Re: mingw and other gotchas in gcc 3.1

[Charles Wilson <cwilson at ece dot gatech dot edu>]

Christopher Faylor wrote:

>    So, maybe I should rename the old version to gcc2 or release a version
>    of 2.95.3 that names the binaries (i686-pc-cygwin-gcc2) differently.
>    Any thoughts?

I like this.  'gcc' ought to the the ongoing, 'current' package.  If 
folks want the old version, the option of installing 'gcc2' alongside, 
and calling 'i686-pc-cygwin-gcc2' sounds like a good plan.



> 2) I'm trying to remove most of the spec file magic that dealt with
>    mingw and I think I've actually been pretty successful.  However,
>    my new scheme relies on changing the machine name from i686-pc-cygwin
>    to i686-pc-mingw.  

Hmmm...I think the official triplet (in the latest 
config.sub/config.guess files) is i686-pc-mingw32 NOT -mingw.



> 4) Since mingw is becoming so logically separated from gcc, it is possible that
>    it could become a separate package.  So, if "someone" was willing to supply
>    a gcc-mingw package, it would actually be helpful.  I don't think I could
>    stand the pain of making this optional, so the gcc package would rely on
>    the gcc-mingw package rather than the other way around. This would allow
>    updating libgcc.a and libstdc++.a without requiring a new release of gcc.
>    Hmm.  I wonder if I should break libstdc++.a out of the gcc package.  Urgh.
>    Any suckers (cough) want to contribute a separate package?

Are you considering 'gcc-mingw' to be just those mingw bits necessary 
for cygwin's gcc to compile mingw programs (err, I thought that was what 
mingw-runtime and w32api were for), or is 'gcc-mingw' to be a 
cygwin-hosted, mingw-target cross compiler, with separate binaries from 
cygwin's "real" gcc?

I like the latter -- but (1) I'm worried about cygwin's ability to 
self-host if so... and (2) a "real" cross compiler would need its own 
version of binutils, unless you do clever symlinking things...

Anyway, I've got cygwin-host, mingw-target setup-compatible gcc (2.95.3) 
and binutils packages up at 
http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/users/cwilson/cygutils/testing/

These install into /opt/mingw and do some fancy footwork with mount 
points in the postinstall script, but that could all be adjusted to 
match your preferred directory scheme, Chris.

The point: (a) I'm not brave enough to try to recreate these from the 
gcc-3.1 release (b) but much of the packaging work is already done, if 
(c) someone else wants to take the packaging scripts + gcc-3.1 and run 
with it.

IFF Chris is talking about a cross compiler.  I'm not sure he is, yet.

--Chuck