RFC: Guide for custom installation on Windows machines

[EduardoAC]

Description

There is not formal tutorial to install the project on a windows machine.

Proposal to create a tutorial that describe the steps you need to follow to get you machine completely setup from scratch.

Environments

• Windows 10

I will be happy to build this tutorial if it's found useful / needed it

[kgryte]

@EduardoAC Yes, it would be useful. :)

Things have been made easier with Ubuntu shell, but I suspect there may be unknown/unresolved issues and/or key differences in getting the project fully installed and setup on Windows, especially from a developer's perspective.

Further, historically, while we have been able to build on AppVeyor for Windows CI (see config), the setup there did not translate nicely to local machines, where getting tests, examples, and benchmarks to run was not consistent or reliable.

Lastly, while newer Windows have bash, this is not a given for older Windows environments, where we have needed to use MinGW and MSYS.

Hence, to have a comprehensive guide(s) for Windows (user and developer), possibly including the installation of vendor dependencies, such as OpenBLAS, would be very beneficial!!

For some guide inspiration, see Julia's guide.

[EduardoAC]

Great, I'm having some issues as soon I finished the setup. I will prepare a Install guide

[EduardoAC]

@kgryte I have been trying for a week, different versions and options, but I cannot make it build node-gyp

Tested in

• node-gyp, With VS 2017 tools or npm install --global --production windows-build-tools
• Both version of node tested are NodeJS 8.2.1 and NodeJS 6.11.1

Any idea?

Cleaning add-on: D:\developer\code\libraries\stdlib\lib\node_modules\@stdlib\math\base\blas\dasum
make[1]: Entering directory `D:/developer/code/libraries/stdlib/lib/node_modules/@stdlib/math/base/blas/dasum/src'
make[1]: Leaving directory `D:/developer/code/libraries/stdlib/lib/node_modules/@stdlib/math/base/blas/dasum/src'
/usr/bin/sh: line 7: D:/developer/code/libraries/stdlib/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp: No such file or directory
make: *** [clean-addons] Error 1

[kgryte]

@EduardoAC Can you print the contents of the ./node_modules/.bin directory? The above makes it seem as if node-gyp is not installed and/or cannot find the node-gyp executable.

Also, what is your install sequence?

Are you just cloning and then running make install? or are you doing something different?

What version of Windows? Windows 10?

And what shell are you using? Ubuntu shell? MinGW/MSYS? or something different?

[EduardoAC]

Hi Thanks for your quick answer.

I exhausted all the combinations that I can come up with.

I am using a windows 10 machine and the steps I followed were:

1. git clone https://github.com/EduardoAC/stdlib.git (fork of your master branch)
2. npm install
3. export NODE_PATH=/path/to/stdlib-js/stdlib/lib/node_modules
4. make install (realise missing dependencies with python and gcc)
5. Install python 2.7 and added to the PATH
6. Install MinGW and added to the PATH
7. make install (missing node-gyp)
8. Install node-gyp using the instructions for windows
9. Run make install again
   ... then the error I mentioned previously and I got stuck since the dependency exist in stdlib `package,json

My global node-gyp is in node-gyp@3.6.2 C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp node@6.11.1

Hack solution

I found a solution so far that it's a little bit hack but it allows me to install

As administrator

1. Create a symlink from the global node-gyp into local node-gyp.
   mklink /D "D:\developer\code\libraries\stdlib\node_modules\.bin\node-gyp" "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js". More information in here
2. Run make install again (as admin)

Everything built correctly. I will look into it a bit more detail to see if I can find a way that npm install add the folder .bin/node-gyp automatically, but so far so good project setup completed ^^

`

[kgryte]

Thanks for the response. A few comments.

1. The master branch is not currently used. All development occurs on develop which is the main branch.

2. Running npm install is not necessary, as make install installs node_module dependencies.

3. Just to be clear, the line

   export NODE_PATH=/path/to/stdlib-js/stdlib/lib/node_modules
   

   should be modified based on your local system. Meaning, e.g., on your system, it could be

   export NODE_PATH=/usr/beep/code/projects/stdlib/lib/node_modules
   

4. To check what dependencies you have on your host system, run

   $ make deps-info
   

5. Windows often comes with Python 2.7 already installed, or you may have a conflicting installation. Just be sure you are resolving the correct Python installation. In fact, the lines in the Appveyor config file do some path manipulation to resolve the relevant Python version: https://github.com/stdlib-js/stdlib/blob/develop/appveyor.yml#L216.

6. Be sure to use MSYS2, as older MinGW 32-bit versions are old and deprecated.

7. node-gyp should already be installed, as the dependency is listed in the package.json file as a production dependency. If node-gyp is not installed, something is wrong with the npm install.

8. You should not have a conflict with your global node-gyp, as the project tooling resolves to and uses a local installation (see here, where BIN_DIR is the local node modules ./node_modules/.bin directory, as defined here).

[EduardoAC]

Well, that's quite a few comments,

1. As you know already when you do git clone the repository the branch that checkout is develop and that the one, I have been using for the whole installation.

2. I wasn't aware of that I don't think it was the problem but I will try a fresh install and see. I will keep in mind for the documentation since it's another way to do it

3. I have done that. I just copied the shortcut to skip the details (I guess you were expecting full explanation, my bad).

4. I didn't do make install-deps or make deps-info because I assumed that make install will provide everything that it's needed to be able to complete the installation. Otherwise, I will expect in the docs first make install-deps then make install, but it's after and optional.

5. I had been running Windows machines for a while and I had to install every time the python in order to have python on my machine. Perhaps, some development tools (IDEs) will install for you, but so far it was running Python until I did the installation.

6. I wasn't aware of this, I used google to search for gcc compiler for windows 10. I will add this to the docs as well.

7. The dependency get installed but it doesn't install the executable file ./bin/node-gyp. I will have a look to make install and make install-deps on a clean installation, but so far npm install didn't add it.

8. The global node-gyp was installed to solve the problem that I wasn't be able to build the addons because missing /.bin/node-gyp. I didn't spend time looking into the details of the implementation of make install apologizes, I will look into it.

As summary, I will look into a clean installation now that I got it working so I can compose a proper documentation, (At least the troubleshooting will be covering most of the unexpected problems, he he)

[kgryte]

Thanks for the responses. :)

• Yeah, good point regarding the order of make install and make install-deps. I will change that.

• Regarding Python on Windows, you are in a better position to know than me. :) I am going off of the Appveyor build environment, so my knowledge of Windows is limited.

• Yeah, the MinGW/MSYS2 consideration is buried in the Appveyor config file atm.

Thanks for your persistence!

[kgryte]

@EduardoAC I updated the development guide to reflect the necessary install sequence.

[Aarya01Patil]

Hey @kgryte is this issue solved otherwise I would like to solve this