Creating a native win32 build environment

This document outlines how to create a native mingw32 build environment on your windows dev box. The people on the mingw team should be given major props for making this soo much easier than what it used to be.

I recommend that you install them in the order presented below for the simple reason that it is how I did it and I've not run into any problems :)

bear

Installing Cygwin

follow the cygwin setup instructions on their web site www.cygwin.com
after testing that it works, edit your /etc/profile script and place /cygdrive/c/mingw/bin in front of your path so it will use your mingw32 binaries

Installing MingW

download the latest binary distribution from www.mingw.org
download any needed package updates from www.mingw.org
run the binary and follow the prompts
unpack each of the package update tarballs into the root of the mingw install
add the mingw bin to your path:

set PATH=c:\mingw\bin;%PATH%
start a shell and type in "gcc -v" to test. you should get see gcc tell you where it's running from - make sure it's getting the specs from the mingw bin dir

NOTE: if you use winzip - ensure you have cr/lf conversion turned OFF

Installing MSys

download the latest binary distribution from www.mingw.org
run the binary and follow the prompts - when it asks you for the root of your mingw make sure you answer with a) the correct path and b) use / instead of \ for dir seps
start msys and type in "gcc -v" to test. you should get the same output as you did in the MingW test, i.e. it should tell you that it's reading the spec from the mingw bin dir

NOTE: the latest version of msys runs a script to find your mingw install so ignore what mingw.org has in the installation notes

Post Setup Notes

you will need to make a symlink to cygwin's ranlib.exe in the mingw\bin dir. From cygwin do:

/cygdrive/c/mingw/bin mv ranlib.exe mingw32-ranlib.exe ln -s /cygdrive/c/cygwin/bin/ranlib.exe ranlib.exe ls -la ranlib.exe
you should see the symlink listed
any library you install that has a pkg-config .pc file you may have to run:

make install-pkgconfigDATA
if make install does not copy the .pc file
add to your script profile an export for PKG_CONFIG_PATH:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig