Any nearer to FreeCAD 0.14 going GA.

[NormandC]

If that is the case then what we possibly could do then is ONLY link to the 64bit version, then those few left on 32 bit will find it doesn't work, that they have the "wrong" version and hopefully have the brains to go look for the correct version.

I strongly disagree.

First of all, do you have hard numbers on the ratio of 64-Bit VS. 32-Bit home Windows PCs? I couldn't find any survey or study (but I didn't spend more than a few minutes). My feeling is that there are still A LOT of 32-Bit Windows PCs being used. FYI you can purchase low-end laptops right now with Windows 8.1 32-Bit.

Second, how will people react when they download a 146MB installer only to find out it is not compatible with their PC and they have to start over again? They will be pissed off, as well they should. Not a good way to start their FreeCAD experience!!!

Third, you can install a 32-Bit program on a 64-Bit operating system, but the opposite is not true.

Fourth, how many people actually know the distinction between 32-Bit and 64-Bit, and how many know which version their Windows PC is? Not many.

All these facts point to only one logical conclusion: if only a single version is to be proposed, then it MUST be the 32-Bit version, because it will run on any machine. Let the more technical users find out by themselves if there's a 64-Bit version available.

As I said already, the REAL problem we have is that the x86 installer is compiled with the prehistoric OCC 6.5.0, while the x64 version is compiled with 6.6.0. I am still saying this:

The true solution would be to recompile the 32-Bit and 64-Bit with the latest OCC available (6.7.x).

I agree that having a dedicated Windows packager would help a lot.

On a side note, my work PC was changed last year, and I got a Windows 7 64-Bit system. Office suite included was Microsoft Office 2013 32-Bit. And it works perfectly fine... well let me rephrase that: it performs exactly as you would expect from Microsoft software.

[jmaustpc]

Hi Norm

Second, how will people react when they download a 146MB installer only to find out it is not compatible with their PC and they have to start over again? They will be pissed off, as well they should. Not a good way to start their FreeCAD experience!!!

Yeah I know, you can't really do that ....but as pissed off as they may be at least they might finally work out what O/S they are running

What you could do is have a 2KB download that works out what O/S you are running and suggests the preferred version and then allows an online install i.e. have the installer download the correct version automatically...you could even add an option to force a 32 bit install on a 64 bit system....

Third, you can install a 32-Bit program on a 64-Bit operating system, but the opposite is not true.

Fourth, how many people actually know the distinction between 32-Bit and 64-Bit, and how many know which version their Windows PC is? Not many.

But those are equally my points since so many people are so ...."ill informed'?" (and/or MS is so stupid they don't make it obvious enough?) ...they just all keep installing the wrong version.

On a side note, my work PC was changed last year, and I got a Windows 7 64-Bit system. Office suite included was Microsoft Office 2013 32-Bit. And it works perfectly fine... well let me rephrase that: it performs exactly as you would expect from Microsoft software.

So are you are saying that if it had been 64 bit it would actually work properly.... rather than exactly as you would expect from Microsoft software? I'm only joking ....

Jim

[shoogen]

Office suite included was Microsoft Office 2013 32-Bit. And it works perfectly fine

We are not building a tea timer application, we a building a CAD program. You can't have to much memory. More registers improve the performance (at some places).

[saso]

Werner and me talked about this at the release and indeed it was in the end decided to have the 32bit version as the default mainly because of the arguably at the moment still high number of users on 32bit systems (XP). My personal view on the issue however is that sooner or later the 64bit version should be recommended default download (as long as we have to make a decision for one) since there is an industry wide push to it, everyone this days is generally doing 64bit as default.

[saso]

I haven't had much free time lately, but when I do, I've been working on a tool that will make providing pre-compiled libraries for Windows and Mac OS X very easy. It is basically a simple package manager: https://github.com/peterl94/CLbundler and https://github.com/peterl94/clbundler-freecad. It is currently able to build all of FreeCAD's dependencies with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2013 (both 32 and 64-bit). I hadn't posed about it yet, because it still a little fragile. But anyway, it's pretty close to being ready.

All I see around here are heroes

[shoogen]

How about adding an additional check to the version information on _WIN32 platform

http://www.viva64.com/en/k/0016/
http://mfctips.com/2013/04/18/detect-wh ... or-64-bit/

"Why does FreeCAD tell me that I would use World of Warcraft 64"

[wmayer]

git commit f28f83b

[jmaustpc]

Hi guys

this is the Help about data from master compile just now ...doesn't show the word size of the O/S, is it supposed to?

Jim

OS: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.15.3921 (Git)
Branch: master
Hash: f28f83bf917f0fe7818b396a9a4efd6d5db271ed
Python version: 2.7.6
Qt version: 4.8.6
Coin version: 4.0.0a
SoQt version: 1.6.0a
OCC version: 6.7.1

[shoogen]

There needs to be a newline removed:

Code: Select all

         QByteArray info = proc.readAll();
+        info.replace('\n',"");
         return info.toInt();

[wmayer]

git commit 97514d1 hopefully works.