Introduction

This Makefile compiles a MinGW cross compiler and cross compiles many free libraries such as GD and SDL. Thus, it provides a nice MinGW cross compiling environment which

Screenshots

Cross compiling 4tH:

4th-compile

and running it:

4th-run

Tutorial

Step 1: Download and Unpack

First, you should ensure that your system meets mingw-cross-env's requirements. You will almost certainly have to install some stuff.

When everything is fine, download the latest release:

wget http://download.savannah.nongnu.org/releases/mingw-cross-env/mingw-cross-env-X.Y.tar.gz

and unpack the tarball:

tar -xzvf mingw-cross-env-X.Y.tar.gz

If you don't mind installing it in your home directory, just skip the following step and go straight to step 3.

Step 2: System-wide Installation (optional)

Now you should save any previous installation of the mingw-cross-env. Assuming you've installed it under /opt/mingw (any other directory will do as well), you should execute the following commands:

su
mv /opt/mingw /opt/mingw.old
exit

Then you need to transfer the entire directory to its definitive location. We will assume again you use /opt/mingw, but feel free to use any other directory if you like.

su
mv mingw-cross-env-X.Y /opt/mingw
exit

We're almost done. Just change to your newly created directory and get going:

cd /opt/mingw

Step 3: Build mingw-cross-env

Enter the directory where you've unpacked the mingw-cross-env. Now it depends on what you actually want – or need.

If you choose to enter:

make

you're in for a long wait, because it compiles a lot of packages. On the other hand it doesn't require any intervention, so you're free to do whatever you like – like watch a movie or go for a night on the town. When it's done you'll find that you've installed a very capable Win32 cross compiler onto your system.

If you only need the most basic tools you can also use:

make gcc

and add any additional packages you need later on. You can also supply a host of packages on the command line, e.g.:

make gtk lua libidn

You'll always end up with a consistent cross compiling environment.

After you're done it just needs a little post-installation.

Step 4: Environment Variables

Edit your .bashrc script in order to change $PATH:

export PATH=/where mingw-cross-env is installed/usr/bin:$PATH

Note that any compiler related environment variables (like $CC, $LDFLAGS, etc.) may spoil your compiling pleasure, so be sure to delete or disable those.

Congratulations! You're ready to cross compile anything you like.

Step 5a: Cross compile your Project (Autotools)

If you use the Autotools, all you have to do is:

./configure --host=i686-pc-mingw32
make

Don't worry about a warning like this:

configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.

Everything will be just fine.

Step 5b: Cross compile your Project (Qt)

If you have a Qt application, all you have to do is:

i686-pc-mingw32-qmake
make

If you are using Qt plugins such as the svg or ico image handlers, you should also have a look at the Qt documentation about static plugins.

Note the sql drivers (-qt-sql-*) and the image handlers for jpeg, tiff, gif and mng are built-in, not plugins.

Step 5c: Cross compile your Project (Makefile)

If you have a handwritten Makefile, you probably will have to make a few adjustments to it:

CC=$(CROSS)gcc
LD=$(CROSS)ld
AR=$(CROSS)ar

You may have to add a few others, depending on your project.

Then, all you have to do is:

make CROSS=i686-pc-mingw32-

That's it!

Step 5d: Cross compile your Project (OSG)

Using static OpenSceneGraph libraries requires a few changes to your source. The graphics subsystem and all plugins required by your application must be referenced explicitly. Use a code block like the following:

#ifdef OSG_LIBRARY_STATIC
USE_GRAPHICSWINDOW()
USE_OSGPLUGIN(<plugin1>)
USE_OSGPLUGIN(<plugin2>)
...
#endif

Look at examples/osgstaticviewer/osgstaticviewer.cpp in the OpenSceneGraph source distribution for an example. This example can be compiled with the following command:

i686-pc-mingw32-g++ \
    -o osgstaticviewer.exe examples/osgstaticviewer/osgstaticviewer.cpp \
    `i686-pc-mingw32-pkg-config --cflags openscenegraph-osgViewer openscenegraph-osgPlugins` \
    `i686-pc-mingw32-pkg-config --libs openscenegraph-osgViewer openscenegraph-osgPlugins`

The i686-pc-mingw32-pkg-config command from mingw-cross-env will automatically add -DOSG_LIBRARY_STATIC to your compiler flags.

