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MinGW or Mingw32 (Minimalist GNU for Windows) is a software port of the GNU toolchain to the Win32 platform. MinGW includes a set of Windows header files (W32API) for native Win32 development. It was originally a fork of Cygwin (version 1.3.3).
MSYS MinGW is often used together with MSYS (Minimal SYStem), another package based on Cygwin that provides a lightweight shell environment supporting enough POSIX functionality to enable configure scripts to run. It is also possible to use MSYS by itself as a replacement for the built-in Windows shell. Distribution Notes: MinGW vs. Cygwin Although both Cygwin and MinGW are used to port Unix software to Windows, they have different approaches: Cygwin aims to provide a complete POSIX layer (similar to that found in a Linux or other Unix systems) on top of Windows, sacrificing performance where necessary for compatibility, while MinGW aims to provide only a free compiler and toolchain, prioritizing performance. Unlike Cygwin, MinGW does not require a compatibility layer DLL and its runtime is licensed as a permissive license. The combination of MinGW and MSYS provides a small, self-contained environment that can be loaded on to removable media without leaving entries in the registry or leaving files on the computer. By providing more functionality, Cygwin becomes more complicated to install and maintain. Since MinGW does not provide a POSIX API, it is unable to compile some Unix applications that can be compiled with Cygwin. Specifically, this applies to applications that require specific POSIX functionality and those that expect to be run in a POSIX environment. Applications written using platform-independent libraries, such as SDL, wxWidgets, or Qt, will usually compile as easily in MinGW as they would in Cygwin. Pronunciation No standard has been decided for the pronunciation of MinGW. Common pronunciations include "ming wee", "min gee double-u", "ming double-u" or "min gnu". Cross compilation It is also possible to cross-compile applications with MinGW. This means that you do not need a Windows installation with MSYS to compile software for Windows. xmingw is a port of MinGW to Linux. On FreeBSD it's possible to install the devel/mingw32-gcc package from the Ports collection. Running ./configure --host=mingw32 will set up an autoconf package for cross compilation. See also Notes | ||||||||
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