Hello,

I'm new to FPC and this list and I have some questions:

- I'm confused about the licence: may I write commercial programms with FPC?

- Dos programs also run under Windows. So, is there any reason to make a Win-exe for console-programs?

- Is it possible to program a GUI-program, which compiles under Windows as well as under Linux? What do I need? What does the enduser need?

Hello,

Yes

- Dos programs also run under Windows. So, is there any reason to make a Win-exe for console-programs?

Yes, DOS programs are really only 16 bit using a 32 bit extender. A win-exe console app is true 32 bit. Also, WinNT doesn't do DOS emulation very well.

- Is it possible to program a GUI-program, which compiles under Windows as well as under Linux? What do I need? What does the enduser need?

Yes, use the GTK. You need the GTK DLLs for the windows side, and most linux distro's have the GTK preinstalled.

Hope that helps.
Matt

but I think that it's also possible to open GUI windows from a win32 console app.

Yep, you can definately do that.

Matt

- Is it possible to program a GUI-program, which compiles under Windows as well as under Linux?

Yes!

What do I need?

Kylix ;-)

What does the enduser need?

QT libraries installed.

There will be a free version of Kylix (open source dev. only) available within the next 3-6 months.

Matt

It is, I commonly, when using Delphi 4 in win 2000, will set the linker to generate a win32 console app, even though I am making a GUI app, this way, I can use writeln(), etc., to output debugging info in test versions of my program, when the debugger isn't convenient.

- noah silva

I think you don't need kylix to do this, it's just more convenient...

Really? I was unaware they would have any free version. Unfortunatly, it can only compile for x86 ;(, one of linux's best features (IMO) is that it's unix, and so you can graduate from linux on a 386 to freebsd on a pII to solaris on a sparc E10,000. With kylix (and at the moment, free pascal), you can't do this ;(.

Matt

This may be slightly off-topic, but it is related to compilers. Recently Watcom has decided to open-source Watcom C. On the one hand, it's a little sad for me to see the death of one of the best C compiler makers, but on the other hand, it's nice to see something productive come out of that death. I'm not sure if it does 32bit compilation, but it definatly does generate some of the fastest 16bit code of any compiler. (also their fortran compiler will be released).

- noah silva

Using win exe console app you also can use parts of the win API, at least that parts
that are not GUI oriented, but I think that it's also possible to open GUI windows from a
win32 console app.

Johan Blok