Further Steps

If you need further assistance, feel free to join the project mailing list where you'll get in touch with the mingw-cross-env developers and other users.

Latest Release

2010-xx-xx – Release 2.16

Download | Changelog

This release ...

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Old Releases
History

Development Version

To obtain the current development version, install Mercurial and run:

hg clone http://hg.savannah.nongnu.org/hgweb/mingw-cross-env mingw-cross-env

To retrieve updates, run:

hg pull -u

You can also browse the web repository.

In addition, feel free to join the project mailing list.

Requirements

Mingw-cross-env requires a recent Unix system where all components as stated in the table below are installed. Detailed instructions are available for:

Autoconf ≥ 2.62
Automake ≥ 1.10
Bash
Bison
Bzip2
CMake
Flex ≥ 2.5.31
GCC (gcc, g++)
GNU Make ≥ 3.81
GNU Sed
LibC for 32-bit
Libtool
OpenSSL-dev
Patch
Perl
Perl XML::Parser
Pkg-config ≥ 0.16
SCons ≥ 0.98
UnZip
Wget
XZ Utils

Debian

aptitude install -R autoconf automake bash bison bzip2 \
                    cmake flex g++ make sed libtool openssl\
                    libssl-dev libxml-parser-perl patch perl \
                    pkg-config scons unzip wget xz

On 64-bit Debian, install also:

aptitude install -R g++-multilib

FreeBSD

pkg_add -r automake110 autoconf262 bash bison cmake \
           flex gmake gsed libtool openssl patch perl \
           p5-XML-Parser pkg-config scons unzip wget

Ensure that /usr/local/bin preceeds /usr/bin in your $PATH:

For C style shells, edit .cshrc

setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH

For Bourne shells, edit .profile

export PATH = /usr/local/bin:$PATH

On 64-bit FreeBSD, there are open issues with the NSIS package. To allow the remainder of mingw-cross-env to build, simply remove the package:

rm where mingw-cross-env is unpacked/src/nsis.mk

Frugalware

pacman-g2 -S autoconf automake bash bzip2 bison cmake \
             flex gcc make sed libtool openssl patch \
             perl perl-xml-parser pkgconfig scons unzip \
             wget xz xz-lzma

On 64-bit Frugalware, there are open issues with the NSIS package.

Gentoo

emerge sys-devel/autoconf sys-devel/automake \
       app-shells/bash sys-devel/bison app-arch/bzip2 \
       dev-util/cmake sys-devel/flex sys-devel/gcc \
       sys-devel/make sys-apps/sed sys-devel/libtool \
       dev-libs/openssl sys-devel/patch dev-lang/perl \
       dev-perl/XML-Parser dev-util/pkgconfig dev-util/scons \
       app-arch/unzip net-misc/wget app-arch/xz-utils

There are open issues with Gentoo and GCC-4.5.

MacOS 10.6

Install Xcode and MacPorts, then run:

sudo port install autoconf automake bison cmake flex \
                  gsed libtool openssl p5-xml-parser \
                  pkgconfig scons wget xz-devel gcc_select
sudo gcc_select gcc40

MacOS X (≤ 10.5)

Install Xcode and MacPorts, then run:

sudo port install autoconf automake bison cmake flex \
                  gmake gsed libtool openssl p5-xml-parser \
                  pkgconfig scons wget xz-devel

Open Solaris 2009.06

Open Solaris does not fulfill the requirements. Two requirements are hopelessly outdated (M4, Autoconf) (*), and one requirement is not provided at all (SCons). If you want to run mingw-cross-env on Open Solaris nevertheless, a lot of manual work is required:

Install all requirements that already ship with Solaris:

pfexec pkg install SUNWgnu-automake-110 SUNWbison SUNWcmake \
                   SUNWflexlex SUNWgcc SUNWgmake SUNWgsed \
                   SUNWgzip SUNWlibtool SUNWlibm SUNWopenssl \
                   SUNWgpch SUNWperl-xml-parser \
                   SUNWgnome-common-devel SUNWunzip SUNWwget

and make Automake available:

pfexec ln -s aclocal-1.10  /usr/bin/aclocal
pfexec ln -s automake-1.10 /usr/bin/automake

Edit your .bashrc script to add /usr/local/bin to $PATH, and start a new shell session:

export PATH=/where mingw-cross-env is installed/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Download and install M4, Autoconf and SCons by hand:

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf m4-1.4.5.tar.gz
cd m4-1.4.5
./configure
make
pfexec make install
cd ..

