Difference between the windows installation of minGW64 and the MSYS2 shell installed version of minGW64 - c++

I have been using the minGW64 compiler with Visual studio code on windows for some time. However, there are certain limitations to it when it comes to certain libraries. The absence of a make tool and the inability to execute a config script while compiling a c++ program being the main ones. I came to know of MSYS, a tool provides a UNIX environment that allows us to do certain things that are forbidden by the windows terminal. I installed it but I saw that I need to install mingw64 again, from within the terminal to use it with MSYS2.
My question is, is there no way I can use my earlier mingw copy with this installation of MSYS2? Is there some difference between the mingw64 that comes with MSYS2 and the standard installation?

Related

What is an easy way to install a unix terminal with a C++ mingw compiler?

I'm going to teach students to use SFML with C++, and I'm afraid the school doesn't have visual studio C++ installed, or will be a bit heavy to use for those students.
I want to have a plan B and have the option of a simple makefile that I can build on windows with SFML.
https://www.sfml-dev.org/download/sfml/2.5.1/ this page offers binaries compiled with different, specific versions of mingw with their respective mingw package links, unfortunately mingw doesn't include an unix terminal, like the one included with git-bash, so I can run a makefile.
What are the steps required to have a problem unix terminal, running in windows, minsys, msys2 or not, that can work well with those mingw packages? I have trouble finding help or proper instructions.
You want https://www.msys2.org/
It provides bash terminal and already contains mingw compiler. Perhaps it even has SFML packages already.

I am trying to install MinGW but it's always failing to install

I am trying to install MinGW but it's always failing to install.
on windows 7
link of the program:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/latest/download
Tar zips are not generally for windows users the downlink should be a windows installer mingw-get-setup.EXE thus (not a GnuZip)
Also if your trying to unpack 32bit collections the question is which architecture do you need, certainly 32.exe will run on 64, but 64.exe will NOT work on 32.
Current build is 32bit "Although (currently) offering only a 32-bit compiler suite, all of MinGW's software will execute on the 64bit Windows platforms."
get it from official https://osdn.net/projects/mingw/releases/
latest link I got was
https://osdn.net/frs/redir.php?m=liquid&f=mingw%2F68260%2Fmingw-get-0.6.3-mingw32-pre-20170905-1-bin.zip
once you have a valid windows .zip file, right click to "extract" then the exe should be in the bin folder.
Then it's just you on your own, and the myriad of instructions from google.
MinGW is a compiler generating files for the Windows platform, but MinGW itself can also be run on other platforms (like Linux for example).
What you need is are Windows binaries of MinGW.
But MinGW is a bit outdated and only supports 32-bit Windows.
I would really recommend using MinGW-w64.
Standalone build of MinGW-w64 for Windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit) are available at https://winlibs.com/ just download the archive and extract it. Then all the tools you need will be in the mingw32/bin or mingw64/bin folder.
If you're not very familiar with command line tools you should really use an IDE. There are some instructions on https://winlibs.com/ on how to use MinGW-w64 with Code::Blocks.
If on the other hand you are very familiar with command line or the Linux shell you should take a look at MSYS2 which also allows installing MinGW-w64 with it's pacman tool.

"Cannot execute binary file" when running compiled c++ programs with Eclipse on Ubuntu for Windows platform

