Free Windows 32bit compilers?

[JedClampett]

Hi all. If I wanted to port some GPL'd Linux applications to Windows 32 bit, are there any free compilers to do this with please? Thinking of things like C & C++ IDE's, Pascal.

TIA,

Jed

Edited October 20, 2011 by JedClampett

[CoffeeFiend]

If I wanted to port some GPL'd Linux applications to Windows

I think you'll soon discover it's not always too simple. From the different subsystems used, completely different libraries available, things that aren't covered by the language being quite different (e.g. for C++ code, posix threads being different than Windows', requiring the Pthreads-w32 lib), many things which work rather differently (no fork), compiler incompatibilities (even across different compilers on the same OS!), etc. For simple command line tools it might be pretty simple and quick but for fancy GUI apps it might be quite the undertaking. Not that I really know of any useful apps that run on Linux but not on Windows or that don't have equivalents...

As far as C and C++ compilers, the best 2 are commercial (Microsoft's and Intel's), and others like C++ builder are also commercial. You're mostly left with minority and open-source compilers like DJGPP.

Edit: others point cygwin and mingw but when you're essentially installing linux and gcc under windows, but that's where I stop to call it porting. You might as well just run Linux in a virtual machine...

[endlessness]

You might want to try Cygwin. Many Linux/UNIX applications will readily build on it, though they will not behave like native Windows applications (you will need X11, for example).

[allen2]

Cygwin is the classical way and will give you almost a complete linux distrib compiled to run under windows but you might prefer mingw (it is my preferred choice) or djgpp but this last one is more Dos oriented.

[JedClampett]

Thanks for the replies. So I might just put these ideas to one side for now. Obviously I want it to remain a native Windows environment, so any Apps I make will run on other users native Windows paltforms.

Jed

[allen2]

Just for the record, Mingw allow you to compile binaries without any need of libraries dependencies and most of the time your compiled binaries will work on any win32 OS without the need of any specific dll.

Edited October 22, 2011 by allen2

[jaclaz]

Only seemingly OT and just for the fun of it :

http://reboot.pro/15207/

Generally speaking mingw compiled apps are far "better" (in the sense of more compact, more easibly deployable) than Cygwin ones, though.

The main thing IMHO is, if you are going to distribute the Source code, that you also detail WHICH exact compiler you used and the exact way the thingy has to be compiled.

Whenever possible try NOT to use a zillion of stupid do-it-all .dll's.

jaclaz

[JedClampett]

Generally speaking mingw compiled apps are far "better" (in the sense of more compact, more easibly deployable) than Cygwin ones, though.

Thanks jaclaz. I'll take a look at mingw ASAP.

Jed