Hi Glenn,
it seems there are more and more people running Windows, and there are some convenient installation tools around now. I've been checking them quite in detail, because I'm trying to build a Windows installer for really unskilled users.
Here are the options:
- The easiest is Vlassis's Rizopoulos installer at http://www.ncs.gr/openacs/ that comes with AOLServer, Cygwin, PostgreSQL, OpenACS 5.1.1 and optionally dotLrn. Just a few clicks and you are done.
- Jamie Rasmussen has a cute installer on (AOLserver_4-0-beta-10_2003-08-04.zip) on http://empoweringminds.mle.ie/openacs/. Just add an OpenACS 5.1.2 (5.1.1 doesn't work) tar ball and PostgreSQL 8.0.beta2dev3 from http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller and you get there as well. The native PostgreSQL 8.0 is considerably faster then the CygWin version from Vlassis
- Follow the install guide. For _really_ advanced guys only.
- I'm currently developing an installer with Inno Setup (thanks to a hint from Jamie) and with a CyWin installation script from Vlassis'. You can check it out on Monday, Nov 15th on http://www.project-open.com/download/win/. It's designed for complete dumb-dudes...
So no, I don't believe there is any reason anymore for not using Windows in a development environment. It's more clumsy to work with Windows though. WinCVS still has a bug with some binary files (GIFs may come up strangely) and try TextPad for editing. But that's it.
However, the situation is different for a production environment. There are some guys who are running Windows productively (Hi Mike! 😊, but downtimes are longer and there just isn't the comfort for working remotely. Security shouldn't be an issue though, because AOLServer is sufficiently "obscure" on both Linux and Windows...
Good luck!
Frank
