Need input on packaging mingw-w64 for Cygwin

[JonY]

On 1/24/2010 04:51, Charles Wilson wrote:
> Dave Korn wrote:
>> On 23/01/2010 19:02, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>>> On 1/23/2010 21:51, Chris Sutcliffe wrote:
>>>>>> mingw-w64<http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/>   is a fork of mingw to
>>>>>> support both win32 and win64. It'll obviously be setup as a cross
>>>>>> compiler on Cygwin.
>>
>>> Does this mean that these are all non-cygwin mingw apps?
>>
>>    Nope, they are cygwin-based cross development tools.
>
> Except, apparently, the proposed build of gdb -- unless Chris S. was
> confused:
>
>> One question though, is there a point to having gdb?  The stdin/stdout
>> handling is messed up a little due to it being an interactive DOS app
>> running within Cygwin.  It works, but the command line interface can
>> get a little messy after a while.
>

OK, cross gdb can be left out for now. The gdb server won't be a cygwin
application, but gdb itself is. 32bit debugging is very much already
covered by Cygwin gcc.

> My concern is this: we (cygwin) definitely need a gcc-4-based mingw
> cross compiler. On which source tree shall it be based, and who will be
> "our" maintainer?
>

I can do a cross gcc-4 for plain mingw too, I just need some help for
the cygport part.

> The proposal on the table is to use the mingw-64 source tree (that is,
> the gcc/binutils source code as patched by the mingw-w64 project,
> coupled with THIER patched version of the w32api and mingwrt runtime
> libs), configured in such a way as to support 32bit $host (*).
>
> I was under the impression, until now, that we would be using the
> mingw.org version of all of that.
>

Binutils and GCC for mingw-w64 are vanilla FSF releases, no patches are
applied. Well, no plans to replace mingw.org gcc, as it is what most
users are used to.

> Personal: the mingw-w64 guys are critical of the (perceived) lack of
> user support form the mingw.org community; while the mingw.org guys are
> pissed that the w64 fellas have been pushing changes into upstream
> projects like gcc and binutils that sometimes conflict with the
> "original" mingw.
>

I find that unfortunate, but I don't think the conflicts were
intentional.

> It looks like we have no choice but to choose, as we need SOMETHING to
> compile native w32 code, such as setup.exe -- and gcc3 is getting long
> in the tooth.  (Alternatively, we could "let a thousand flowers bloom"
> and have all three: mingw64-gcc-32bit, mingw64-gcc-64bit, and
> mingw-gcc-32bit cross compile toolchains in the distro...and cgf was
> worried about confusion?)
>

Preferably, I would like to see all 3 of them available for Cygwin.
They shouldn't conflict either, they have different target triplets.