Re: Building Win32 apps on Linux? (To Cygwin users on the list...)

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 10:04:01AM +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
>I've never really paid much attention to the Cygwin talk on this list 
>before, but now I'm involved in a project where it may be used...
>
>So, what is it all about? Where does cross-gcc come into the picture in 
>the context of Cygwin? Is any of you lot you for instance 
>cross-compiling Cygwin apps under Linux?

The intent of Cygwin is that you should be able to take linux source
code and compile it with minimal changes.

It is possible to create a linux -> mingw compiler, too.  MinGW binaries
do not rely (by default) on any nonnative shared libraries (aka "DLLs")
unlike Cygwin binaries which rely on cygwin1.dll.  Since MinGW binaries
do not use the cygwin DLL, there is only a very limited amount of "POSIX"
functionality available.  MinGW binaries are faster than Cygwin binaries,
however.  Porting an application to pure windows (MinGW) requires learning
about the win32 API whereas porting to Cygwin should little or no understanding
of Win32.  Depending on your application, you might have to learn about some
of the workarounds in Cygwin (like binary or text mode for files) which are
required for operation in the Windows environment.

To answer your specific question, the Cygwin DLL and it's accompanying
utilities are all built on linux with a cygwin cross environment.

Cygwin info: http://cygwin.com/
MinGW info:  http://mingw.org/

--
Christopher Faylor			spammer? ->	aaaspam@sourceware.org
Cygwin Co-Project Leader				aaaspam@duffek.com
TimeSys, Inc.

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