Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Bob Cochran]

Hi,

In case you're not familiar with it, OpenOCD is a hardware debugger that 
natively runs on Linux:  http://openocd.org/

We use it for embedded hardware development in debugging our ARM and 
FPGA code via JTAG (e.g., set breakpoints, step through code, etc.).   
For our use, it interfaces to our hardware via an FTDI USB-based JTAG 
controller.

We recently wrote up our process on building OpenOCD using Cygwin on 
Windows 10 and shared it on the OpenOCD mail list.   And, I received the 
following feedback:

"Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a 
(pre)historic solution."

I personally have been using Cygwin for many years and have come to 
trust it for interfacing to Linux and macOS boxes from Windows.  I think 
it's a great project, so when I wanted to build & run OpenOCD from 
scratch, I naturally went to Cygwin.

I would appreciate any feedback on our use of Cygwin for building & 
running OpenOCD: https://mindchasers.com/dev/openocd-darsena-windows

If fellow Cygwin users think it's a poor use case, then we'll pull the 
article.

Thanks!

Bob



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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[LRN]

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On 19.05.2019 22:43, Bob Cochran wrote:
> And, I received the 
> following feedback:
> 
> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a 
> (pre)historic solution."
> 
> I personally have been using Cygwin for many years and have come to 
> trust it for interfacing to Linux and macOS boxes from Windows.  I think 
> it's a great project, so when I wanted to build & run OpenOCD from 
> scratch, I naturally went to Cygwin.
> 
> I would appreciate any feedback on our use of Cygwin for building & 
> running OpenOCD: https://mindchasers.com/dev/openocd-darsena-windows
> 

Cygwin allows you to compile programs written for *nix (specifically - for
Linux) with [almost] no changes to the source code, producing Windows
executables that run on Windows. That is achieved by using a compatibility
runtime (the Cygwin DLL).

This is useful if:
1) The code you're compiling is not Windows-compatible (i.e. can't be compiled
with MinGW against MinGW SDK).
2) You're OK with a dependence on Cygwin runtime
3) You're OK with a possible performance hit that the runtime incurs. The
amount of the performance you lose varies; might be negligible; might be
significant - depends on what the code does.

I grepped OpenOCD code, and it seems to me that it is Windows-compatible
(README.Windows even says so explicitly). In that case you should probably
cross-compile it to Windows (see autotools documentation on cross-compilation).
You *can* cross-compile from Cygwin, but cross-compiling from *nix will be
wa-a-ay faster.

You can also use MSYS2 to compile it on Windows (without doing
cross-compilation). Most likely the process won't be any faster than
cross-compiling from Cygwin.

Since OpenOCD uses autotools, these are your only options (if it were using
CMake or Meson, you might have been able to build at least the binaries with
just MinGW-w64 SDK and the buildsystem; but for autotools you need a
fully-functional POSIX shell, meaning Cygwin, MSYS2 or the real *nix shell
running on *nix).

There's also the modern, "hip" way of using Windows POSIX subsystem (these days
it's called "WSL", i think?) to run the necessary tools, but don't see any
significant practical advantages to doing that (you still can't get zero-cost
fork this way), whereas ethical ramifications might be significant.


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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-05-19 13:43, Bob Cochran wrote:
> In case you're not familiar with it, OpenOCD is a hardware debugger that
> natively runs on Linux:  http://openocd.org/
> 
> We use it for embedded hardware development in debugging our ARM and FPGA code
> via JTAG (e.g., set breakpoints, step through code, etc.).   For our use, it
> interfaces to our hardware via an FTDI USB-based JTAG controller.
> 
> We recently wrote up our process on building OpenOCD using Cygwin on Windows 10
> and shared it on the OpenOCD mail list.   And, I received the following feedback:
> 
> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
> (pre)historic solution."

Probably from someone who tried Cygwin a decade ago and never since, or possibly
from someone who never tried it, or from MS.

> I personally have been using Cygwin for many years and have come to trust it for
> interfacing to Linux and macOS boxes from Windows.  I think it's a great
> project, so when I wanted to build & run OpenOCD from scratch, I naturally went
> to Cygwin.

Ditto. If all you have access to is a Windows desktop, it's your only POSIX
compatible option. And as a distro Cygwin supports over 10k packages.
For interop from Windows to other boxes, Cygwin is a much lighter and more
integrated solution than a VM, and much more functional than WSL, as you can run
Unix daemons working as if Windows services, X and dependent window managers and
apps as on Unix, and develop and build them as well from their original source
code, using autotools or anything you'd use on another system.

> I would appreciate any feedback on our use of Cygwin for building & running
> OpenOCD: https://mindchasers.com/dev/openocd-darsena-windows
> 
> If fellow Cygwin users think it's a poor use case, then we'll pull the article.

