Building MINGW-w64

... for idiots. This guide is provided for those who have no clue how to compile gcc, but still want to do it. It's a reference, just follow the steps and you get what you want. There's no support for special wishes ;-)

Setting up the build environment

Download and install MSYS2. You will need the following packages:

• MSYS2 (version 20180531)
• Recent mingw-w64 32 bit Toolchain (here)

Download all packages and install them into c:\MSYS32. Extract Toolchain to the /mingw32/ folder inside.

pacman -Syu

pacman -Su

pacman -S --needed make texinfo diffutils

(If installing make makes problems, remove the files it laments about already being existent)

Getting the sources

Download all the sources into subfolders of /src

• binutils (version 2.32) -> /src/binutils
• gcc (version 8.3.0) -> /src/gcc
• mingw-w64 v6.0.0 (here) -> /src/mingw-w64

• MPFR (version 4.0.2) -> /src/gcc/mpfr
• GMP (version 6.1.2) -> /src/gcc/gmp
• MPC (version 1.1.0) -> /src/gcc/mpc

Building

• USE THE MINGW32.EXE!!! Otherwise the host= and build= parameters are set to some msys2 environment and not the one we expect.
• the -jX parameter added to make speeds up the build processes by using mutiple threads to build on more than one CPU core. Use your amout of cores + 1 as number instead of the X.

Optionally set buildflags:

64 bit:

export CFLAGS="-g0 -O2 -pipe -Wl,-S"
export CXXFLAGS="-g0 -O2 -pipe -Wl,-S"

32 bit:

export CFLAGS="-g0 -O2 -pipe -Wl,-S -march=pentium -mtune=i686"
export CXXFLAGS="-g0 -O2 -pipe -Wl,-S -march=pentium -march=i686"

Building binutils

Create a build subdirectory for binutils:

cd build
mkdir binutils
cd binutils

From the build directory run the binutils configure script:

64 bit:

../../src/binutils/configure --prefix=/RosBE --with-sysroot=/RosBE --target=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --disable-multilib --disable-werror --enable-lto --enable-plugins --with-zlib=yes --disable-nls

32 bit:

../../src/binutils/configure --prefix=/RosBE --with-sysroot=/RosBE --target=i686-w64-mingw32 --disable-multilib --disable-werror --enable-lto --enable-plugins --with-zlib=yes --disable-nls

Now build the whole stuff.

make -jX

Finally install it into the designated directory.

make install

Building the mingw-w64 headers

Create a build directory.

cd ..
mkdir mingw-w64-headers
cd mingw-w64-headers

Run the configure script

64 bit:

../../src/mingw-w64/mingw-w64-headers/configure --prefix=/RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32

32 bit:

../../src/mingw-w64/mingw-w64-headers/configure --prefix=/RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 --host=i686-w64-mingw32

Install

make install

Note

Copy the /RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 (64 bit) or /RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 (32 bit) directory to /RosBE/mingw.

Add it to the PATH variable.

export PATH="$PATH:/RosBE/bin"

Building gcc-core

Enter into the build directory:

cd ..
mkdir gcc
cd gcc

Now run the configure script:

64 bit:

../../src/gcc/configure --target=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/RosBE --with-sysroot=/RosBE --with-pkgversion="RosBE-Windows" --enable-languages=c,c++ --enable-fully-dynamic-string --enable-checking=release --enable-version-specific-runtime-libs --enable-plugins --disable-shared --disable-multilib --disable-nls --disable-werror --disable-win32-registry --disable-sjlj-exceptions --disable-libstdcxx-verbose

32 bit:

../../src/gcc/configure --target=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/RosBE --with-sysroot=/RosBE --with-pkgversion="RosBE-Windows" --enable-languages=c,c++ --enable-fully-dynamic-string --enable-checking=release --enable-version-specific-runtime-libs --enable-plugins --disable-shared --disable-multilib --disable-nls --disable-werror --disable-win32-registry --disable-sjlj-exceptions --disable-libstdcxx-verbose

Compile the gcc-core

make all-gcc -jX

And install it

make install-gcc
make install-lto-plugin

Building the crt

Create a build directory.

cd ..
mkdir mingw-w64-crt
cd mingw-w64-crt

Run the configure script

64 bit:

../../src/mingw-w64/mingw-w64-crt/configure --prefix=/RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 --with-sysroot=/RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32

32 bit:

../../src/mingw-w64/mingw-w64-crt/configure --prefix=/RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 --with-sysroot=/RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 --host=i686-w64-mingw32

Compile

make -jX

And install

make install

Note

Copy the /RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 (64 bit) or /RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 (32 bit) directory to /RosBE/mingw.

Building the rest of gcc

Enter into the gcc build directory.

cd ..
cd gcc

And compile the rest.

make -jX
make install

Stripping the binaries

CD to the RosBE directory and execute these

find -executable -type f -exec strip -s {} ";" >& /dev/null
find -name "*.a" -type f -exec strip -d {} ";" >& /dev/null
find -name "*.o" -type f -exec strip -d {} ";" >& /dev/null

Common errors

• Check if you have copied the /RosBE/x86_64-w64-mingw32 (64 bit) or /RosBE/i686-w64-mingw32 (32 bit) directory to /RosBE/mingw anytime you have to do something with GCC building.
• Check if you have set the PATH variable to the new compiler correctly.
• Check if you have installed the new compiler correctly ("make install-gcc").
• If you wanna make a new ninja. "configure.py --platform=mingw --host=mingw --bootstrap"