From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: GNU Software for MS-Windows and MS-DOS
Date: 17 Nov 2000 12:15:33 GMT
Organization: Aachen University of Technology (RWTH)
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

[Matt: could you please try to use a news/mail agent that supports
proper quoting of stuff you reply to? It's really a mess you're making
out of it, at the moment. Thank you.]

Matt Lewandowsky <matt DOT l AT techie DOT com> wrote:

[This paragraph actually is from Eli:]
> To support all these (and other) features adequately on every OS, the
> CD actually has 2 ports of each package: the DJGPP port and the Cygwin
> port.  The former should be used on DOS, Windows 9X/ME, and DOS
> emulators such as OS/2 and DOSEmu, the latter on native MS-Windows
> from Windows 95 and up.
> <SNIPPED REST>

[This from Matt:]
> Here's my real reason for replying: Will there be Mingw ports? If not,
> why? 

Well, that's of course for the FSF to decide, but I doubt there will
be; the problem being that MinGW is really a lot more Windows-centric
than Cygwin.  I.e. MinGW is better for porting native Windows programs
to GCC than for native Unix programs being ported to Windows.  The GNU
software collection is mainly Unix-native, so most of them will work
considerably better with Cygwin than with MinGW. MinGW just doesn't
provide enough of POSIX compatibility to be able to support any of the
more advanced GNU programs. 

Gcc works, since it's essentially limited to bare C features, but I've
yet to see a 'make' or 'gdb' compiled with MinGW that really
works. Let alone an Emacs. That may be because I haven't looked
closely at this, in recent times, though.

> Just curiosity. All 3 have their own distinct advantages. And, so, I
> have all 3. (Wish I didn't need to, but... It _is_ kinda cool to have 3
> different gcc versions compiling at once. That impresses the geekiest
> of friends... ;)

Actually, you don't really need the MinGW compiler to compile using
MinGW, any more. Cygwin has swallowed an instance of MinGW quite a
while ago (at version beta20, I think). It's sort of a cross-compiler:
It's Cygwin-hosted, but builds MinGW programs.

[ObDJGPP: Last I looked, Cygwin was still a long shot behind DJGPP in
terms of daily usability. Their bash port is just about useless for
interactive work, IMHO.]
-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.