Supported platforms
The bytecoded system currently runs on any POSIX-compliant operating system with an ANSI-compliant C compiler (and tries hard to accommodate deviations from POSIX and ANSI-C). It should run straight out of the box on all Unix and Unix-compatible systems, including Linux and MacOS X. (See below for MS Windows.) While not mandatory, it is recommended to use the GNU gcc compiler to compile the distribution.
The native-code compiler currently supports the following processor/operating system combinations:
| Processors | Operating systems |
|---|---|
|
Tier 1 platforms (actively used and maintained by the core Caml team): | |
| AMD64 (AMD Opteron, Athlon64, Intel Pentium EM64) | Linux |
| IA32 (Intel Pentium, Celeron, AMD Athlon) | Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, Microsoft Windows |
| Power PC | Mac OS X |
|
Tier 2 platforms (maintained but less actively, with help from users): | |
| Alpha | Digital Unix/Compaq Tru64, Linux, all BSD |
| AMD64 | FreeBSD, OpenBSD |
| PA-RISC | HPUX 11, Linux |
| IA32 | NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris 9 |
| IA64 | Linux, FreeBSD |
| MIPS | IRIX 6 |
| PowerPC | Linux, NetBSD |
| SPARC | Solaris 9, Linux, NetBSD |
| StrongARM | Linux |
Other operating systems for the processors above have not been tested, but the compiler may work under other operating systems with little work.
Ports for Microsoft Windows
Starting with Objective Caml 3.05, there are no less than three ports of Objective Caml for Microsoft Windows available:
- a native Win32 port, built with the Cygwin/MinGW development tools;
- a native Win32 port, built with the Microsoft development tools (Microsoft Visual C++ and Microsoft Assembler);
- a port consisting of the Unix sources compiled under the Cygwin Unix-like environment for Windows.
Here is a summary of the main differences between these ports:
| Native Microsoft | Native MinGW | Cygwin | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Third-party software required
- for base bytecode system - for ocamlc -custom - for native-code generation |
none MSVC MSVC + MASM |
none Cygwin Cygwin |
none Cygwin Cygwin |
| Speed of bytecode interpreter | 70 % | 100 % | 100 % |
| Debugger | no | no | yes |
|
Libraries
- Unix - Threads - Graphics |
partial yes yes |
partial yes yes |
full yes no |
| Restrictions on generated executables | none | none | yes* |
* Cygwin-generated .exe files refer to a DLL that is distributed under the GPL. Thus, these .exe files can only be distributed under a license that is compatible with the GPL. Executables generated by MSVC or by MinGW have no such restrictions.