Great use case: don't let grumpy commentators drag you down.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Erik Soderquist]

On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 3:44 PM Bob Cochran wrote:
<snip>
> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
> (pre)historic solution."

The words of the ignorant, in my opinion.  Cygwin has done an
excellent job of maintaining currency and usefulness.

<snip>
> I would appreciate any feedback on our use of Cygwin for building &
> running OpenOCD: https://mindchasers.com/dev/openocd-darsena-windows

I think the most important key question to ask is: does it work well
for you and your use case?

> If fellow Cygwin users think it's a poor use case, then we'll pull the
> article.

If it works well, I think it is a good use case.

-- Erik

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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Jose Isaias Cabrera]

Erik Soderquist, on Monday, May 20, 2019 10:16 AM, wrote...
>On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 3:44 PM Bob Cochran wrote:
><snip>
>> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
>> (pre)historic solution."
>
>The words of the ignorant, in my opinion.  Cygwin has done an
>excellent job of maintaining currency and usefulness.

Indeed.  I have been using cygwin since 1996-7.  Can't remember the exact year, but it has been God-sent, and it has been in every Windows machine I have had control.  Just my 0.02. Thanks.

josé

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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Bob Cochran]

On 5/20/19 10:27 AM, Jose Isaias Cabrera wrote:
> Erik Soderquist, on Monday, May 20, 2019 10:16 AM, wrote...
>> On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 3:44 PM Bob Cochran wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
>>> (pre)historic solution."
>> The words of the ignorant, in my opinion.  Cygwin has done an
>> excellent job of maintaining currency and usefulness.
> Indeed.  I have been using cygwin since 1996-7.  Can't remember the exact year, but it has been God-sent, and it has been in every Windows machine I have had control.  Just my 0.02. Thanks.


Thank you to everyone who has replied to my question whether this was a 
good use case for Cygwin!  It was great to read all of the replies and 
see that I'm in sync with this project & its users / developers.

As others have basically stated, it's like a Windows 10 Swiss Army knife 
- pull it out of your pocket when needed and get the job done without a 
hassle.

Bob



>
> josé
>
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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[LRN]

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On 20.05.2019 21:49, Bob Cochran wrote:
> On 5/20/19 10:27 AM, Jose Isaias Cabrera wrote:
>> Erik Soderquist, on Monday, May 20, 2019 10:16 AM, wrote...
>>> On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 3:44 PM Bob Cochran wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
>>>> (pre)historic solution."
>>> The words of the ignorant, in my opinion.  Cygwin has done an
>>> excellent job of maintaining currency and usefulness.
>> Indeed.  I have been using cygwin since 1996-7.  Can't remember the exact year, but it has been God-sent, and it has been in every Windows machine I have had control.  Just my 0.02. Thanks.
> 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has replied to my question whether this was a 
> good use case for Cygwin!  It was great to read all of the replies and 
> see that I'm in sync with this project & its users / developers.
> 

I've read the actual thread on OpenOCD ML, and i've looked at the links posted
there. I probably should have subscribed to OpenOCD ML, but i'm too lazy to do
so and will write here instead.

Basically, the thread had three participants:

*kristof mulier: wanted to get OpenOCD binaries for Windows, tried MSYS2, but
didn't get satisfactory results; posted a link to a guide for building OpenOCD
with MSYS2, written by some 3rd party
*you: posted a link to a guild for building OpenOCD with Cygwin
*Liviu Ionescu: pointed out that you should be using mingw-w64, said that
Cygwin is prehistoric

Liviu Ionescu seems to be a Microsoft fanboy, since he advocated for the use of
WSL (i already said earlier what i think of WSL). However, he wasn't wrong when
he said that you should use MinGW. If a piece of software can be built with
MinGW, then you generally should do so, unless there are specific reasons to
avoid that (compatibility, subtle porting bugs, etc). It seems to be the case
for OpenOCD.

kristof mulier seems to have weak developer-fu, and got a bit confused. The
MSYS2 guide that he used pointed to a MSYS2 package git repo, and kristof
assumed that the repo in question contained OpenOCD source code (which is
supposedly why he was getting an old version of OpenOCD compiled all the time).
That is not the case[0]. MSYS2 package repo contains small buildscripts for the
appropriate packages. The reason he was getting an old version is that the
version (git revision, in case of OpenOCD-git) is hardcoded into PKGBUILD file
(which he didn't edit, uncritically following the guide; the author of the
guide didn't concern himself with getting OpenOCD from lastest git master HEAD,
and thus didn't mention that detail).

