Cygwin vs mingw windows#
Available exception handling method depends on platform (Windows 32-bit or Windows 64-bit). Exception handling methods should not be mixed.All libraries are built with with the same compiler - No libraries will be used that are downloaded elsewhere in binary form or compiled with another compiler (like for example MSVC).For example a 64-bit compiler that generates 32-bit output is not provided.
To avoid such mixups the two platforms are separated completely.
Cygwin vs mingw software#
Separation of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows - A lot of people struggle with linking their software because they are - sometimes by accident - mixing 32-bit and 64-bit Windows libraries.No mixingĬertain things should not be mixed together, as they often lead to problems: Applications can still use Win32 API or pthreads API. To maximize compatibility and portability the posix threading model was chosen. posix - POSIX threads compatible implementation (makes libgcc depend on libwinpthreads), includes C++11/C11 multithreading features.win32 - Standard Windows multithreading features, without C++11 multithreading features.MinGW-w64 can be built with 2 different multithreading models:
MSYS2 comes with a package manager that also allows installation of its own builds of MinGW-w64 and GNU Compiler Collection, however these will not be used as they do not always follow the same principles as.
MSYS2 - Rewrite of MSYS built using Cygwin and MinGW-w64, which is a lot faster than MSYS or Cygwin.MSYS - Bash shell environment built using Cygwin, also slow.Cygwin - Comes with a Bash shell, but comes with its emulation layer performance overhead.ShellĪs a lot of open source software was originally not intended for Windows, a Linux/Unix like shell is often needed to be able to build this software (for example when Autotools are used): The compiler tools provided by are based on MinGW-w64 primarily in combination with the GNU Compiler Collection, but other build software has been added like LLVM/ Clang and various assemblers.
Cygwin vs mingw 64 bits#
It has forked it in 2007 in order to provide support for 64 bits and new APIs. MinGW-w64 - Mingw-w64 is an advancement of the original project, created to support the GCC compiler on Windows systems.MinGW - Short for "Minimalist GNU for Windows", generates native Windows binaries, but doesn't support newer Windows features and doesn't support Windows 64-bit.However this emulation layer has its performance impact and it also means the generated binaries are not native Windows. Cygwin - Emulates POSIX API, allowing compilation of sources coming from the Linux/Unix world.In the past there have been several open source solutions to build software for Windows:
Cygwin vs mingw code#
Since the same tools are shared (for example the GNU Compiler Collection) it is easier to write software that also runs on other operating systems (like Linux or macOS).Īnd on the other hand, if code exists on other platforms it may be easier to port them to Windows. While focussing on Windows, most of the tools and libraries used come from the Linux and Unix-like world. And if an IDE is used no knowledge of command line should be required either. No knowledge of other operating systems should be required. That is why the focus of is entirely Windows. However this is not easy for a novice user, especially if this user is more at home in a Microsoft Windows environment and maybe not even familiar with a command line environment. It is possible to use MinGW-w64 on other platforms (like Linux for example) to build Windows software - a practice known as cross-compilation. The goal of is to provide a collection of tools and libraries targetting native Microsoft Windows to be used on Microsoft Windows. Winlibs aims to become a development ecosystem for Microsoft Windows developers, that addesses a number of issues by adhering to a set of design decisions. WinLibs design philosophy WinLibs design philosophy