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.62.tar.gz
tar -xzf autoconf-2.62.tar.gz
cd autoconf-2.62
./configure
make
pfexec make install
cd ..

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/scons/scons/1.2.0/scons-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf scons-1.2.0.tar.gz
cd scons-1.2.0
python setup.py build
pfexec python setup.py install
cd ..

(*) If you are using the development repository, M4 and Autoconf will meet the requirements. However, recent versions of bash (4+) from this source will cause certain builds to fail.

openSUSE

zypper install -R autoconf automake bash bison bzip2 \
                  cmake flex gcc-c++ gettext-tools libtool \
                  make openssl libopenssl-devel patch perl \
                  perl-XML-Parser pkg-config scons sed \
                  unzip wget xz

openSUSE 11.3 x86_64 (additional)

zypper install -R gcc-32bit glibc-devel-32bit \
                  libgcc45-32bit libgomp45-32bit \
                  libstdc++45-devel-32bit

Usage

All build commands also download the packages if necessary.

make
build all packages, non-parallel
make gcc
build a minimal useful set of packages, i.e. the cross compilers and the most basic packages, non-parallel
make foo bar
build packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, non-parallel
make foo bar -j 4 JOBS=2
build packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, where up to 4 packages are build in parallel, each with up to 2 compiler processes running in parallel
make download
download all packages, non-parallel, such that subsequent builds work without internet access
make download-foo download-bar
download packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, non-parallel
make download-foo download-bar -j 4
download packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, where up to 4 packages are downloaded in parallel
make strip
strip all package builds and remove unnecessary files
make clean
remove all package builds – use with caution!
make clean-pkg
remove all unused package files, handy after a successful update
make update
for internal use only! – update the version numbers of all packages, download the new versions and note their checksums
make dist
build a source distribution tarball and the website

List of Packages

(contact via the project mailing list)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

History

2010-06-16 – Release 2.15

Download | Changelog

This release fixes download errors caused by the Qt project (a sudden change of their current source tarball).

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2010-06-08 – Release 2.14

Download | Changelog

This release fixes download errors caused by the MinGW project (a sudden change of their URL scheme without proper redirects). That sort of thing should never happen!

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

New packages are supported: libarchive, libgee and xvidcore.

2010-05-31 – Release 2.13

Download | Changelog

This release switches back from TDM to the official GCC, thus supporting the current GCC 4.5.

The set of DirectX headers is improved and more complete.

The deadlock issues with Pthreads-w32 are fixed.

A static build of GDB is provided, i.e. a standalone "gdb.exe" that doesn't require any extra DLLs.

More packages are backed by test programs.

Many "sed hacks" are replaced by proper portability patches.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: fribidi, gc, gdb, gmp, gsl, gst-plugins-base, gst-plugins-good, gstreamer, gtkglext, guile, libcroco, libffi, liboil, libpaper, libshout, libunistring and xine-lib.

2010-02-21 – Release 2.12

Download | Changelog

This release fixes some minor build issues, and contains a first small set of test programs to check the package builds.

The build rules are simplified by calling generators like Autotools and Flex, instead of patching the generated files.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: aubio, devil, directx, exiv2, fftw, freeimage, gsoap, id3lib, liblo, libpano13, librsvg, libsamplerate, muparser, openscenegraph, portaudio and sdl_pango.

2010-02-20 – Release 2.11

Download | Changelog

This release contains a packaging bug. Please use release 2.12 instead.

2009-12-23 – Release 2.10

Download | Changelog

This release adds support for many new packages: flac, libmad, libsndfile, sdl_net, speex, postgresql, freetds, openssl, plotutils, taglib, lcms, freeglut, xerces and zziplib.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

In addition to the libraries some command line tools such as psql.exe are built, too.

