MinGW = minialist GNU gcc for Windows

[Windozer]

" MinGW, a contraction of "Minimalist GNU for Windows", is a port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), and GNU Binutils, for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows applications. [...] for cross-hosted use on Unix or GNU/Linux, [... uses ...]  Microsoft's standard system DLLs to provide the C-Runtime and Windows API.  [...]  a complete Open Source programming tool set which is suitable for the development of native MS-Windows applications, and which do not depend on any 3rd-party C-Runtime DLLs."

- http://www.mingw.org/

Just came across this today.

If you'd tried it, I'd like to know what you think, how it went.

thanks,
- Howard 

[rbistolfi]

Hi Windozer. I never tried MinGW, but I did see some projects releasing code ready for it. I think that it is a great project, there is no reason to restrict your code to a single platform or architecture. I would love to see more and more Foss for Windows (there is quite a lot of them already).

[Windozer]

Hi Rodrigo,

yes, this is indeed a great idea. Just got this going on my win-based laptop. The MSYS stuff is wonderful! Here's a list of the GNU routines you can run *directly* in windows without a VM or cygwin!   Pretty sweet, eh?  Note the sh.exe

C:\DL\msys\bin>ls *.exe
basename.exe  cp.exe       env.exe    grep.exe     install-info.exe  make.exe      od.exe     sed.exe    tail.exe      true.exe
bzip2.exe     cut.exe      expr.exe   gzip.exe     install.exe       makeinfo.exe  patch.exe  sh.exe     tar.exe       uname.exe
cat.exe       date.exe     false.exe  head.exe     less.exe          md5sum.exe    ps.exe     sleep.exe  tee.exe       uniq.exe
chmod.exe     diff.exe     find.exe   id.exe       ln.exe            mkdir.exe     rm.exe     sort.exe   texindex.exe  vim.exe
cmp.exe       diff3.exe    fold.exe   info.exe     ls.exe            mount.exe     rmdir.exe  split.exe  touch.exe     wc.exe
comm.exe      dirname.exe  gawk.exe   infokey.exe  m4.exe            mv.exe        rxvt.exe   stty.exe   tr.exe        xargs.exe

[rbistolfi]

Woha rxvt? I have been looking for a good terminal for windows for years. The Putty console is good but I dont know how to run some stuff on it besides the ssh stuff. That list lookd real good for the basic tasks, some times cygwin is a bit overkill.

[Windozer]

rxvt works, but it's odd ... I don't have any paths set, just running it from my download dir where I unpacked it ( C:\DL\msys\bin )

look at this output ...

Code:

c:\DL\msys\bin>rxvt
sh-2.04$
sh-2.04$pwd
/usr/bin

funny thing is I don't have a /usr/bin  - or rather, \usr\bin :-)

It also seg faulted the first time I clicked into the term window... cute but not ready for prime time, I'd say... worth noodling with however.

- H