Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

[Vishal Agrawal]

I am working to port a part of glibc to windows. Can anyone help me
with their progress or write about how hard it is. With no changes it
is listing:

*** The GNU C library is currently not available for this platform.
*** So far nobody cared to port it and if there is no volunteer it
*** might never happen.  So, if you have interest to see glibc on
*** this platform visit
***     http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/porting.html
*** and join the group of porters

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vishal Agrawal <vishal4556@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 18:56:02 +0530
Subject: Fwd: Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix
system (windows)
To: libc-ports@sourceware.org

I am working to port a part of glibc to windows. Can anyone help me with
their progress or write about how hard it is. With no changes it is listing:

*** The GNU C library is currently not available for this platform.
*** So far nobody cared to port it and if there is no volunteer it
*** might never happen.  So, if you have interest to see glibc on
*** this platform visit
***     http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/porting.html
*** and join the group of porters

Re: Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 04/05/2013 09:30 AM, Vishal Agrawal wrote:
> I am working to port a part of glibc to windows. Can anyone help me
> with their progress or write about how hard it is. With no changes it
> is listing:
> 
> *** The GNU C library is currently not available for this platform.
> *** So far nobody cared to port it and if there is no volunteer it
> *** might never happen.  So, if you have interest to see glibc on
> *** this platform visit
> ***     http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/porting.html
> *** and join the group of porters

Nobody that I know of in the community is working on a Windows
port of glibc.

Even a minimal port would be difficult because glibc supports
only ELF and for a Windows port you'd have to extend everything
to support an alternate binary format e.g. PE, with all of the
differences that that entails. You might try to use a PE stub
to run the dynamic loader which can then load ELF files.

A full port to Windows would require expert level knowledge
to complete and would be considerable work, probably on the
order of a year of full-time work by said expert.

You would likely end up duplicating much of what is already
in cygwin to provide all of the functionality required by POSIX.

Why not consider using cygwin?

Cheers,
Carlos.

Re: Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Friday 05 April 2013 10:44:37 Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> Why not consider using cygwin?

at least recommend mingw instead of cygwin :)
-mike

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Re: Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 04/05/2013 04:09 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Friday 05 April 2013 10:44:37 Carlos O'Donell wrote:
>> Why not consider using cygwin?
> 
> at least recommend mingw instead of cygwin :)

You're right, mingw + msys might be enough for the
users requirements.

You must keep in mind that mingw's design is to
provide an open source build environment for windows
development and not a portability layer. Though the
mingwex runtime has some portability functions to
aid in the transition, it still just using the Windows
C runtime.

Cheers,
Carlos.

Re: Has anyone progressed/tried to port glibc to non posix system (windows)

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Friday 05 April 2013 18:32:04 Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 04/05/2013 04:09 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > On Friday 05 April 2013 10:44:37 Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> >> Why not consider using cygwin?
> > 
> > at least recommend mingw instead of cygwin :)
> 
> You're right, mingw + msys might be enough for the
> users requirements.
> 
> You must keep in mind that mingw's design is to
> provide an open source build environment for windows
> development and not a portability layer. Though the
> mingwex runtime has some portability functions to
> aid in the transition, it still just using the Windows
> C runtime.

that's why you use gnulib w/mingw :)
-mike

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