The placements of logfiles, as well as many other build details, have been improved.

2009-10-24 – Release 2.9

Download | Changelog

This release adds support for Qt, VMime and libmng.

The target triplet is updated to i686-pc-mingw32.

OpenMP support is enabled in GCC.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2009-09-11 – Release 2.8

Download | Changelog

This release comes with a better look & feel by providing a highlevel overview of the build process.

The detailed build messages are stored into separate log files for each package, so parallel builds don't intermix them anymore.

The download URLs of SourceForge packages are adjusted to ensure that the selected SourceForge mirror is really used and not circumvalented via HTTP redirects to other mirrors.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

The whole mingw-cross-env project has moved to Savannah. So all URIs have changed, but the old URIs redirect to the new locations seamlessly.

Everyone is invited to join the freshly created project mailing list.

2009-08-11 – Release 2.7

Download | Changelog

This release provides an improved version recognition for SourceForge packages. SourceForge changed their page layout in a way that makes it much harder to identify the current version of a package.

Additionally, almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2009-06-19 – Release 2.6

Download | Changelog

This release contains some portability fixes which allow it to run on a wider range of systems such as Frugalware.

The documentation and website are completely revised.

New packages such as CppUnit, libUsb, NSIS, Popt, SQLite and Theora are supported.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

A new command "make download" is implemented.

2009-04-06 – Release 2.5

Download | Changelog

This release fixes a download error caused by the MinGW project. They suddenly changed the names of their source tarballs. That sort of thing should never happen!

This release also contains some bugfixes which allow it to run on a wider range of systems.

All downloaded files are now verified by their SHA-1 checksums.

New versions of various packages are supported.

2009-03-08 – Release 2.4

Download | Changelog

This release provides many new libraries such as wxWidgets, GTK+ and OpenEXR.

In addition, new versions of various packages are supported.

2009-02-09 – Release 2.3

Download | Changelog

This release fixes some serious build problems on FreeBSD and MacOS-X.

The Makefile has a new target "clean-pkg" and allows to be called from a separate build directory via "make -f .../Makefile".

Some new versions of the packages are supported, especially GCC-4.3 by switching from MinGW GCC to TDM-GCC.

2009-01-31 – Release 2.2

Download | Changelog

This release fixes some minor build problems.

It also supports some new packages and some newer versions of the already supported packages.

Parallelization is now disabled by default.

2008-12-13 – Release 2.1

Download | Changelog

This release fixes a download error caused by the GDAL project. They suddenly changed their download URLs. That sort of thing should never happen!

In addition, some newer versions of various packages are supported.

There is also a small compatibility fix for OS X.

2008-11-10 – Release 2.0

Download | Changelog

The shell script has been rewritten as Makefile and supports partial builds and parallel builds.

As usual, this release also supports some new packages and some newer versions of the already supported packages.

2008-01-11 – Release 1.4

Download | Changelog

This release now includes a tutorial by Hans Bezemer and has improved compile options of FLTK. As usual, it supports some newer versions of the libraries.

At the request of its author, libowfat is no longer supported from this release on.

The script now uses a specific SourceForge mirror instead of randomly chosen ones, because the download phase often stumbled on some very slow mirrors.

2007-12-23 – Release 1.3

Download | Changelog

A sudden change in the download URLs of GEOS made the automatic download fail. Such changes should never happen! But it happened, and this quick release is an attempt to limit the damage.

This release also supports some newer versions of the libraries including support for fontconfig-2.5.0.

2007-12-13 – Release 1.2

Download | Changelog

This release is a switch from gcc-3 to gcc-4. It also supports a new library and some newer versions of the already supported libraries.

2007-07-24 – Release 1.1

Download | Changelog

This release is the result of the public attention the release 1.0 got. It contains many improvements suggested by its first users, and adds support for many new libraries.

Thanks to Rocco Rutte who contributed many code snippets.

2007-06-19 – Release 1.0

Download | Changelog

This first release has been created in a 7-day-sprint.

2007-06-12 – Project start

See also

This project

Related projects

Related articles

Projects which use mingw-cross-env