mingw-cross-env discussion list

Alois Schlögl | 4 Jul 2012 22:56

[Mingw-cross-env-list] cross-compiler for linux (?)


Recently, I've tested Tony's mxe, which supports multiple targets 
(i686-static, i686-dynamic, and x86_64-static).  It looks very good and 
both static version are working fine for me.
I'm wondering how easy it would be to include support for other target, 
I'm thinking about an experimental gnu/linux target.

I hear you asking why would one like to do that. The advantage would be 
to have simple cross-compiler framework, that works with more recent 
software than installed on a typical stable system. A typical use case 
would be a project requires qt 4.7.x, but it's not available (yet) on 
debian/stable. Instead of building the whole toolchain for the latest 
dependencies, one could use the mxe framework.

Admittingly, this might use case might not be the most important one, 
because the alternative doing by hand on linux is not that difficult. 
But it could still demonstrated the power of MXE is a multi-target 
cross-compiler framework.

Alois

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Tony Theodore | 1 Jan 2013 22:42

Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] cross-compiler for linux (?)

Hi Alois,

Apologies for the belated reply.

On 05/07/2012, at 6:56 AM, Alois Schlögl
<alois.schloegl@...> wrote:

> 
> Recently, I've tested Tony's mxe, which supports multiple targets (i686-static, i686-dynamic, and
x86_64-static).  It looks very good and both static version are working fine for me.

Thanks for the feedback.

> I'm wondering how easy it would be to include support for other target, I'm thinking about an experimental
gnu/linux target.

It should be fairly easy from an infrastructure and compiler viewpoint, but I wouldn't even know what the
equivalent of mingw headers/runtime are on a gnu/linux system.

> I hear you asking why would one like to do that. The advantage would be to have simple cross-compiler
framework, that works with more recent software than installed on a typical stable system. A typical use
case would be a project requires qt 4.7.x, but it's not available (yet) on debian/stable. Instead of
building the whole toolchain for the latest dependencies, one could use the mxe framework.

I used to do something similar to keep FreeBSD/Open Solaris/OSX/Ubuntu in sync, but with native builds
instead. The simplest example of a native build is:

make -C /path/to/mxe sqlite sqlite_DEPS= PREFIX=~/mxe-native-test TARGET=

Then check the resulting binary:

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