Cygwin & KIM API

[Ryan S. Elliott]

Dear KIM Community,

I would like to gauge how much interest there is in using the KIM API and
OpenKIM Models on Windows systems, an in particular through the Cygwin
framework (or maybe another similar framework).

So, If you would like to see the KIM API modified so that it works well on
Windows systems, please reply and let us know.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Yoshi Umeno]

Dear Ryan,

I was also wondering how much interest other people may have in 'KIM on Win'.
Personally, it would be great if KIM API could be used on Windows.

I usually work on Linux and develop my own MD code (which I plan to make
KIM-compliant soon), but sometimes I compile the code on Windows with
Microsoft Visual C++ Express to let it be used by students who have Windows
machines only. Once its compiled, I can simply pass the .exe file to the
students because it is transferable. My code uses some libraries but they
are also transferable.

So, it would be very helpful if I could do the same thing with a KIM-compliant
MD code. But I am not familiar with Cygwin and I have currently no idea how to
do that.

With best regards,
Yoshi


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[Ryan S. Elliott]

I'm forwarding this responce from the LAMMPS mailing list just to have its
information recorded on the OpenKIM list too.

Thanks to Axel for the helpful information.

Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 23:41:13
From: Axel Kohlmeyer <akoh...@gmail.com>
To: Ryan S. Elliott <ell...@aem.umn.edu>
Cc: LAMMPS Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: [lammps-users] Is there a need for KIM API support on Windows via Cygwin

dear ryan,

i am answering here on the LAMMPS list, because my comments to your
inquiry are LAMMPS specific and not primarily related to the API
itself.

- if you want to reach serious windows programmers, you should aim for
compatibility with VC++, not cygwin.

- the precompiled LAMMPS binaries provided on rpm.lammps.org - and
which are by now likely the most popular way to use LAMMPS on windows
- are built with MinGW64, which seems more up-to-date and produces
faster executables.

- the majority of people who use LAMMPS on windows, use precompiled
binaries, but the precompiled binaries currently cannot contain
OpenKIM support due to the incompatibility of the OpenKIM license with
the GPLv2 attached to LAMMPS

cheers,
axel.

[Ryan S. Elliott]

On Wed, 3 Sep 2014, Yoshi Umeno wrote:

> Dear Ryan,
>
> I was also wondering how much interest other people may have in 'KIM on Win'.
> Personally, it would be great if KIM API could be used on Windows.
>
> I usually work on Linux and develop my own MD code (which I plan to make
> KIM-compliant soon), but sometimes I compile the code on Windows with
> Microsoft Visual C++ Express to let it be used by students who have Windows
> machines only. Once its compiled, I can simply pass the .exe file to the
> students because it is transferable. My code uses some libraries but they
> are also transferable.
>
> So, it would be very helpful if I could do the same thing with a KIM-compliant
> MD code. But I am not familiar with Cygwin and I have currently no idea how to
> do that.

Hi Yoshi,

Thanks for the details. It seems from Axel's post that Cygwin may not be the
best approach for support on Windows. Based on his comments, if/when we get to
implementing full Windows support I'll likely aim to do as he suggests and work
to have VC++ compliance using mingw.

Cheers,

Ryan