Windows MinGW binaries now available

[Mark Hadfield]

Paul Brook wrote:
> On Tuesday 18 January 2005 01:23, Mark Hadfield wrote:
> 
>>Of course this still leaves in the cold those who have not installed
>>MinGW and so do not have crt2.o. Would it be sufficient to include a
>>copy of this in gfortran-mingw\lib? No. My tests with a minimal program
>>show that the following are also needed:
>>
>>   libmsvcrt.a
>>   libmingw32.a
>>   libmoldname.a
>>   libmingwex.a
>>
>>Doubtless a more complicated program would need others.
> 
> Doesn't mingw provide a convenient package with all the runtime libraries in 
> it? I'd suggest including instructions and/or a script to install that.
> 
> IIRC you have two options:
> - Untar it into ${prefix}/${target}/lib
> - Point LIBRARY_PATH at it

Yes, Mingw is available and not very hard to install, but from my 
lurkings on comp.lang.fortran I have gathered that there are many people 
who want to use a free or open-source Fortran 95 compiler on Windows and 
are very resistant to having to install either Cywgin or Mingw first. 
Some of these people know a great deal about Fortran and could make a 
significant contribution to the Gnu fortran project, but right now they 
are being put off by the minor but irritating obstacles they encounter.

Anyway, the Mingw port of gfortran is a major step forward in reaching 
these people as it has several significant advantages over the Cywin

  * It's even easier to install, once you know how
  * Memory limitations are avoided (Cygwin gfortran has problems with
    programs over 100 MiB or so)
  * Although the compiler and linker require Mingw, they generate
    executables that don't.

So I for one would like to thank François-Xavier for his efforts.


-- 
Mark Hadfield            "Ka puwaha te tai nei, Hoea tatou"
m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)