Subject: Combining mingw32 + cygwin32 [Re: problem with EGCS on gun-win32 b18!! HELP]
From: [email-masked] (Mumit Khan)

7 Jan 1998 16:39:06 -0800
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To: [email-masked]

On Mon, 15 Dec 1997 [email-masked] wrote: 
> Dumping egcs right over gnu-win32 b18 is probably idea, given that others
> seem to be having trouble as well. One thing to watch out for is that you
> CANNOT use import libraries (eg., kernel32.a or libcygwin32.a) that were
> created with b18 tools. You must use the egcs supplied ones.

Correct. The reason is that the binutils component that comes with egcs is
different than in b18 and mixing will not work. To make matters worse, we
are probably going to go through *another* link-incompatibility stage
before it all settles. But then again, the Gnu-Win32 b19 will warrant that
as well, so I'm not going to sweat it. Beta software ...

> 
> That's interesting.  The first version of ming were compatible with kernel32.
> I wonder why it is necessary to have two separate setups, one cygwin and one
> mingw32, when the cygwin ./configure and make capabilities are so much better
> at this time.  It seems to make more sense to have ming as an auxiliary system,
> and use the cygwin tools to run ming.
> 

Mingw32 *is* compatible with kernel32. In fact, in my own setup, I just
use the same import libraries for both cygwin32 and mingw32. I believe
everybody agrees that the distributions should be merged in some manner,
but I don't have time nor the incentive to do it. Volunteers welcome of
course. Currently, I have two separate trees and I just "configure ...;
make ...; make install;  + few tweaks via shell scripts" and I have a
native distribution built on a linux box. 

Be aware however that combining the two distributions does have its
drawbacks if you want to run the same binaries. The DIR_SEPARATOR and
PATH_SEPARATORS are different in Gnu-Win32 and Mingw32, and there're good
reasons why that is so. Also, the native mingw32 gcc and company runs an
order of magnitude faster than the cygwin32 counterparts. 

One possible suggestion has been to change the directory hierarchy in
mingw32 the same as cygwin32 (with H-i386-cygwin32 and H-i386-mingw32),
and at least you can dump both under /usr; of course, you still have two
copies of the same files such as the import libraries unless you fiddle
with it afterwards, making sure your LIBRARY_PATH is set correctly.

Mumit

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