Ok, we had a Skype phone+chat session with my friend again trying to install Lazarus, this time on a Windows XP laptop. I thought it must be an easy task and we are done quickly. I was wrong again!
He managed to install Lazarus by himself. So yes, it is easy to install but read on... First he made a directory for my program under C:\. Then he opened the project with Lazarus. Everything looked good. Then he clicked "Run" button --> "cannot write to directory lib" ... or something. Apparently he did't have enough rights for the folder. But now, why was he able to create the folder through "My Computer" if he has no rights for it? I just don't know Windows enough to understand it. Then he made an empty test project and saved it under the user's default directory and tried to run it. There was an error about executing ppc or something. Then we both were so pissed off that we closed the Skype session. F**k! Before that we were fighting with zip packages. The Windows machine didn't have a zip program installed. I made a mistake first and recommended Peazip "because it is made with Lazarus". My friend installed it but the UI is so weird that he couldn't use it. Finally he installed a decent archiver, jzip, and could extract my source package. Why this Lazarus must be such a weirdo-land? The only known program made with Lazarus, excluding Lazarus itself, is Peazip and it is so weird that a "normal" person can't use it. The installation of FPC + Lazarus fails on 2 major platforms: Windows and OSX (again for a "normal" person). I would say a mainstream Linux distro is the only place where is actually works "for sure" (after one manages to install the distro I mean). Now I have read many comments that Lazarus Windows installer is a really easy one-click system. I admit that the installation is easy but the result was a broken system so it doesn't help much. How do you people explain this episode with the "idiot proof" Windows installer? Do you think I made up the story. No, it really happened to a real person, on a real Windows XP laptop and I really tried to help him through a Skype session. And yes, he has been able to install other SW when he wanted. His feeling is of course "why do you give me this crappy SW. Is it some kind of joke?". I would have the same feeling if someone handed me a program I can't even install. I can myself be very irritated sometimes when a system doesn't work while it should. I think I must learn GUI programming with Java and port the code. Java is already installed on those machines and runs for sure. The other choise is to boot Windows XP on my mini-laptop, install Lazarus there and build the program, then send the binary to my friend. He lives 250 km away and I don't drive there now. Write once, compile everywhere. Right yeah... Juha
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