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MXE: Windows cross-compile environment for Unix

115 points by blacksqr 10y ago

amckinlay 10y ago
How are pthreads supported on Windows?
- rossy 10y ago
  mingw-w64 comes with a pthreads implementation that works on top of the Windows API: https://github.com/mirror/mingw-w64/tree/master/mingw-w64-libraries/winpthreads/src https://github.com/mirror/mingw-w64/tree/master/mingw-w64-li...
frik 10y ago
Has anyone looked at the screenshot section? Is that Windows 98 and a photo from a CRT screen? Looks like a pretty old page.
- blater 10y ago
  From the history page: 2007-06-12 – Project start It's pretty cool seeing these long lived projects going from strength to strength
- skoczymroczny 10y ago
  Wow. To be honest, that's what most "Windows screenshots" look like for non-Windows projects. For some reason people have an aversion to newer versions of Windows and Aero is usually disabled for screenshots. Similar thing is when people call GUI like here: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Qdbsi.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/Qdbsi.png "windows native"
sounds 10y ago
I did not see anywhere on http://mxe.cc http://mxe.cc that said it compiled Windows binaries?
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  You are right, the authors are carrying on the grand web tradition of making whole sites about how great "Foo" without ever saying what Foo is. But it is difficult to imagine what is compiled by the MingGW toolchain other than Windows binaries. Arguably the table entries "i686-w64-mingw32" and "x86_64-w64-mingw32" also explicitly name Windows, in a very cryptic, GNU-specific way.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    If anyone wants to improve the website, open an issue on https://github.com/mxe/mxe https://github.com/mxe/mxe or raise a pull against the gh-pages branch.
- hausen 10y ago
  It's not very clear, but in Supported Toolchains, there is "Runtime: MinGW-w64."
adrianratnapala 10y ago
This is potentially very useful. Especially because it comes "batteries included" by cross compiling some important cross-platform libraries. My experience with C and C++ is that, as great as the differences between Windows and Unix APIs are, the real friction comes from the differences in compilers and toolchains. There is much good to be said about Visual Studio. But if you are interested in cross-platform, it is probably a lot easier to maintain a single Unix-based build system as long as you have an easy way to test the products under Windows.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  The problem with cross-compiling is that one always requires the complete set of libraries to target, which in the end at least for desktop and server systems is much more convenient to have a VM instance for it than a cross-compiler.
FiloSottile 10y ago
Related, here is a one-click-install OS X to Linux cross compiler, based on musl libc and its Makefiles. https://github.com/FiloSottile/homebrew-musl-cross https://github.com/FiloSottile/homebrew-musl-cross $ brew install FiloSottile/musl-cross/musl-cross
- rogerdpack 10y ago
  nice, I hope it gets merged into mainline :)
adamkruszewski 10y ago
Um, you need screenshots for a cross-compiler? :)
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Any excuse to show off that sweet Titanic98 wallpaper!
richel 10y ago
I am using MXE happily for a couple of years already (some projects I've cross-compiled are here: http://richelbilderbeek.nl/CppMxe.htm http://richelbilderbeek.nl/CppMxe.htm ). IMHO it is awesome! Before MXE, I had a Windows computer with the only purpose to compile my code on. Life is better now.
pwdisswordfish 10y ago
How is that better than just installing the MinGW cross-compiler (and setting PKG_CONFIG_PATH) on my own?
baq 10y ago
I've used this 5 years ago, back when it was called mingw-cross-env - it worked great.
rwmj 10y ago
Fedora has been doing this since 2008: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW Apparently there are now 222 cross-compiled Windows packages: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/mingw-%2A/ https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/mingw-%2A/ (Disclaimer: I was involved with this project at the beginning, but I've not used it for a while)
Keyframe 10y ago
Now, if we could only get OSX C/C++ programs to compile/use libraries,frameworks on Linux... then we could have one build VM for them all.
bfuller 10y ago
At first I thought this was about the research chemical designer drug that was very popular but recently completely disappeared due to a ban in china
- coredog64 10y ago
  Corporate WebSense agrees with you and blocks my access for that reason.
markuman 10y ago
GNU Octave is using it for its windows binaries.
AndyKelley 10y ago
I use MXE to build libsoundio releases for Windows. It works wonderfully.
__b__ 10y ago
Any similar projects aimed at compiling Linux binaries on non-Linux Unix? (Excluding qemu, etc.) Some non-Linux Unix have Linux emulation and can translate a subset of Linux syscalls. Perhaps it could be in a chroot with all the needed Linux libraries and utils. But I am curious if there have been existing projects aimed at this goal.
IsmaOlvey 10y ago
If you're on Gentoo, sys-devel/crossdev is useful for creating cross-compilers.

