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

[Travis Siegel]

On 9/28/2020 9:35 AM, Nikolay Nikolov via fpc-devel wrote:
>
> On 9/28/20 12:24 AM, Travis Siegel via fpc-devel wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
> If you want to target Win64, using official FPC releases, you should 
> download two packages:
>
> fpc-3.2.0.i386-win32.exe
>
> fpc-3.2.0.i386-win32.cross.x86_64-win64.exe
>
>
> Install the first one, then the second one (it's an add-on package 
> that adds win64 target support to the 32-bit compiler). After that you 
> can compile to win32 via:
>
> fpc -Pi386 hello.pas
>
> and to win64 via:
>
> fpc -Px86_64 hello.pas
>
> The two install packages will be combined into one starting with FPC 
> 3.2.2, so it will be a single download.
>
>
Thanks, that did the trick.  I can now produce 64-bit executables.  I 
appreciate the assist on that one.  I didn't look hard enough at the 
releases page, or I might have figured that out, though I likely 
wouldn't have installed the 32-bit one first. :)

I don't use the lazarius system, because I rarely create gui apps, and 
when I do, I generally use powerbasic, because it makes generating guis 
easy with it's add control syntax, and I've not figured out how to do 
that sort of thing with FPC anyhow.  Of course, being blind and using a 
screen reader makes any guis I generate problematic unless my math is 
perfect, because I tend to overlap gui elements because I don't get 
their sizes right, then when a sighted person looks at them, they are 
all like "Man, your gui is broken", so I generally get someone else to 
use a gui tool to generate the interfaces for me, then I fill in the 
code accordingly, it's easier than moving around gui elements in the 
code until things look ok by someone elses standards. :)

I generally reuse my guis once I have one working, because it means I 
don't have to plot layouts, I can just use one that already works. 
<sigh>  I'm not very good at the whole generate guis on the fly with 
code thing, though when using java, that's not really a concern, I just 
use the grid layout, and let the jvm sort it all out.

If there's something equivalent on FPC, I sure would appreciate knowing 
about it.