Re: Compiling PE executables using linux hosted gcc

[Jay <jay dot myfolder at gmail dot com>]

Thank you Brian. Now i've got the clue. When i wrote 'gcc' i ment
everything that's installed when you select gcc package in software
manager and click Apply/Ok a couple of times. My mistake was that i
thought gcc can produce different types of executables depending on a
command line switch - some time ago i was playing with nasm that has
such a switch so i was misled by that experience.
On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 23:24 -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
> Jay wrote:
> 
> > Hi! I'm developing a cross-platform framework and now it's time to port
> > it to Win32. I found that i can compile an executable for a certain
> > platform specifying -b command-line option however what i found further
> > just confused me so i'm here asking you this dumb question: how to
> > compile a pe executable using a linux hosted gcc? I run ubuntu 7.10 and
> > gcc 4.2.1. Many thanks in advance.
> 
> You need to build a cross toolchain (cross compiler, cross linker, cross
> assembler.)  Note that gcc is just a compiler, it does not include the
> linker or assembler which are part of binutils.
> 
> Just because Linux and Win32 both run on the same ia32 hardware does not
> mean you can use the same tools, they are significantly different
> targets/platforms (e.g. the PE assembler directives are not the same as
> the ELF assembler, the linker is totally different, etc.)
> 
> The MinGW site has some scripts that will build such a set of cross
> tools which is a good place to start since there can be a lot of minor
> details to get right.  Also, those scripts will use gcc sources with
> MinGW patches integrated, which fix a number of things that are broken
> or unsupported in FSF gcc.  Therefore if you have trouble with the
> scripts, post on the MinGW list.
> 
> Brian