[sword-devel] cross-compile sword Linux -> Windows

[Matthew Talbert]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Jonathan Marsden<jmarsden at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> David Haslam wrote:
>
>> Suggest add a new section to the new wiki page.
>>
>> http://www.crosswire.org/wiki/Tutorial:Compiling_%26_Installing_SWORD
>> Tutorial:Compiling & Installing SWORD
>
> I think a new page may be more appropriate, since there is all kinds of
> setup info for mingw and the various preequisite libraries and tools which
> need documenting too :)

Not only that, but everything would be different based on which linux
distribution you're using, whether you're using MinGW from that
distribution, or the *official* MinGW distribution, or the mingw-64
distribution. It would vary depending on which compiler any of the
above is using. Currently, due to the fragmented MinGW community, you
could be using any one of the following compilers:

gcc 3.4.5 patched for MinGW
gcc 4.4.0 official "alpha" version for MinGW
gcc 4.3.x-dwarf/slj packages from TDM (which is what I use on Windows,
hopefully will be able to upgrade soon)
gcc 4.2.1-slj the cross-compiler that comes when you install mingw in Ubuntu

All of these have their own host spec, none of which agree with the
other. My point in all of this is, that I have no interest in
maintaining detailed instructions for doing this, nor for helping
people do it from scratch other than the most basic advice. There just
aren't consistent instructions that would apply to every situation. I
have considered creating a virtual machine that would have everything
set up properly, and distributing that, but presently I haven't
attempted to cross-compile ICU, which I fear will be as difficult as
it was to do on Windows.

> Maybe we need a tree of similar pages, one for doing this on Linux, one for
> crosscompiling for Windows on Linux, one for native Windows compilation, one
> for native OSX compiliation, etc.

For Windows, you can easily compile with Visual Studio if that suits
your purpose, or we have just created an installer that will install a
complete environment for building SWORD and Xiphos with MinGW. I have
tried to maintain instructions before, but it is just too difficult to
do it in enough detail that it can be followed. We're still polishing
the installer, but if there is interest I can add instructions for
using it once we get it finished.

Matthew