Cross compilation - V8 and Linux on Windows - c++

I am trying to embed Google's V8 in my game engine. I'm targeting 3 operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X.
I haven't had any problems with building for Windows - I used NuGet packages. But I'm trying to build V8 for Linux and the problem is - I'm doing this on Windows (Windows 10 if it matters).
Google doesn't exactly say how to compile V8 for Linux using Windows and now I'm really confused, as I have no idea. So far I have depot_tools, properly fetched v8 (using fetch command), Python and MinGW.
I've tried with v8gen.py, but it seems that it generates build files only for Visual Studio. As I said, I don't need VS files.
My question is: What should I do?

This is not possible out-of-the-box with the current build tools and configurations that V8 provides. As suggested in the comments, using a VM might be the quickest way to get this working for you.
If it is very important for you long-term, or for other developers as well, you could look at submitting patches to V8 to make this possible, but I don't have a good sense of how much work that would be.

Related

What tool should I use to create my buildmachine?

I am working on my free time on a multiplatform/multi-architecture library written in C++.
Before every release, I have to boot up several computers (One on Windows, one on Linux, another one on Mac OS, ...) just to make sure the code compiles and runs fine on every platform.
So I decided to create my own buildmachine but I really don't know what tools exist to do this. I'd like my buildmachine to run on Linux but any other solution will be accepted.
Ideally, I would just have to click on a "Build all" button, and it would compile my library for the different platforms/architectures, generate archives from the result and/or report potential errors.
My project "constraints" are:
It is written in C++
It compiles on Windows using SConstruct/MinGW and Visual Studio 2010
It compile on Linux and Mac OS using SConstruct/g++
The sources are stored into Subversion (svn)
Do you know any tool/set of tools that could help me achieving my goal ?
Thank you very much.
I would setup 3 VMs (VirtualBox is free), one for each platform.
Install TeamCity (or Hudson) on Linux and agents on the other VMs and then it's just a matter of configuring the build system.
At the very basic level you should have 2 tasks: one to checkout the sources from Subversion and another to invoke scons.
I'm not too familiar with Hudson but TeamCity is certainly capable of generating reports of a build, display progress etc.

Does wxwidgets use rosetta in Mac?

While deciding for a cross platform language for a desktop application I want to do, I came across "wxwidgets" for C++. After testing a demo application in Mac 10.6.4 I noticed the application needed "Rosetta" to run.
My concern is: Will I always need "Rosetta" for a C++ application with wxwidgets to run on a Mac?
Note: Latest news about Mac dropping support for Java in future OS release (hoping Oracle will pickup were left) and the upcoming App Desktop Store will not support apps requiring Rosetta.
You can create Universe Binaries with wxWidgets. My guess is that your demo application was only compiled for PPC. (Which seems weird, actually. Was the app you tried one you built yourself from examples/, or just one you downloaded off the web?).
I've built Universal apps in wxWidgets both in Xcode (the easiest way to do it), and I believe it's not that hard with a Makefile on the command line. (you make the ppc version, make the intel version, and use the lipo command line tool to squash them together.)

Costs and benefits of Linux-like Windows development environment

I'm taking an Introduction to C++ this semester, so I need to set up development environments in both my Windows and Ubuntu partitions (I switch between them). I was planning to use GCC in both environments for consistency and because I plan to do my serious C++ developing in Linux with GCC.
It appears that installing MSYS and MinGW is the best way to use GCC and replicate my Linux dev environment. However, just setting up MSYS and MinGW in Windows appears to be a long and arduous process, and I'm imagining that I will have limitations or compatibility problems in the future.
Do the benefits of setting up a MSYS Linux-like development environment on Windows outweigh the costs?
Will I be able to use all the libraries that I could if I were using Visual C++?
I think you're going about this the wrong way - I would actually suggest you use Visual Studio on the Windows environment, rather than going out of your way to setup GCC. It's a benefit, not a drawback, to run your code on multiple compilers from multiple vendors.
Both GCC and Visual Studio are highly conformant (at least recent versions). You won't have any trouble with standard libraries and going between them, and if you do have trouble, it's probably an issue in your code.
I've always installed cygwin on Windows. To me, Windows is completely unusable without it. I've never really run into problems with DLLs mentioned above. However, I've also rarely used the GCC compiler, so I don't know how it compares to Visual Studio for general programming. For anything with a Windows GUI or Dot Net based, I would definitely stick with Visual Studio.
If you stick with the automated installer, MinGW installation is not painful at all. Unfortunately, that currently gives you GCC 3.4.5, rather than the newer 4.4.0 release that they also provide sans installer.
In reality, for course work, 3.4.5 will be just fine, I imagine.
Use gcc on Ubuntu and Visual Studio on Windows to get exposure to both. This is an intro course so Windows, Linux, Visual Studio, gcc are just the tools you need to master C++ and data structures. Mastering the tools will come over time and they will change.
I personally develop for windows using a pure Linux environment using mingw-gcc on Linux to cross-compile for windows.
I put a tutorial on how to set it up for OpenSSL/Qt4 # http://www.limitlessfx.com
Do you do this to get .exes or just to be able to work on both OSes?
If you feel more comfortable with GCC than VC, setting up Mingw/Cygwin is possible but doesn't give you any new functionality (beside .exes). Instead, I suggest you turn one of your partitions into a virtual machine - this way you can have both OSes open at once! (My personal choice is Windows inside Linux, YMMV.)
The benefit of developing on Linux is ready availability of tons of development tools and libraries. Also, big builds are noticably faster.
Since you said "I plan to do my serious C++ developing in Linux with GCC", VC++ may not be what you really want. Many libraries just don't compile well in VC++. Try some yourself. Instead, consider running Linux on Windows. There are several ways to do this:
Use PuTTY to connect to a Linux machine, and use Xming to see the UI windows. I would only do this over a LAN.
Consider coLinux. You can run Linux under Windows and just shut-off Linux when you are done.
Consider other virtualization options like VMWare to run Linux. Pretty much the same as coLinux, but it might be easier to setup.
You may even want to install Linux directly on your machine. You can always use tools like Wine or VMWare to run Windows if you need it.

