A 5-minute screencast of this blog post can be found here.

Would you like to run GemStone/S 64 Bit on a Microsoft Windows machine? If so, then the Windows Subsystem for Linux makes that possible. Starting with a 64-bit version of Windows 10, follow these steps:

Install Ubuntu 18.04

  1. Run Windows PowerShell as Administrator and enter the following (on one line):
    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  2. Confirm a restart to complete the process.
  3. From the Windows Store application, install Ubuntu 18.04, pin it to the Start menu, and then launch it.
  4. When prompted, enter a new UNIX username and password.

Install GemStone

  1. Update your system and install the unzip utility:
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade -y
    sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
    sudo apt-get install unzip
  2. In the Linux shell, create some GemStone directories:
    sudo mkdir /opt/gemstone
    sudo chown $USER /opt/gemstone
    cd /opt/gemstone
    mkdir locks log
  3. In a web browser, navigate to the GemStone product page and copy the link for the Linux download. Use wget to download the product (the following is supposed to be one line, but WordPress hides some; copy the whole thing and past into a text editor): wget https://downloads.gemtalksystems.com/pub/GemStone64/3.4.3/GemStone64Bit3.4.3-x86_64.Linux.zip
  4. Unzip the product:
    unzip GemStone*​
  5. Create a symbolic link to the unzipped directory:
    ln -s GemStone* product
  6. Edit your profile to add/update environment variables:
    vim ~/.profile # add the following two lines
    export GEMSTONE=/opt/gemstone/product
    export PATH=$GEMSTONE/bin:$PATH
  7. Update your environment to include the above variables by doing one of the following:
    1. Enter the two lines from step 6 into your command shell;
    2. source ~/.profile ; or,
    3. Close your shell and open a new shell.
  8. Edit the services file to add an entry for NetLDI:
    sudo vim /etc/services # add the following line
    gs64ldi    50377/tcp    # GemStone/S 64 Bit 3.x
  9. Copy in a new database:
    cp $GEMSTONE/bin/extent0.dbf $GEMSTONE/data/
    chmod +w $GEMSTONE/data/extent0.dbf

Start GemStone

Open a new Linux shell to get your environment variables and start GemStone:
gslist
startnetldi -g -a $USER
startstone
gslist

Install Jade into Windows

  1. Open a web browser on the Jade Releases.
  2. Download (Save) Jade.zip (one of the assets) to your Downloads folder.
  3. Open the Downloads folder and extract the download.
  4. Copy the entire Jade folder to C:\Program Files (x86) or any handy directory (it doesn’t need to be anywhere in particular).
  5. Pin Jade.exe to the Start Menu.
  6. Edit C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\services (as a Windows administrator using a Windows text editor such as Notepad++) to add an entry for NetLDI:
    gs64ldi    50377/tcp    # GemStone/S 64 Bit 3.4.2

Log in to GemStone with Jade

  1. From the Start Menu, launch Jade. If Windows identifies Jade as an unrecognized app, click More info and then click the Run anyway button.
  2. Ensure that the version shown in Jade is a close match to the GemStone version, and click the Login button.
  3. Now you can explore your GemStone/S database that is running in Windows!

Stop GemStone

From a Linux shell you can stop GemStone:
gslist
stopstone gs64stone DataCurator swordfish
stopnetldi
gslist