Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] Questions / Bugs?

[Tony Theodore]

Hi Thomas,

On 10 August 2011 02:32, Thomas Dineen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Gentle People:
>
>   I just over the last few days successfully tried out your MinGW Cross
> environment
> and overall I was favorably surprised! Very good quality software over all!

Glad you've had some success so far, however, I suspect there's some
misunderstanding about what mingw-cross-env does. It provides a
cross-compiler so that you can build win32 binaries on a unix-like
system.

> However I have I have some questions and possible bugs to report:
>
> 1) When building source RPMs:
> a) How are the patch files installed? By hand? Or automatically by the make
> build?
> If manually what command is used and in what directory? Example?

Not sure what you're asking here, if you were going to use source
RPMs, you'd have to extract the base distribution and basically ignore
any of the other patches that are in the RPM.

> 2) What is the best way to get source tarballs for this environment?
> Linux Source RPMs or directly from the home page website?
> Are there issues with Linux Source RPMS?

The best way is to use tarballs from each project's website. The issue
with RPMs is that they contain Linux specific patches/scripts/fhs etc.
- all of which are inapplicable to mingw-cross-env. There's also a
chance that the sources will be broken into separate packages,
possibly missing key build components.

> 3) How are the lower level makefiles for the individual packages created
> by hand or with a tool? I with a tool: What tools is used and in what
> directory?

Package makefiles are created by hand, see here for details:

http://mingw-cross-env.nongnu.org/#creating-packages

Unfortunately, even the simplest cases (atkmm, expat) can't be
automated, though there is much common ground between packages.

> 4) Build Bugs:
> a) libpng needs update to version libpng-1.5.4.tar.xz

This is updated in the development version and will be in the next release

> b) Package "old" not found at specified URL, no response from Web Site

This happens, and we use alternate download sites when possible
(though not in this case). The site seems to be up again now.

> 5) Your directions do not seem to cover installation of the files in the
> MinGW environment!
> What is the best or most convenient location to install the files?
> How do you install the files? By hand with cp or is there a better tool?
> if yes please specify a tool.

Everything is "installed" under the directory you unpacked/moved the tarball.

> How do you configure you linking environment for both headers and libraries
> to
> access the new libraries?
> You may want to update you directions to cover installation.

See here for installation/configuration steps:

http://mingw-cross-env.nongnu.org/#tutorial

Note that the prefixed versions of the toolchain (i686-pc-mingw32-gcc
etc.) are aware that they're cross-compilers and can find the relevant
headers/libraries.

> 6) Critical Bug:
> Pkg-config / libpng Bug: See Below: Seems to keep pkg-config from working!
>
> pkg-config --libs --cflags cairo gtk+-
> Package 'libpng' has no Name: field

You need to use the prefixed pkg-config:

$ export PATH=/home/tdineen/mingw-cross-env-2.21/usr/bin:$PATH
$ i686-pc-mingw32-pkg-config --libs --cflags cairo gtk+-2.0

The tutorial linked above has a section(4) on environment variables.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Tony