Sigil 0.7 - Unable to start with WindowsXP

[yekim54]

Originally Posted by theducks

Another known NO GO is old AMD processors that don't have SSE2

Ah, apparently that's the ticket. The one old PC that runs Sigil 0.7.2 has an AMD processor with SSE2. The two PCs that don't run 0.7.2 have AMD processors with SSE (not SSE2). But they all run Sigil 0.6.2 just fine.

[AnotherCat]

I am not familiar with the innards of Sigil at all, so the following is made with no sense of authority whatsoever , but maybe a -sse2 switch was incorrectly (or correctly depending on ones point of view ) set somewhere during the build of 0.6.2 for 32bit MSWindows (64 bit CPU's all support SSE2)?

[Toxaris]

I believe the issue is not the compiling of Sigil, but actually Qt5.

[Gian Carlo M.]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

But the Xerces component of Sigil also requires SSE2--has for a long time. The OP indicated he was able to run Sigil 0.6.x on that same hardware--which should be impossible unless he was running a patched, custom build of Sigil (unless Sigil's Xerces component is configured in the Windows build without the SSE2 requirements that the Linux config has).

The version of Sigil 0.6.2 I've been used is not patched and this is what I see on Help->Info:
Version: 0.6.2
Qt: 4.8.4

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Gian Carlo M.

The version of Sigil 0.6.2 I've been used is not patched and this is what I see on Help->Info:
Version: 0.6.2
Qt: 4.8.4

Yes. There's two separate issues here. And I was admittedly confused on some of the Windows aspects of it.

1) The Xerces component of Sigil. The Windows binaries of Sigil 0.6.x (and earlier) appear to have been built/configured without the hardcoded Xerces SSE2 requirement that plagues the Linux side of things. That's why you're able to run 0.6.x. Sigil's source can be patched fairly easily to be able to build/run 0.6.x on non-SSE2 Linux platforms.

2) Qt5. The precompiled binaries for Qt5Webkit--the same ones that get distributed with the Windows installer for Sigil 0.7.x--are configured with an SSE2 requirement. And I see no (easy) way to custom build Qt5WebKit without the special SSE2 instructions (on any platform). This is the current deal breaker for hardware that doesn't support SSE2.

So unless Qt5WebKit gets changed/patched/whatever to remove the SSE2 requirement, Windows users with non-SSE2 processors are likely limited to Sigil 0.6.2 and earlier. It's that simple.

Linux users with non-SSE2 processors are limited to Sigil versions earlier than 0.3--if they're not willing/able to patch the source. And they're still limited to 0.6.x and earlier even if they are willing/able.

As I said earlier: For all practical purposes, it appears that Qt5WebKit (and thus Sigil >= 0.7.x) is now officially a no-go on hardware that doesn't support SSE2.

[theducks]

Old hardware is soon (if not already) to be a plague on developers.

For many of us that do not run the Latest Video games, The old P4 series or AMD Athelon (XP series) was getting the job done for WEB browsing and mail. That may no longer be true.

Is there a pre-install tool that could be packaged with the distribution that runs a series of Hardware (and possibly, some incompatible software ) Tests and make an Announcement: 'Your Hardware does not support resources needed by version 7.X of Sigil. This is not a bug." or "We have detected XYZ program which is known to conflict with version 7.x of Sigil" if found. This would save hours of handling Bug reports/ MR posts.

[Gian Carlo M.]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

As I said earlier: For all practical purposes, it appears that Qt5WebKit (and thus Sigil >= 0.7.x) is now officially a no-go on hardware that doesn't support SSE2.

Thank you for your exaustive explanation.