[Axiom-developer] Axiom on Windows

[Kenneth Evans]

Hi

I am new to Axiom and am trying to use it on Windows 7, 64-bit.  (I am 
experienced with Mathematica but have never previously used Axiom.) 
Most of the bits and pieces to make this work appear to be out there, 
but are not very well documented or easy to find.  Clearly, several 
people have taken the time to make installers, etc.  Surely someone is 
actually using it successfully on Windows.

I myself have it working to some extent.  This is what I did:

Downloaded:

http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/AxiomBinaries
axiom-windows-0.1.4.exe

http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-axiom/files/
open-axiom-1.3.0-windows-i386.exe

http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/FriCASBinaries
Fricas-Rev.263.exe

I installed them in the order OpenAxiom, FriCAS, Axiom (not having much 
information on which of the three to use).  They all installed and made 
desktop shortcuts.  The ones for OpenAxiom and Axiom, more or less 
worked from the shortcuts with the command-line interface.  The one for 
FriCas failed with a socket error ("can't open socket listing file"). 
They all put their paths in PATH, which could possibly be a problem.  I 
uninstalled FriCAS.  The others I installed and reinstalled as I found 
one did some things right and the other other things right.  Currently 
they are both installed with Axiom first in the PATH.

I got the QT windows version of TeXmacs.

http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/TeXmacs
texmacs-installer.exe

I got it running.  It is apparently set up for Axiom.  I cloned the 
axiom plug-in and made it work for OpenAxiom using snippets of 
information gleaned via the web.  So I can now run both as sessions in 
TeXmacs.  Axiom works better for me.  I can, in fact, do a lot of what 
Axiom as a CAS is supposed to do.

The main problem with TeXmacs is that when it is covered by another 
window, clicking on the title bar causes it to maximize, rather than 
just coming on top -- very annoying.

The main problem I have right now with the CAS is that I cannot get it 
to read .axiom.input.  I would like to do this to, at a minimum, set my 
working directory to "My Documents/Axiom" where I expect to keep my 
.input files.  This is what happens (with Axiom in the command-line 
interface to keep it simple):

1. )cd doesn't work

(1) -> )cd

   >> System error:
   Cannot get the truename of #p"~/".

protected-symbol-warn called with (NIL)
(1) ->

Using ")system ls", I can see that I am in "My Documents, actually 
c:\Users\evans\Documents.  I would guess Axiom didn't do this as it 
doesn't seem to know it (Axiom) is there.  It is probably some kind of 
windows default.

)cd Axiom doesn't work.  In fact, nothing I have tried works except:

)cd c:/Users/evans/Documents/Axiom

Even after that )cd still doesn't work, but )read 
<filename-without-path> works.

Before doing that )cd Axiom or ./Axiom didn't work.

Is there some way to get around this?  Note that $HOME is defined as 
c:\Users\evans\Documents.  You would think it might try $HOME if ~ fails.

2. It does not read .axiom.input.  I have tried putting it where it 
should be (c:\Users\evans) in "My Documents" and in other places.  Does 
anyone know how to make it read .axiom.input.

These are some things from the environment that might be applicable:

HOME=c:\Users\evans
HOMEDRIVE=C:
HOMEPATH=\Users\evans
LOCALAPPDATA=C:\Users\evans\AppData\Local
OPENAXIOM=C:/Program Files 
(x86)/OpenAxiom/lib/open-axiom/i686-pc-mingw32/1.3.0
USERNAME=evans
USERPROFILE=C:\Users\evans

Thanks in advance for any help.

        -Ken