Therefore i still sand on my advice: either cross-compile from Cygwin, or try
MSYS2 (the irony here is that your Cygwin guide describes *almost exactly* how
one can build OpenOCD from MSYS2).

[0]: at least, i assume so; i don't really use MSYS2 repos or its package
manager, therefore i could be mistaken


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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Jose Isaias Cabrera]

LRN, on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 01:55 PM, wrote...
>
>Therefore i still sand on my advice: either cross-compile from Cygwin, or try
>MSYS2 (the irony here is that your Cygwin guide describes *almost exactly* how
>one can build OpenOCD from MSYS2).

I have never heard of MSYS2. It looks interesting.  Thanks.

josé


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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Bob Cochran]

On 5/21/19 1:55 PM, LRN wrote:
> On 20.05.2019 21:49, Bob Cochran wrote:
>> On 5/20/19 10:27 AM, Jose Isaias Cabrera wrote:
>>> Erik Soderquist, on Monday, May 20, 2019 10:16 AM, wrote...
>>>> On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 3:44 PM Bob Cochran wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>>> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered a
>>>>> (pre)historic solution."
>>>> The words of the ignorant, in my opinion.  Cygwin has done an
>>>> excellent job of maintaining currency and usefulness.
>>> Indeed.  I have been using cygwin since 1996-7.  Can't remember the exact year, but it has been God-sent, and it has been in every Windows machine I have had control.  Just my 0.02. Thanks.
>>
>> Thank you to everyone who has replied to my question whether this was a
>> good use case for Cygwin!  It was great to read all of the replies and
>> see that I'm in sync with this project & its users / developers.
>>
> I've read the actual thread on OpenOCD ML, and i've looked at the links posted
> there. I probably should have subscribed to OpenOCD ML, but i'm too lazy to do
> so and will write here instead.


Thank you LRN for the excellent write up(s).   I'm going to summarize 
this and add it to our web article as alternatives to our approach.

Please also consider that Cygwin worked without a hassle and is on all 
of our PCs.   Time is tight and maybe I can be build a native Windows 
OpenOCD exe that works with our hardware, but maybe I can't without 
burning a lot of time.
At this point, we're good to go with Cygwin.  Also, I want students that 
we're working with to install Cygwin on their PCs.   I never bothered to 
learn complicated Power shell syntax & commands because I never needed 
to - just opened a Cygwin terminal instead.

And I'm reluctant to install other translation projects on my PC like 
MSYS2 and MinGW because of bloat, support, and security concerns.   Try 
to keep it as simple as possible!

But anyway, the main point of my email is to thank you for taking the 
time to write this up.

Bob


>
> Basically, the thread had three participants:
>
> *kristof mulier: wanted to get OpenOCD binaries for Windows, tried MSYS2, but
> didn't get satisfactory results; posted a link to a guide for building OpenOCD
> with MSYS2, written by some 3rd party
> *you: posted a link to a guild for building OpenOCD with Cygwin
> *Liviu Ionescu: pointed out that you should be using mingw-w64, said that
> Cygwin is prehistoric
>
> Liviu Ionescu seems to be a Microsoft fanboy, since he advocated for the use of
> WSL (i already said earlier what i think of WSL). However, he wasn't wrong when
> he said that you should use MinGW. If a piece of software can be built with
> MinGW, then you generally should do so, unless there are specific reasons to
> avoid that (compatibility, subtle porting bugs, etc). It seems to be the case
> for OpenOCD.
>
> kristof mulier seems to have weak developer-fu, and got a bit confused. The
> MSYS2 guide that he used pointed to a MSYS2 package git repo, and kristof
> assumed that the repo in question contained OpenOCD source code (which is
> supposedly why he was getting an old version of OpenOCD compiled all the time).
> That is not the case[0]. MSYS2 package repo contains small buildscripts for the
> appropriate packages. The reason he was getting an old version is that the
> version (git revision, in case of OpenOCD-git) is hardcoded into PKGBUILD file
> (which he didn't edit, uncritically following the guide; the author of the
> guide didn't concern himself with getting OpenOCD from lastest git master HEAD,
> and thus didn't mention that detail).
>
> Therefore i still sand on my advice: either cross-compile from Cygwin, or try
> MSYS2 (the irony here is that your Cygwin guide describes *almost exactly* how
> one can build OpenOCD from MSYS2).
>
> [0]: at least, i assume so; i don't really use MSYS2 repos or its package
> manager, therefore i could be mistaken
>


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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Andrey Repin]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8, Size: 749 bytes --]

Greetings, Bob Cochran!

> And I'm reluctant to install other translation projects on my PC like
> MSYS2 and MinGW because of bloat, support, and security concerns.   Try 
> to keep it as simple as possible!

