Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Jesper Eskilson]

Hi!

I'm trying to get my hands on some up-to-date info on what the
difference (if any) is between building binaries using Cygwin's gcc
with the -mno-cygwin flag and using the Mingw32 suite. Mumit Khans
-mno-cygwin howto seems a little bit out-of-date.

/Jesper
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Jesper Eskilson                                         jojo@virtutech.se
Virtutech                                         http://www.virtutech.se
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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)]

At 07:24 AM 8/30/2001, Jesper Eskilson wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I'm trying to get my hands on some up-to-date info on what the
>difference (if any) is between building binaries using Cygwin's gcc
>with the -mno-cygwin flag and using the Mingw32 suite. Mumit Khans
>-mno-cygwin howto seems a little bit out-of-date.
>
>/Jesper
>-- 


The difference is in the build environment, not the result.  If you 
like using Cygwin based tools (make, grep, sed, etc), use Cygwin's gcc
and -mno-cygwin to target Win32 without cygwin1.dll.  Otherwise, use 
the Mingw toolset.


Larry Hall                              lhall@rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      http://www.rfk.com
118 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
Holliston, MA 01746                     (508) 893-9889 - FAX


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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Gerald W. Shapiro]

see www.mingw.org

gerald



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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Paul G.]

On 30 Aug 2001 at 13:24, the Illustrious Jesper Eskilson wrote:

> 
> Hi!
> 
> I'm trying to get my hands on some up-to-date info on what the
> difference (if any) is between building binaries using Cygwin's gcc with
> the -mno-cygwin flag and using the Mingw32 suite. Mumit Khans
> -mno-cygwin howto seems a little bit out-of-date.

	That is likely because it is.  What is at Mumit Khans site is legacy Mingw32 materials.  
The latest evolution of Mingw and the appropriate links to download that evolution can be found, 
as noted by another respondent, at http://www.mingw.org

	Paul G.

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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Jesper Eskilson]

"Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <lhall@rfk.com> writes:

> The difference is in the build environment, not the result.  

According to the FAQ, support for the -mno-cygwin flag "has been weak
and flaky, [...] and maintenance of the option has *not* been a
priority in development", and the FAQ recommends that one uses a
separate MingW compiler set. Is this accurate?

/Jesper
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Jesper Eskilson                                         jojo@virtutech.se
Virtutech                                         http://www.virtutech.se
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RE: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[David Carter]

Jesper Eskilson wrote:
> According to the FAQ, support for the -mno-cygwin flag "has been weak
>and flaky, [...] and maintenance of the option has *not* been a
>priority in development", 

I would tend to agree with this.

>and the FAQ recommends that one uses a
>separate MingW compiler set. Is this accurate?

I would differ here. gcc & binutils in cygwin seem to be updated to
track new gnu releases more quickly. Cygwin also provides a much richer
build environment than does mingw.

While you could use the mingw compiler & linker with cygwin, as
recommended by some on the web, by placing them ahead of the cygwin
tools in your path, you are almost certain to run into issues with
dos/windows file paths vs. unix-style paths.

Here's what I recommend:
- use the cygwin tools, passing -mno-cygwin to the compiler (& linker? I
do it to be sure, but not sure if it's required)
- use the mingw headers & libraries -- download them from mingw, and
copy or symlink them into your cygwin /usr/include/mingw and
/usr/lib/mingw directory trees. This is absolutely required if you're
doing anything with c++ that you want to run on win32 without the
cygwin1.dll

I've build some fairly complex c++ programs, libraries, and frameworks
using this approach. I've been very satisfied with the results, and with
the great build tools available on cygwin, such as gnu make, autoconf,
automake, etc.

---
David Carter
david@carter.net




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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Jesper Eskilson]

"David Carter" <david@carter.net> writes:

> While you could use the mingw compiler & linker with cygwin, as
> recommended by some on the web, by placing them ahead of the cygwin
> tools in your path, you are almost certain to run into issues with
> dos/windows file paths vs. unix-style paths.

Since our build-environment is already adapted to use other non-cygwin
compilers (such as Visual C++ and Intel C), this is not a real
problem. We wrap all non-cygwin programs in a script which does all
the conversions for us.

/Jesper
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Jesper Eskilson                                         jojo@virtutech.se
Virtutech                                         http://www.virtutech.se
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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Christopher Faylor]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 07:30:16AM -0400, David Carter wrote:
>Jesper Eskilson wrote:
>> According to the FAQ, support for the -mno-cygwin flag "has been weak
>>and flaky, [...] and maintenance of the option has *not* been a
>>priority in development", 
>
>I would tend to agree with this.