I would like to move from Visual Studio on Windows platform to Eclipse on Ubuntu for c++ development, since I develop almost all my programs on Java, with Eclipse, and I just use a Windows virtual machine in order to develop C++ programs for Win OS. So if I would be happy being able to not use Windows VM at all. However, I've managed to configure MinGW and Eclipse successfully enough to compile programs, but not to execute them.
Steps I've gone through so far:
I've installed mingw32 package and dependencies:
$ sudo apt-get install mingw32
I've installed Eclipse Mars for C/C++ development (manually, to keep this installation isolated from other Eclipses I have) and created a new project in this way:
- New C++ project.
- [...]
- Cross-prefix: i586-mingw32msvc-
- Cross path: /usr/bin/
With this configuration I'm able to correctly build a .exe which I can successfully execute on Windows, but when trying to debug it or execute it under Eclipse I get this error: "cannot execute binary file".
Googleing I've seen some posts suggesting to use wine in order to execute the .exe, but I thought mingw32 would be able to execute it. Am I wrong and this is not possible or just doing something wrong?
Mingw32 is a windows compiler, and will compile source to a Windows executable file. Additionally, the compiler cannot execute files (as worded in the question), it just compiles the source code to an executable form, in this case the windows executable (*.exe). So yes, in order to run the .exe in Ubuntu you would need something like Wine which emulates a Windows environment
mingw is a set of GNU tools for building native Windows executables.
It does not execute anything.
If you really want to cross-compile for Windows, you need Windows or an emulator for the execution.
To build for Ubuntu you can just use the native compilers.
sudo apt-get install gcc

Eclipse Ganymede and MinGW in Windows

I'm trying to get eclipse to work with MinGW.
I've done the following:
Downloaded CDT for eclipse.
Installed MinGW.
Added C:\MinGW\bin to my path.
Opening a command prompt (CMD) and typing g++ or alike works fine.
I run eclipse, create a "New C++ Project", and only get the option saying "other toolchains".
There's a MILLION tutorials out there saying eclipse should identify MinGW on its own. It doesn't, and I don't know what to do. I've tried reinstalling everying in just about every order posible. Still no luck.
I've also noted some tutorials say something about creating a "Managed C++ Project". I've no such option, all I get is "C++ Project" and "C Project"
edit:
I have eclipse ganymede, windows x86_64, version 3.4.2
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.4.2-200902111700/index.php
Running the "Eclipse IDE for C/C++ developers" fails, since there's no x64 version for windows. The x86 version requires x86 JAVA installed as well, and installing two versions of java, gave nothing but trouble in the past.
The instructions for setting up MinGW in Ganymede are located here.
The following are instructions and
links on how to install the current
version of MinGW. Note that these
links may become inaccurate over time
as new versions of MinGW components
are introduced. Please check the MinGW
File Release section for the latest
versions.
Download and run the MinGW setup program, MinGW-5.1.3.exe.
Select download and install the MinGW base tools and the g++ compiler.
You may select the Current or
Candidate version of these tools. You
may also install any of the other
available compilers as well.
Do not install the MinGW Make feature as the MSYS version of make
from step 5 is a more complete
implementation of make.
The MinGW setup program currently does not install the gdb
debugger. To install the debugger,
download the file from the following
location: gdb-6.6.tar.bz2
Extract the contents of the file gdb-6.6.tar.bz2 to the same location
where you installed MinGW.
If you want to use Makefile projects, download and run the setup
program from the following location:
MSYS-1.0.10.exe. MSYS provides an
implementation of make and related
command line tools. This is not
required for other types of projects
with the MinGW toolchain, which use
CDT's internal build tools to perform
the build.
Following this process resolved any problems I had.
I had the same exact problem with Eclipse Galileo and CDT 6.0.1. It turns out that CDT only recognized MinGW when it's located under c:\mingw. I had it in c:\msys\mingw so that was the problem. After I changed that everything worked fine.
The distinction between managed make projects and makefile project was removed in CDT 4.x, I think. Now there is only one type of project, but you can select different builders. CDT includes an internal builder which does not use makefiles and another one which does.
First, save yourself the effort of "reinstalling in every order possible". That is also known as trial-and-error, and will only make you more frustrated. Apply the normal problem-solving skills you have as a programmer.
Given that you have MinGW installed, what happens if you download "Eclipse IDE for C/C++ developers", start eclipse.exe, and try to create a C++-project with a MinGW toolchain?
EDIT: remember: the key in getting help with problems like these is to produce a minimal example which fails. Also, it would help if you provided URLs to the packages you installed (MinGW, Eclipse, etc.).
EDIT: I just installed CDT using the Ganymede update site, downloaded and installed MinGW from here, and restarted Eclipse, and everything worked fine. I know that doesn't help you, but it does prove that the toolchain detection isn't completely broken. Something is weird on your side.
You could try Wascana Desktop Developer. Its a distribution of Eclipse CDT configured specifically for developing on Windows.
I had the same problem (i.e. Eclipse not finding MinGW on the PATH) after I removed some of the unused files/folders from MinGW. It was ~600 MB and I was tasked to trim it down before adding to source control. I got it down to a workable ~200 MB. When I tried to re-create an Eclipse workspace afterwards, MinGW disappeared from available toolchains. It reappeared after I put the original MinGW install on the path.
HTH

