Re: How to compile MXE-Octave via MinGW on Windows

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

----- Original Message -----

> From: "tmacchant
> To: lutzmager
> Cc: 
> Date: 2015/5/28, Thu 07:32
> Subject: Re: How to compile MXE-Octave via MinGW on Windows
> 
> --- lutzmager
>>  Hej! I'm trying to build MXE-Octave for Windows on my own for the very 
> first
>>  time. Let me note that I have basically zero knowledge about GNU, C++, 
> make,
>>  ... when it comes to details. Four things I'm curious about:
>> 
>>  1) I followed these steps http://wiki.octave.org/Windows_Installer. I'm
>>  using MinGW on Windows 7. Am I correct in the assumption that I can build
>>  MXE-Octave via MinGW on and for Windows?
> 
> I could once do it more than half years before  but many hacks and helps from 
> John were required.
> 
> I tried mxe about one month before again and failed  to  complete the 
> processes.
> Note that information on  wiki page is old. Additional tools are required 
> (e.g. 
> scons). I needed to use msys2 but not msys for scons.
> 
> mxe-build on native windows is far difficult than cross build on linux
> 
>>  2) Is MinGW slow? I started the make process hours ago and it still builds
>>  "build-m4". Why is that? I read about ccache? Might this help me? 
> How long
>>  does it take for you to compile the sources?
> 
> MinGW compiler is not slow but script (e.g. configure) execute speed on msys 
> is 
> very slow.
> 
> 
>>  3) If I update to the latest commits via hg into the previous folder I used
>>  for compiling mxe-octave, does ccache work for m
> 
>>  4) And more general: How does the mxe fork work? I installed some basic
>>  (GNU) tools like autoconf, bash, ... for MinGW and start make. Thats clear
>>  but what happens next? Does the mxe-make file the whole work for me? Does 
> it
>>  automatically get/download a copy of the source code of Octave and so on?
>> 
> The source files of libraries, some tools and octave itself are automatically 
> downloaded during mxe make process. 
> 
> Personally I recommend cross build on linux if you can use linux PC.
> 
Additional information 

The information on wiki page for native (Msys+MinGW) should be revised entirely.
Because the Msys+MinGW build tools on original MinGW project is rather outdated 
in the current state.

Many projects use gcc on MinGW-64 project [1] but not original MinGW.
Perhaps this is due to activity difference in the project.
Version up speed is slow on the MinGW original project and it still lacks 
64 bit compiler.

Msys system and its tools on the original MinGW project are built old gcc for 
msys 
and they lack many tools required to build octave.

The msys2 [2] is based on the Cygwin project and is frequently updated.
Almost tools required for octave build can be installed using pacman packaging 
system. 
(pkg-config, python, scons, mercurial, git, etcs.)

Because I have not yet gotten successful results on completing mxe-build 

using msys2+MinGW64 tool chains, I hesitate to revised it.

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/
  Note that MinGW-64 provides both 32 and 64 bit compilier.

[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/

Tatsuro