I'm not sure what FAQ is referring to this but it is rather
disappointing to hear that all of the work I've put into getting this
right is considered "weak" and "flaky".

For instance, I recently added code to binutils to allow isolation of
the various required libraries so that -mno-cygwin can only use mingw
and w32api libraries.

The only lack that I'm currently aware of is C++.  I have asked for
someone to send me a drop in libstdc++.a library for the current cygwin
version of gcc.  I don't think that anyone has taken me up on that
offer.

>>and the FAQ recommends that one uses a
>>separate MingW compiler set. Is this accurate?
>
>Here's what I recommend:
>- use the cygwin tools, passing -mno-cygwin to the compiler (& linker? I
>do it to be sure, but not sure if it's required)
>- use the mingw headers & libraries -- download them from mingw, and
>copy or symlink them into your cygwin /usr/include/mingw and
>/usr/lib/mingw directory trees. This is absolutely required if you're
>doing anything with c++ that you want to run on win32 without the
>cygwin1.dll

Hopefully most of the mingw headers and libraries are the same as
the ones in the current cygwin release.  If they aren't, they should
be updated.

Basically, I have been saying that -mno-cygwin is not something that I
enjoy working on since it is rather diametrically opposed to my main
cygwin activities.  However, I *have* spent a lot of time trying to
get it right, mainly because I don't like to release code that only
half works.

One of the reasons that I haven't released gcc 3.0* is that I would have
to patch the preprocessor to handle some of my "hacks" and the
preprocessor has changed drastically since 2.95.*.

cgf

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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[James Youngman]

"David Carter" <david@carter.net> writes:

> - use the cygwin tools, passing -mno-cygwin to the compiler (& linker? I
> do it to be sure, but not sure if it's required)

As an (off-topic) aside, I noticed recently that it makes a difference
whether you pass -O to the preprocessor or not, but it appears that
autoconf doesn't know that (configure doesn't pass the -O to the
preprocessor) and glibc behaves differently (G<IBC 2.2.3 #defines
printf, for example).


(this test on GCC 2.96, but I initially noticed it with GC 2.95.3
under Cygwin 1.3.2.) 

bash-2.04$ diff <(cpp -dM -E - < /dev/null ) <(cpp -dM -O4 -E - < /dev/null) 
11a12
> #define __OPTIMIZE__ 1

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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[Paul G.]

On 31 Aug 2001 at 8:50, the Illustrious Jesper Eskilson wrote:

> 
> "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <lhall@rfk.com> writes:
> 
> > The difference is in the build environment, not the result.  
> 
> According to the FAQ, support for the -mno-cygwin flag "has been weak
> and flaky, [...] and maintenance of the option has *not* been a priority
> in development",

	This is clearly wrong.  What might be more accurate is that very few people involved with 
Cygwin have much desire to support -mno-cygwin switch useage, even though many people use 
the -mno-cygwin switch.

	Also, will someone correct me if I am wrong?  If I remember correctly, the Cygwin 
repository is updated fairly regularly with the latest Mingw release, specifically to facilitate the -
mno-cygwin switch.

> and the FAQ recommends that one uses a separate MingW
> compiler set. Is this accurate?

	It is recommended that use Mingw as a standalone tool because of the nature of Mingw 
(see http://www.mingw.org for more on this) being created as a "native" windows development 
tool.  If you don't know what a "native" windows development tool is then you may want to find out 
_before_ you start using -mno-cygwin under Cygwin.

	If you're not concerned about "native" windows development, then Cygwin is (without the -
mno-cygwin switch), far and away, the best choice when it comes to general porting of formerly 
Unix or Linux source code to be built within a Windows (Win32api not withstanding) Environment.
	Cygwin is also extremely friendly to former or current Unix developers (thus the reason 
why some say, with good reason I might add, that Cygwin is a "rich development environment").

	As to a separate MingW compiler set, there is no such thing.  The latest release of Mingw 
includes gcc-2.95.3 as one of its' compilers.

	Paul G.

> 
> /Jesper
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Jesper Eskilson                                    jojo@virtutech.se
> Virtutech                                    http://www.virtutech.se
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> 
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> 



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Re: Up-to-date info on '-mno-cygwin' vs. Mingw32

[David Starks-Browning]

There is a Cygwin FAQ entry

	"How do I compile a Win32 executable that doesn't use Cygwin?"

which I will expand based on this thread.  Maybe that will help in the
future.

Thanks to those who explained the situation in more detail than I've
seen before.

Cheers,
David
(Cygwin FAQ maintainer)


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