[fpc-devel] Another thread about the fact that official FPC releases are *unnecessarily* non-representative of the platforms it actually runs on

[Travis Siegel]

How does one get a 64-bit version on windows.  When I try to run a 
64-bit version on windows, I encounter an error, though I don't remember 
what that error is, since I've not tried it for a couple weeks.  I 
didn't even know there was a 64-bit windows version, because as 
mentioned below, linking to the 64-bit version on the website links to a 
32-bit version.  Admittedly, I'm no fan of windows, and honestly, I hate 
that I'm forced to use it for my everyday work, I'd much rather use 
linux/macos, but at the moment, that's not an option, though I was 
windows free for over 10 years at one point, that sadly has changed over 
the past 5 years. <sigh>

But, in any case, if there's a way to get 64-bit versions on windows, 
I'd like to know how.

Although, it may be a bit problematic for me if it requires recompiling, 
since I don't (currently) have any compilers (other than freebasic, 
powerbasic and free pascal) installed on my win10 machine.  My win8.1 
machine has them though, so that could handle the task I'd think.

On 9/26/2020 11:23 PM, Ben Grasset via fpc-devel wrote:
> Was browsing on the FPC wiki (that is, the actual wikipedia.com 
> <http://wikipedia.com> entry for FPC) today, and came across an edit 
> someone had made in the "3.2.0" section that said the following:
>
> "FreePascal cannot be installed on macOS Catalina, and no known 
> workaround exists."
>
> It then linked to an open issue on the FPCUpDeluxe github repository, 
> suggesting that perhaps whoever made that edit literally thought 
> FPCUpDeluxe was the *only* reasonable way to get FPC.
>
> They're partially right, and partially wrong, IMO. FPCUpDeluxe is an 
> excellent tool that as far I'm concerned should be linked front-page 
> on both the FPC and Lazarus official websites, because it frankly 
> blows the "download archives from sourceforge" method of obtaining FPC 
> out of the water, in general.
>
> With that said, there's also the elephant in the room that is the fact 
> that Lazarus happily provides builds of FPC with it's releases that 
> typically are "exactly what you want" for the platform in questions, 
> which in many cases are *not* also provided as standalone FPC 
> installer / archive downloads.
>
> For example, to this day there is *still* no natively-64-bit Windows 
> download for FPC, for absolutely no reason. You instead either get 
> silently linked to the 32-to-64-bit cross compiler on Sourceforge, or 
> linked to pages that *explicitly* provide straight-up misinformation 
> in saying "There is no native compiler available for x86_64 Win64. You 
> have to use a cross compiler".
>
> That last quote is absolute BS, to be very frank. There is no reason 
> whatsoever not to use a natively-64-bit copy of FPC if running a 
> natively-64-bit copy of Windows, and there hasn't been for well over 
> half a decade at this point.
>
> I've brought this up on this exact mailing list before, and was met 
> with attitudes that seemed to suggest people for some unknown reason 
> think "Linux x64 good and normal, Windows x64 bad, not normal, and 
> unstable!".
>
> Is there a specific person I need to convince that 64-bit releases on 
> ALL relevant platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, etc) are in fact incredibly 
> essential? I've got a long, long, long list of "here's why you're 
> wrong" talking points to provide to anyone who actually thinks I 
> should be using the 32-to-64-bit cross compiler on Windows 10 x64.
>
> Lastly, it isn't even like this amounts to more work for anyone: 
> Lazarus provides a native Win64 build of FPC along with the native 
> Win64 build of it. I don't understand why that same build is not also 
> provided as a standalone FPC release.
>
> Further, the FPC releases for Mac are still listed as being explicitly 
> "Intel x86/i386" on the download page on the FPC website, despite the 
> fact that AFAIK the image is for both 32-bit and 64-bit OSX.
>
> That platform specifically is where it REALLY needs to be made clear 
> that FPC fully supports 64-bit applications on the latest version of 
> the OS, considering that 32-bit applications are actively deprecated 
> as far as Apple is concerned.
>
> _______________________________________________
> fpc-devel maillist  -  fpc-devel at lists.freepascal.org
> https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
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