115 points by blacksqr 10y ago

amckinlay 10y ago

How are pthreads supported on Windows?

rossy 10y ago
mingw-w64 comes with a pthreads implementation that works on top of the Windows API: https://github.com/mirror/mingw-w64/tree/master/mingw-w64-libraries/winpthreads/src https://github.com/mirror/mingw-w64/tree/master/mingw-w64-li...

frik 10y ago

Has anyone looked at the screenshot section? Is that Windows 98 and a photo from a CRT screen? Looks like a pretty old page.

blater 10y ago
From the history page: 2007-06-12 – Project start It's pretty cool seeing these long lived projects going from strength to strength
skoczymroczny 10y ago
Wow. To be honest, that's what most "Windows screenshots" look like for non-Windows projects. For some reason people have an aversion to newer versions of Windows and Aero is usually disabled for screenshots. Similar thing is when people call GUI like here: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Qdbsi.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/Qdbsi.png "windows native"

sounds 10y ago

I did not see anywhere on http://mxe.cc http://mxe.cc that said it compiled Windows binaries?

adrianratnapala 10y ago
You are right, the authors are carrying on the grand web tradition of making whole sites about how great "Foo" without ever saying what Foo is. But it is difficult to imagine what is compiled by the MingGW toolchain other than Windows binaries. Arguably the table entries "i686-w64-mingw32" and "x86_64-w64-mingw32" also explicitly name Windows, in a very cryptic, GNU-specific way.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  If anyone wants to improve the website, open an issue on https://github.com/mxe/mxe https://github.com/mxe/mxe or raise a pull against the gh-pages branch.
hausen 10y ago
It's not very clear, but in Supported Toolchains, there is "Runtime: MinGW-w64."

adrianratnapala 10y ago

This is potentially very useful. Especially because it comes "batteries included" by cross compiling some important cross-platform libraries. My experience with C and C++ is that, as great as the differences between Windows and Unix APIs are, the real friction comes from the differences in compilers and toolchains. There is much good to be said about Visual Studio. But if you are interested in cross-platform, it is probably a lot easier to maintain a single Unix-based build system as long as you have an easy way to test the products under Windows.

pjmlp 10y ago
The problem with cross-compiling is that one always requires the complete set of libraries to target, which in the end at least for desktop and server systems is much more convenient to have a VM instance for it than a cross-compiler.

FiloSottile 10y ago

Related, here is a one-click-install OS X to Linux cross compiler, based on musl libc and its Makefiles. https://github.com/FiloSottile/homebrew-musl-cross https://github.com/FiloSottile/homebrew-musl-cross $ brew install FiloSottile/musl-cross/musl-cross

rogerdpack 10y ago
nice, I hope it gets merged into mainline :)

adamkruszewski 10y ago

Um, you need screenshots for a cross-compiler? :)

kalleboo 10y ago
Any excuse to show off that sweet Titanic98 wallpaper!

richel 10y ago

I am using MXE happily for a couple of years already (some projects I've cross-compiled are here: http://richelbilderbeek.nl/CppMxe.htm http://richelbilderbeek.nl/CppMxe.htm ). IMHO it is awesome! Before MXE, I had a Windows computer with the only purpose to compile my code on. Life is better now.

pwdisswordfish 10y ago

How is that better than just installing the MinGW cross-compiler (and setting PKG_CONFIG_PATH) on my own?

baq 10y ago

I've used this 5 years ago, back when it was called mingw-cross-env - it worked great.

rwmj 10y ago

Fedora has been doing this since 2008: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW Apparently there are now 222 cross-compiled Windows packages: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/mingw-%2A/ https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/mingw-%2A/ (Disclaimer: I was involved with this project at the beginning, but I've not used it for a while)

Keyframe 10y ago

Now, if we could only get OSX C/C++ programs to compile/use libraries,frameworks on Linux... then we could have one build VM for them all.

bfuller 10y ago

At first I thought this was about the research chemical designer drug that was very popular but recently completely disappeared due to a ban in china

coredog64 10y ago
Corporate WebSense agrees with you and blocks my access for that reason.

markuman 10y ago

GNU Octave is using it for its windows binaries.

AndyKelley 10y ago

I use MXE to build libsoundio releases for Windows. It works wonderfully.

__b__ 10y ago

Any similar projects aimed at compiling Linux binaries on non-Linux Unix? (Excluding qemu, etc.) Some non-Linux Unix have Linux emulation and can translate a subset of Linux syscalls. Perhaps it could be in a chroot with all the needed Linux libraries and utils. But I am curious if there have been existing projects aimed at this goal.

IsmaOlvey 10y ago

If you're on Gentoo, sys-devel/crossdev is useful for creating cross-compilers.