General questions about Lazarus on Linux..

[Andy22]

Hi

I have a few questions about programming under Lazarus on Linux if I may - these coming from someone with a sole Win32 background:

1. What Linux version would be recommended for easy of installation and compatibility? I was thinking the latest Fedora?

2. What networking components are available? - I see you can install Indy, but how come Indy works under Linux. Aren't they are differen't operating system, and should therefore require a different method of coding?
 
3. Does Lazarus fit with the Delphi standard of code? I mean, would my normal Delphi syntax compile under Lazarus?
 
4. Which Linux distributions will my application work on. If I compile my application under Fedora 5, will this program run on previous redhat versions, and what about other linux distributions?
 
5. Does the application compile to a single executable under Linux? (does it do this under Windows too for that matter)?

Would appreciate any advice / issues that I should be aware of.

Kind regards,

Andrew.

[WibblyTim]

Okay Andrew, I will try to answer your questions. I use Lazarus in WinXP and Linux environments and I can honestly say that there is very little difference between the two.

1. Fedora will do fine. As it uses the RPM package install system you should have no trouble getting Lazarus up and running. I use Mandriva 2006 and the install system is pretty much the same.

2. Don't know too much about networking, but, you are using the 'front end' of the components not the 'nuts and bolts'. How they work is a matter for the underlying code of Lazarus.

3. If you want Delphi compatibility use the Delphi switch, works well.

4. An application coded on any Linux distro will run on every distro. Again its the underlying mechanics that determine everything.

5. Yes, it compiles into a single executable apart from support files of course (images database files etc).

I find that the Windows version is not as stable as the Linux version, it seg faults regularly on my WinXP box.

Have fun,

Tim

[Phil]

I find that the Windows version is not as stable as the Linux version, it seg faults regularly on my WinXP box.

I don't believe I've ever had a segmentation fault on Windows XP. I have a 100,000 line GUI app running on Windows and it never crashes.

I assume you've posted your seg faults as a bug.

[felipemdc]

I don't believe I've ever had a segmentation fault on Windows XP. I have a 100,000 line GUI app running on Windows and it never crashes.

Here too. I don´t remember any crashes with stable lazarus for windows.

[WibblyTim]

Please allow me to correct myself. It's the debugger that seg faults damn near every time I compile and run an application, not Lazarus itself.

Sorry for any confusion on my part.

 :oops:

[felipemdc]

Oh, I see. The debugger utilized is from the GNU project, so there is little we can do about it.

Here it crashes too. Just open the task manager, kill gdb process (gnu debugger), and restart lazarus. This makes it work again.

[WibblyTim]

AFAIK there is a well known bug in the GNU debugger for Win32 ( there's irony for you!). Apparently it will take time and resources that can't be spared to sort it, so it limps along. I find that if I reset the degugger after it faults it runs ok.

I am putting together an enhanced version of the AddressBook example app supplied with Lazarus and hopefully I will have the first testing version available on my web site soon.

It will have printing facilities as well as more fields to enter data. Not greatly enhanced perhaps but enough to demonstrate to a noob what can be done with fairly limited knowledge.