers to the full archive, no hints about the separated files. It should be noted that the download of install.exe and (what?) more is required. The units-* are almost self descriptive, but what about the other archives?

Some tool (Netscape?) changed the dots in the filenames into underscores, so that nothing but the docs were installed in my first try. I also got an empty install.dat, due to unreported connection problems with the ftp server. If I hadn't compared the file sizes, I had no idea what has gone wrong. These problems IMO also are worth a note in the readme. Windows users are a bit stupid, you know? ;-)

I still have to download the IDE, until now everything seems to work :-) Is make and asld required as well?

DoDi

This is probably because your DOS window has the 'QuickEdit' mode enabled. There is nothing we can do then. You must disable this mode.

Let me know when the installer is updated, then I will check this again. Somebody else should check with WinXP!

The next installer will be a "native" installer, created with Inno Setup. So most of these problems will no longer be present.

(But the current installer is cross-platform, so it will still be used, and bug reports are necessary)

asld is, make not.

Michael.

Known and fixed for next release.

2) There is no demo folder, and hence, can't do the simple check with hello.pp that is referenced in the README

Known and fixed for next release.

3) The source directories on the download sites are still empty. Are they still coming or am I looking in the wrong place, which leads to my first question:

I think you are looking in the wrong place?

1) I have been keeping up-to-date at the source level with CVS updates every couple days. Can I just keep building on my current source tree with CVS updates or do I need to do a complete new CVS checkout (please say yes, my network connection stinks!!)

You can continue to use CVS.

This is something for Peter Vreman or Florian Klaempfl. I use Linux, and have never been able to build an IDE with debugger support myself.

We aim to please. Stay tuned for more goodies in the future :-)

Michael.

Download
ftp://ftp.nl.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/contrib/libgdb/v6.2.1/libgdb-6.2.1-i386-win32.zip and unzip in the fpc dir and rebuild everything.