In case of Cygwin and MinGW, all you would be installing is cross-compilers'
toolchain.
Then you run make from Cygwin, specifying correct target, and get a native
Win32 executabe at the end.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Thursday, May 23, 2019 0:26:40

Sorry for my terrible english...\x03B‹KCB”\x1c›Ø›\x19[H\x1c™\^[ܝ\x1cΈ\b\b\b\b\b\b\x1a\x1d\x1d\x1c\x0e‹ËØÞYÝÚ[‹˜ÛÛKÜ\x1c›Ø›\x19[\Ëš\x1d^[[\x03B‘TNˆ\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\x1a\x1d\x1d\x1c\x0e‹ËØÞYÝÚ[‹˜ÛÛKÙ˜\KÃB‘^[ØÝ[Y[\x18]\x1a[ÛŽˆ\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\x1a\x1d\x1d\x1c\x0e‹ËØÞYÝÚ[‹˜ÛÛKÙ^[ØÜËš\x1d^[[\x03B•[œÝXœØÜšX™H\x1a[™›Îˆ\b\b\b\b\b\x1a\x1d\x1d\x1c\x0e‹ËØÞYÝÚ[‹˜ÛÛKÛ[\vÈÝ[œÝXœØÜšX™K\Ú[\^[\x19CBƒB

Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-05-22 15:28, Andrey Repin wrote:
> Bob Cochran wrote:>> And I'm reluctant to install other translation projects on my PC like>> MSYS2
and MinGW because of bloat, support, and security concerns. Try >> to keep it as
simple as possible!> In case of Cygwin and MinGW, all you would be installing is
cross-compilers'> toolchain.> Then you run make from Cygwin, specifying correct
target, and get a native> Win32 executabe at the end.
First you have to check that you have all the library build dependencies you
need available in mingw64-x86_64-... packages, and install them (they install
into /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/{lib,include} directories), and the
related mingw64-x86_64-binutils, which go in the same tree, then configure the
build to use those cross-tools, similar to how you would do an ARM cross-build
on x86 Linux.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.

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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-05-22 15:28, Andrey Repin wrote:
> Bob Cochran wrote:
>> And I'm reluctant to install other translation projects on my PC like MSYS2
>> and MinGW because of bloat, support, and security concerns. Try to keep it
>> as simple as possible!> In case of Cygwin and MinGW, all you would be installing is cross-compilers'
> toolchain. Then you run make from Cygwin, specifying correct target, and get
> a native Win32 executable at the end.

First you have to check that you have all the library build dependencies you
need available in mingw64-x86_64-... packages, and install them (they install
into /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/{lib,include} directories), and the
related mingw64-x86_64-binutils, which go in the same tree, then configure the
build to use those cross-tools, similar to how you would do an ARM cross-build
on x86 Linux.

[tbird munged previous attempt to post - retrying...]
-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-05-22 15:28, Andrey Repin wrote:
> Bob Cochran wrote:
>> And I'm reluctant to install other translation projects on my PC like
>> MSYS2 and MinGW because of bloat, support, and security concerns. Try 
>> to keep it as simple as possible!
> In case of Cygwin and MinGW, all you would be installing is cross-compilers'
> toolchain.
> Then you run make from Cygwin, specifying correct target, and get a native
> Win32 executable at the end.

First you have to check that you have all the library build dependencies you
need available in mingw64-x86_64-... packages, and install them (they install
into /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/{lib,include} directories), and the
related mingw64-x86_64-binutils, which go in the same tree, then configure the
build to use those cross-tools, similar to how you would do an ARM cross-build
on x86 Linux.

[tbird munged previous attempts to post - last try!]
-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.

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Re: Is our use of Cygwin to build & run OpenOCD a good one?

[Achim Gratz]

Bob Cochran writes:
> We recently wrote up our process on building OpenOCD using Cygwin on
> Windows 10 and shared it on the OpenOCD mail list.   And, I received
> the following feedback:
>
> "Cygwin? this is probably still functional, but now can be considered
> a (pre)historic solution."

More likely a fossilized memory of a very old Cygwin by that commenter.

> I personally have been using Cygwin for many years and have come to
> trust it for interfacing to Linux and macOS boxes from Windows.  I
> think it's a great project, so when I wanted to build & run OpenOCD
> from scratch, I naturally went to Cygwin.
>
> I would appreciate any feedback on our use of Cygwin for building &
> running OpenOCD: https://mindchasers.com/dev/openocd-darsena-windows
>
> If fellow Cygwin users think it's a poor use case, then we'll pull the
> article.

It works, you don't have to jump through burning hoops to get there and
it helps you out for when you have to use a Windows box.  So, all around
a good use-case, really.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptation for Waldorf Blofeld V1.15B11:
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