Which install system to pick when deploying to Windows and Linux?

My company is thinking of dumping InstallShield and move to something else, mainly because of the poor experience it had with it, mostly on Linux.
Our product is a C++ application (binaries, shared libraries) targeted at Windows and Linux (Red Hat).
The installer itself isn't required to do anything special, just dump some binaries and shared libraries and sometime execute an external process. Things like version upgrading through the installer isn't necessary, this is handled after the installer finishes.
I thought of suggesting using NSIS on Windows and RPM on Linux.
What are the recommended installer systems to use when deploying to Windows/Linux? Something that is cross platform to prevent maintaining two installers is a definite plus.
For Windows I would definitively use NSIS. It's very lightweight, easy to code and very simple to understand. Using msis would just be a killer - it generates guid for every file so you can get upgrades for free and stuff but truth being said, you never end up using any of these.
Regarding Linux I would go for RPM and Deb. They're probably the two biggest packaging system so you'll be targeting most of the Linux users. I've never tried RPM but creating a Deb package is fairly straightforward.
See also:
What to use for creating a quick and light setup file?
Packaging to use to deploy cross-platform?
And even:
Creating installers for complex cross-platform programs
There's a tool called BitRock Installer which can create installers for Windows, Linux and OS X.
However, I think that if you target RedHat it would be better to provide native packages for that platform (that is .rpm).
For C++ projects, I'd go with cmake/cpack, if you are also willing to change your build system. Great support, strongly cross-platform. cpack has various generators, NSIS is one..
Take a look at InstallJammer. It will handle both platforms from the same build project, and you can have the installer register the package with the RPM database as well if that's your requirement.
You may want to consider our tool BitRock InstallBuilder , it can generate installers for Windows and Linux from a single project file and also RPMs. Is your application based on Qt? Our clients include the makers of Qt, Nokia (previously Trolltech) and they use it to package their Qt Creator product. We encourage to give InstallBuilder a try and contact our support with any questions or suggestions you may have.

C++ development for Linux on Windows

I am trying to setup a development environment for Linux C++ application. Because I'm limited to my laptop (vista) which provides essential office applications, I want to program and access email, word at the same time.
I'd prefer a local Windows IDE. SSH to a company linux server and using VI doesn't seem productive to me. Even using some IDE installed on the linux server doesn't seem good to me, because I can't do the work at home.
So does Eclipse CDT + MinGW work for me, or is there any other choice?
Thanks.
ZXH
Why not install a Linux virtual machine on your laptop, in VMware or similar? That way you can test while you're developing too.
You can also try http://cygwin.com/
Is it a GUI app? And do you have to target Linux specifically? If not, Qt (http://trolltech.com/) may be something that you can use. It would allow you to more or less develop your whole application on Windows, and then spend a few hours on a linux machine getting the whole thing ported...
Qt is the best choice. I develop with tis tool for a long time. And you can develop with the same ide : QtCreator and the same framework : Qt on MacOS, Linux based or Windows plateform...
Moreover, specifically on Linux, Qt is well integrated with Kdevelop !
If you have Visual Studio, which I feel is an excellent IDE, you can try to set it up to use GCC/G++. I've done this before, back in the Visual Studio 6 days. As long as you aren't using any Windows-specific libraries and write portable C++, you can compile and test on Windows, then periodically ensure that the code also compiles properly for Linux.
Another approach, one that I actually prefer, is to host your source and make files on the Linux box, share the files through Samba, then use your Windows IDE/text editor to edit those files. Then, you can do the compiling through an SSH terminal. Sure, you'd lose the convenience of being able to compile through your IDE, but at least you wouldn't have to muck around getting the compiler set up on Windows.
If you have a linux server available to you, you could also use NX to log in graphically, and use a Linux IDE there like Code::Blocks, or shudder Eclipse. Of course, there's nothing unproductive about shelling in and using VIM. I find it's a good way to shake out the IDE-induced cobwebs every now and again. Happy coding however you end up doing so!
I use (and recommend) Netbeans for C/C++ Development together with Cygwin to develop POSIX applications on Windows that will run on Linux/Solaris later on.
It is pretty easy to setup as long as you stick to the stable version of Cygwin.
I was in a similar position 2-3 years ago and tried several approaches, but the only one that really worked wor me was vim+ssh (+gdb, make, svn, etc). But again, I use vim even for Windows development.
This slideshow (PDF) walks through how to set up a cross compiler from Windows to Linux.