Win32 Port ??

[Samuel Hocevar]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2000, Gildas BAZIN wrote:

> I was wondering if you were working on a win32 port of the vlc or if
> someone had tried to compile it with the cygnus tools for win32. It's
> not that I'm a really a great fan of windows, but a lot of networks
> still have windows as workstations so it could be a good idea to make a
> win32 version.

   Noone in the team really bothered about a win32 port because the code
was very X11-dependant at the beginning. Now that we have an abstraction
layer between the main app and the plugins, it could work.

   The main problem could be the threading. What does win32 use as a
threading library ? We have a wrapper located in include/threads.h
which can use the pthreads (as found under Linux and most Unices), the
c-threads (used under the Hurd until the pthreads port is finished) and
the BeOS threads. Whatever win32 uses, I think it would be easy to add a
wrapper.

> I would be glad to give some help to do the port even if I'm not an
> experienced programmer and I don't have a good enough knowledge of
> MPEG2. I think I would enjoy the challenge (or at least trying).

   Well, you could already try to compile vlc as well as the dummy
plugin (which should work under any architecture). Then, you might have
a look at how to handle threads, and eventually consider an interface
and a proper video_output plugin.

   I have a very limited win32 knowledge so I can't be of any help,
but maybe someone else on the list can provide you with additional
information.

Regards,
-- 
Sam.