Running Gambas Programs in Windows

The following page is in development and is by no means official documentation of Piga Software at this time. Many of the concepts stated are experimental and have yet too be verified. Most software developed by Piga is written in Gambas. As a result it requires the Gambas Runtime. Unfortunately at this time there is no native support for running the Gambas runtime under Windows. However, there are many solutions available for this problem.


 * 1) Port the Program too Windows by rewriting it in a different language such as VB.net
 * 2) Install the Program on a Unix or Gnu/Linux Computer and use a Windows X11 server such as Xming and SSH forwarding to run the program. (this is the solution posted on the Gambas Online Documentation)
 * 3) Using VMWare, VirtualBox, or another Virtualisation tool run a copy of Unix or Gnu/Linux and run the program in that.
 * 4) Use Colinux and a Windows X11 server such as Xming

Porting to another language
If you are a programmer and you feel up to this challenge then you may want to consider this option. The obvious candidate for porting is VB.net as it is a common Basic derivative that works well in modern version of Windows. Also VB.net has a stipped down "free for use" version (Express). If you have the tools needed you may also want to consider VB 6 and older for older version of Windows. While demand for pre Xp versions of Windows may be low it is still cool when new software is allowed to run on these versions. All Piga Software programs are released under the GPL and as a result we cannot stop you from doing this. In fact if you wish to do this you are encouraged too. While Piga staff may not be able to offer that much support towards this project we like the idea of this sort of porting.

With VB options taken into account you could also port to another Basic derivative or a language not related to Basic at all. The choice is up too you.

Advantages
 * If written properly software should be stable and efficient
 * Once ported software should be easy to set up for users so matter what their technical background

Disadvantages
 * Slow, this option involves rewriting code entirely from scratch

Source(s): Gambas Programs solutions

Using SSH Forwarding
A stated on the Gambas Documentation you can used SSH Forwarding to run Gambas programs in Windows. The page has it nicely layed out for using the NX protocal.

You can also use PuTTY and Xming (or CygwinX) to so the same thing. On the Linux server you need SSH installed and the port opened if you are running a firewall (the default is 22). On the Windows computer you need PuTTY and an X11 server, like Xming.

One you have the Gambas software installed on Linux run the X11 server and PuTTY on the Windows computer. Make sure PuTTY is set to allow X11 forwarding too your server. Then connect and login to the linux server.

One you have done that run the program using the relevant command.

E.g. Gambas_Example

Things to add to tutorial:
 * 1) Sound Forwarding with PulseAudio

Advantages
 * actually running on a linux server so is fully compatible

Disadvantages
 * can be slow depending on network connectivity
 * limited support for devices
 * requires a separate computer

Virtualisation
For this option you need a Virtualisation environment to run a "virtual copy" of Linux on top of Windows. There are several available including Parallels, VMWare, Virtual PC, and VirtualBox. For this documentation we are going to use Sun Microsystems VirtualBox platform. The procedure should be similar for other platforms however, you may need to consult documentation specific to it. Microsoft's Virtual PC should work but is not recommended since there is no official support for Linux guests.

Advantages
 * No code changes

Disadvantages
 * Can be resource intensive

coLinux
coLinux is actually a specialized Virtualisation environment for seamlessly running Linux under a Windows Kernal. More documentaiton for this option will become available as Piga Staff experiment on it.

Advantages
 * Seemlessly run Gambas, or any Linux software under Windows

Disadvantages
 * Can be complicated for users to setup

uwin
http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/