Who am I?
I've been poking my nose in mobile software development since 2000, starting on what was then the ER5 and Ericsson's R380. Since then I've been doing a bit of everything on the S60 Platform, from learning its bits and pieces to helping others find their way trough the maze.
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Lucian Tomuta's Forum Nokia Blog
S60 development on Windows 7
ltomuta | 15 January, 2009 11:00
Well, Windows 7 (beta, Ultimate edition) is now available for download and is surprisingly stable. On a modest IBM Thinkpad T41 the OS installs ok and although it has some bells and whistles disabled (or because of that, after all Aero is cute but resource hungry) I find it to be fast and fresh ...
So, how do Carbide (now version 2.0) and the S60 SDK (now the S60 5th Edition SDK v0.9) behave on this Windows release?
As with Vista, the key is to be careful and as much as possible in control of what you're doing. There seems to be only two rules to follow: install the tools with admin rights and verify the result after each step.
I've followed roughly the same steps and compared with the previous results the following are to be noted:
- The only ActivePerl package I've found for download was in *.msi format. This is basically a document to be handled by the Windows Installer and does not have a "Run as Administrator" option.
Holding the Shift key down while accessing the context menu one can find a "Run as other user..." option but in an attempt to use that I found out that the Administrator account was by default disabled.
I ended up enabling this account, setting a password for it and then running the Windows Installer from the command line (just to be sure):
> runas /noprofile /user:administrator "msiexec /i c:\users\lucian\desktop\ActivePerl-5.6.1.635-MSWin32-x86.msi"
Aside from this small complication all went ok and at the end I could verify that Perl was correctly added to the path and can be invoked (tools verification as described in How do I start programming for Symbian OS?).
- As in the previous post, I've chose to install the GCC compiler myself rather than let the SDK setup to start it. However, despite running it with administrator privileges the installer was not able to modify the %PATH% environment variable so I had to edit it manually and set it as %PATH%=c:\Program Files\CSL Arm Toolchain\bin;%PATH%
- The emulator is running OK with no hacks applied (like DEP deactivation), just the usual firewall blockage removal
That's it. Unofficially and with a "only for hackers" recommendation I declare the S60 development tools Windows 7 ready. :)
Btw, as in the previous tests, I found that I don't need the official Vista patch provided with the SDK or any of the many hacks documented in the Migrating to Windows Vista wiki article. Or at least I did not need them ... yet. 
S60, Carbide.c++, SDK, Windows 7 |
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P.S, UAC seems to be the key to changing environment variables
Sorcery-ltd | 15/01/2009, 11:41
My installers were able to change the path once I turned off User Account Control (which is on by default, even for the administrator).
Great news
mopius | 15/01/2009, 13:03
I also wanted to try the S60 tools on Windows 7 in the near future, so its good to know that it should work fine.
Did you also try Qt for S60, does it work equally well? In our course just a short time ago, many students didn't easily get Qt to run on their PCs at all (especially on Vista) - with Qt for S60 being of course a lot more risky.
Re: How about making the tools Linux friendly?
ltomuta | 15/01/2009, 13:04
Is Windows less developer friendly compared with other OSs [or with former self] ? Don't think so.
The posts briefly mentions Carbide.c++ 2.0 and one can easily guess that it simply works. What is also to be understood is that it works likely due to some efforts made by its developers to keep it up to date with the host OS changes. Would those developers be able to maintain the tool (and the SDKs) on many more OSs at the same time (Linux, OS X, ...)? And would the results justify the costs? I guess this is where the answer to your question is and not in OS's friendliness.
Would the move to Open Source be also part of the answer? Possibly ...
Re: Great news
ltomuta | 15/01/2009, 13:09
Haven't tried it yet. Today my WLAN driver collapsed on that Win7 machine so I'll have to fix that before further hacking (it's not related to the task but it annoys me to have a crippled machine :) )
Re: S60 development on Windows 7
Damavik | 15/01/2009, 19:06
Yes, the real disadvantage of development process for Symbian is absence of Linux compatible tools :(
Re: Great news
ltomuta | 17/01/2009, 13:37
Qt for S60 (Temple pre-release) compiles just fine under Windows 7
I haven't tried Windows 7, but I doubt it could get more annoying that Vista
Sorcery-ltd | 19/01/2009, 13:54
Not wanting to get into a rant here, I'll keep it as brief as I can. I have to find all the security stuff and turn it off, just to be able to install an SDK and get it working.
With default security settings on, if I build a new version of my project and try to run it, Carbide comes up with a dialog to confirm the exe that I want to run, then UAC pops up and says am a sure I want to run this executable - it might be a security threat, then it takes over a minute to load the emulator... then the firewall pops up and wants to know if I'll allow this new executable to access the internet (I can get rid of the last one by running epoc exe rather than the app directly but then the startup time is over 1 min 30).
Add to this that I can still run out of RAM linking a big project and get into ultra-slow virtual memory access, even though I have the recommended 2GB, because Vista is taking almost half of this when I'm doing absolutely nothing!
Have you ever done any development on a Linux box? It's faster, smoother and much easier to bypass the occasional security issue by simply adding "sudo" to the front of your command (note that being an administrator isn't always enough on Vista). The OS boots in a fraction of the time and doesn't use all the resources, leaving plenty free for building software!
Obviously the move of the tools to open source is great! Being eclipse-based, most of Carbide should run on Linux anyway. There're already SDK patches independently maintained to get Symbian projects building on Linux. Official support would be nice though. :-)
The main thing we need now is the simulator, since the emulator is inherently tied to the Win32 API.
Mark
Where there's a will, there's a way
ltomuta | 19/01/2009, 17:19
Fighting about which OS is better it is by now useless, everybody "knows" that OS X is best :)
However, fact is that we currently have to deal with S60 development on Windows only and what is important is that despite the hickups it is not impossible to do so.
As for your security prompt problem I would recommend signing the application before runing it (on Windows too).
(Now that's an idea likely to generate some screams among the readers) :)
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Linux is best
Sorcery-ltd | 20/01/2009, 11:33
Despite being a fan of Linux for development, I still wouldn't recommend the average end user adopt it yet. I'm just saying Windows isn't a good platform for a software development environment. Obviously we have to put up with it for now, but the sooner we don't have to the better.
As to your (tounge in cheek) signing suggestion - note that at least on Windows I can turn off all of the security features if I choose to and expose myself to the malware threat (something I'm much more concerned about on Windows than Symbian).
Re: linux
cell phone news | 29/05/2009, 21:18
the problem of linux under pc is lack of big softwares like adobe's and others. if developpers concentrate on one version to produce the 800 pounds gorillas companies their softwares for linux, this gonna be awesome.
On Windows 7, debug cannot break at breakpoint
littleliang | 16/09/2009, 17:16
On Windows 7, debug cannot break at breakpoints, have you ever encounter this problem?
How about making the tools Linux friendly?
Sorcery-ltd | 15/01/2009, 11:36
Personally after all the scare stories, I found no problems at all with getting a Symbian development environment on Vista. I do have the advantage of not being connected to a corporate network and able to do the whole install logged in on the administrator account (and having turned UAC off permanently) without losing access to anything or creating any problems... but still.
However, what I'd say is that Windows is becoming developer unfriendly in an attempt to lock down the security threats from malware and that's the real problem. "Real" developers prefer the stability and speed offered by Linux. When can we have Symbian tools running there? Then I'll never have to buy another version of Windows again!?