Windows test errors - policy?

[matthew-brett]

There are a reasonable number of windows test errors on the buildbots:

FAILED (SKIP=59, errors=37, failures=37)

http://nipy.bic.berkeley.edu/builders/nipype-py2.7-win32/builds/265/steps/shell_8/logs/stdio

Many of these are fairly obvious fixes (paths, making sure objects holding references to files are deleted). But my question is - is the aim to keep nipype supported on Windows? I hope so, because I am teaching a class where I would like students to be able to run nipype SPM interfaces.

[satra]

hi matthew - we've never really supported windows because the vast majority of imaging tools are not available on windows. however, we would be happy to work with you to see what it would take to support windows.

what is your time frame for this class?

[matthew-brett]

It's OK - was using nipype today, we won't likely use it for the next few classes.

Our students are something like 80% Mac, 5% Linux, 15% Windows.

Supporting Windows is certainly an extra burden.

[matthew-brett]

A list from a preliminary search:

Has Windows binary download:

• SPM;
• ANTS;
• AFNI ("not recommended").

Does not have Windows binary download;

• FSL;
• Freesurfer.

[satra]

@matthew-brett - we can certainly work on fixing the trivial changes (file paths, separators) and perhaps support in limited capacity without saying we have full support for windows.

if students are not too much against using virtual machines, you could recommend the Vagrant setup to some of them.

http://nipy.org/nipype/users/vagrant.html

and one could update the vagrant setup to automatically launch a jupyter server, so that students can launch the VM and then simply log in through a browser.

[matthew-brett]

For the class, we want to teach the students to get used to using these tools on their own machines, so I have tried hard to avoid the various virtual / remote options.

[mgxd]

@chrisfilo how is windows handling nipype now?

[chrisgorgo]

Very well - as long as you run in inside a (linux) container :)

[satra]

we still don't have direct support for windows in the workflow engine. we aim to have that with the new api.