Add disclaimer about MinGW compat in distutils docs (#6007). Patch by Chris Lambacher.

1 files changed, 23 insertions, 16 deletions

diff --git a/Doc/install/index.rst b/Doc/install/index.rst
index 0336551..2692bd2 100644
--- a/Doc/install/index.rst
+++ b/Doc/install/index.rst
@@ -929,15 +929,34 @@ section :ref:`inst-config-files`.)
 GNU C / Cygwin / MinGW
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
-These instructions only apply if you're using a version of Python prior  to
-2.4.1 with a MinGW prior to 3.0.0 (with binutils-2.13.90-20030111-1).
-
 This section describes the necessary steps to use Distutils with the GNU C/C++
 compilers in their Cygwin and MinGW distributions. [#]_ For a Python interpreter
 that was built with Cygwin, everything should work without any of these
 following steps.
 
-These compilers require some special libraries. This task is more complex than
+Not all extensions can be built with MinGW or Cygwin, but many can.  Extensions
+most likely to not work are those that use C++ or depend on Microsoft Visual C
+extensions.
+
+To let Distutils compile your extension with Cygwin you have to type::
+
+   python setup.py build --compiler=cygwin
+
+and for Cygwin in no-cygwin mode [#]_ or for MinGW type::
+
+   python setup.py build --compiler=mingw32
+
+If you want to use any of these options/compilers as default, you should
+consider writing it in your personal or system-wide configuration file for
+Distutils (see section :ref:`inst-config-files`.)
+
+Older Versions of Python and MinGW
+""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
+The following instructions only apply if you're using a version of Python
+inferior to 2.4.1 with a MinGW inferior to 3.0.0 (with
+binutils-2.13.90-20030111-1).
+
+These compilers require some special libraries.  This task is more complex than
 for Borland's C++, because there is no program to convert the library.  First
 you have to create a list of symbols which the Python DLL exports. (You can find
 a good program for this task at
@@ -967,18 +986,6 @@ If your extension uses other libraries (zlib,...) you might  have to convert
 them too. The converted files have to reside in the same directories as the
 normal libraries do.
 
-To let Distutils compile your extension with Cygwin you now have to type ::
-
-   python setup.py build --compiler=cygwin
-
-and for Cygwin in no-cygwin mode [#]_ or for MinGW type::
-
-   python setup.py build --compiler=mingw32
-
-If you want to use any of these options/compilers as default, you should
-consider to write it in your personal or system-wide configuration file for
-Distutils (see section :ref:`inst-config-files`.)
-
 
 .. seealso::