Nextor can now be built from Linux

Your (probably) favorite amateur operating system for MSX, Nextor, has got a new interesting update. This time however it's not a new release, but a change in the procedure for building it.

From the beginning of the project and until now it was necessary ("officially" at least) to have a Windows computer capable of running the bundled CP/M application runner and a couple of Windows-only supporting tools. However this has now changed: thanks to the recent release of the M80.NET project and to some Linux-fiendly compilation scripts made by Konamiman, it's now possible to fully build Nextor natively from a Linux machine, no ugly hacks needed.

Furthermore, from now on using Linux to build Nextor is not only possible, it's actually the recommended way: the README file in the Nextor repository warns that while support for building Nextor with Windows is still a thing, it's deprecated and might be removed in the future; for Windows 10 users the recommended approach is to use WSL, and for users of an older Windows the recommended approach is to either upgrade to Windows 10 or to somehow install Linux alongside Windows (separate partition or disk, or virtual machine).

As an added bonus, the sources of Nextor got a small cleanup so they no longer produce warnings or errors when assembled or linked.

Relevant link: Nextor repository in GitHub
Relevant link: The pull request introducing build support for Linux

Comments (8)

By konamiman

Paragon (1181)

01-01-2021, 01:16

By the way, turns out that about the same time I was working on adding Linux build support to Nextor Dean Netherton was doing the same and I didn't notice until recently. I've contacted him and his pull request is now closed but I might reuse some of his work in the future, for example the makefiles.

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6010)

01-01-2021, 09:31

If compiling on MSX is still supported, then on Windows you can solve this by making your self "8bit subsystem" to run the compile utilities. If you do it like this you should be able to run typical "MAKE.BAT" files in Windows just as well as on MSX.

Practically it goes something like this:
- Copy CPM32.EXE, M80, L80 & other CP/M tools to C:\Apps\CPM\
- Open command prompt in Admin mode and type:

ren C:\Apps\CPM\*.COM *.CPM
ftype CPM32.cpm="C:\Apps\CPM\CPM32.EXE" "%1" %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
assoc .cpm=CPM32.cpm
setx path=%path%;C:\Apps\CPM\
setx pathext=%pathext%;.CPM

Note that you can now start also other CP/M programs simply by double clicking them.

By mcolom

Champion (302)