On Mon, Mar 10, 2003, a user wrote: > But I must say, > I wonder how a person with no IT programming > experience could install LyX on Windows; it > is too difficult I think.
In defense of cygwin, I think it's not as difficult as the web pages might lead one to believe. If you are willing to work within cygwin, here is a thumbnail sketch of what to do for a "more simple" install, working from the instructions at http://www.fh-hannover.de/mbau/tim/hentschel/lyx/. a. Skip items 1-5. b. Install cygwin, as in item 6, getting all of the packages that are listed. While you are at it, get the X-window stuff, Image Magik, ghostscript and tetex. These work fine with LyX. (This step does require you to read the setup.exe instructions, and click the "view" button once to get a list of packages that will be installed. But Claus' web page walks you through this is a very nice way.) c. Follow the instructions in items 7 and 8 to install LyX. d. Start a cygwin shell (double-click on the "cygwin" icon) and type "lyx &" to start LyX. At first, you can ignore the things in items 9 and 10 of the web page. This should get you started in the simplest manner. Being simple, it has a number of limitations: --uses tetex from cygwin rather than MikTex of fpTex; I've used tetex for more than a year on quite complex and long projects, with no problems, but you others may want to post their reasons for not using tetex. I like tetex because it gets installed along with the rest of cygwin, because it matches the tetex found in many Linux distributions, and because it is pretty complete. --uses the cygwin XFree86 server rather than a commercial X-server; if you are already using something else, then you probably have enough experience not to need the above instructions. --uses the cygwin shell to start lyx, rather than having drag and drop, or double-clicking an icon. These latter items can be skipped on a first go-round, and added after you have some LyX experience. After you have things running, look over the suggestions in items 9, 10 and 11. The instructions for setting up a postscript previewer and acrobat are the only things I found necessary. Claus has put together a really nice page, and the LyX ports are invaluable. I think cygwin itself is a lot better than it was when the above Web page was started, so that one now has the option (your choice) of just using the cygwin versions for the auxiliary programs that Lyx needs (latex, gs, python, X, Image Magik, perl). ..hope this helps...dave Case