Adding gdb to MinGW

I've gone to http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2435, downloaded the Automated MinGW Installer for MinGW 5.1.4 and at the same time the GNU Source-Level Debugger Release Candidate: GDB 6.8-3. I've then installed MinGW base tools into C:\MinGW. No problem so far.
However when I come to install the gdb debugger it has a lot of files and folders with the same names as some already installed but the files are different to those already installed. e.g C:\MinGW\include\bfd.h is 171 KB but gdb-6.8-mingw-3\include\bfd.h is 184 KB.
How do I add gdb to MinGW without breaking what's already installed?
In a command prompt I browsed to C:\MinGW\bin and ran:
mingw-get.exe install gdb
That fixed it for me. Not sure if it matters but I have C:\MinGW\bin in my path (guess I probably didn't need to browse to C:\MinGW\bin).
The Current Release (5.2.1) version of gdb at the project files page has always worked for me. The download is a stand-alone .exe, you don't need anything else.
But I'll bet the .exe in the 6.8 package will work, too. I'd try using just the .exe, and then if there are problems, try extracting the other files from the 6.8 package. (Though that may cause problems with the rest of the MinGW installation.)
Update: There seems to be a 7.something version. I haven't tested it thoroughly, but it seems to work, even with gcc 3.
Get Wascana Desktop Developer. It combines MinGW, gcc, Eclipse and gdb in one package.
You can safely overwrite the files prepackaged with MinGW with the (newer) ones from the gdb tarball. You can also choose not to overwrite them - just make sure to pick either one set, i.e. avoid mixing files from the older and the newer package.
Most of the offending files are probably not really relevant to you anyway. For example, the files belonging to the libbfd library aren't required for gdb's day to day operation, they're used if you want to extend the debugger or write debugging tools yourself.
At any rate, make a backup of the mingw directory before untarring the new release. It's very easy since MinGW is self-contained in that directory. That way, if anything should malfunction, you can just delete the directory and restore from the backup.
Usually for installing gdb in windows, You have to 2 ways to install:
1) use ready-made binaries that were build and compiled from GNU gdb by some provider (easy to install)
use TDM-GCC binaries provided from the following URL and that is including inturn the gcc complier and also gdb debugger.
http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/
use Equation package inside which GNU GDB was already compiled and built.
http://www.equation.com/servlet/equation.cmd?fa=gdb
2) use minimal mingw or cygwin package then after install gdb inside it.
Install either mingw or cygwin inside which GDB is already shipped
Open cygwin or mingw terminal and just type the following to make sure it is already installed
$ gdb --version
Hint: if you did not find gdb installed, simply open the cygwin or mingw package installer and make sure you already check gdb
Hint: getting and installing a debug build of the OHRRPGCE is providing useful information about crashes.
From cygwin or mingw terminal, Start gdb using the following
c:\mingw\bin\gdb.exe program_to_debug.exe
REF: http://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/GDB_on_Windows
The TDM GCC/MinGW32 builds installer includes gdb. It's gcc 4.4.x with all the core binary packages required for basic Windows development, and is widely used without any unusual problems.