Arch Linux

unregistered

Member

Registered: 2008-04-09

Posts: 134

programming windows programs in arch linux

Language used is C/C++ so I would need to include <windows.h>, what tools do I install to program and test such programs?
Any help appreciated.

namegame

Member

Registered: 2008-07-29

Posts: 31

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

You'd probably need to look into the mingw cross compiler

wu.soldier

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2006-12-19

Posts: 22

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

I've never tried windows programming under Linux, but I think you could try using native windows mingw (try Dev-C++) under Wine.

jac

Member

From: /home/jac

Registered: 2009-05-19

Posts: 431

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Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

I never really did much with it, but the last time I did anything like this I followed the tutorial on the Code::Blocks wiki. It's here:
http://wiki.codeblocks.org/index.php?ti … _Compilers
From looking at it, it is really outdated. I followed it a year or two ago, on Ubuntu. I'm pretty sure it worked OK though. It looks like it sums up to "Install MinGW and use it and its headers and libs in place of your current compiler and its stuff" I've never included windows.h, so I have no idea where you would get that from, or why you even need it.

Lich

Member

Registered: 2009-09-13

Posts: 437

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

I suggest that you make a virtual machine and install Windows in that. If your apps need to be for Windows, and not crossplatform necesarelly, then this would be the best and way to do it (It's what I do anyway, and has served me good)

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moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

I suggest that you make a virtual machine and install Windows in that. If your apps need to be for Windows, and not crossplatform necesarelly, then this would be the best and way to do it (It's what I do anyway, and has served me good)

+1 to that. My tool of choice for virtualization is VirtualBox

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The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
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But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

MinGW is what you want.  Works great, and then you can test with Wine

wuischke

Member

From: Suisse Romande

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 630

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

MinGW is what you want.  Works great, and then you can test with Wine

I've done this (added mingw builds and wine tests to my development process for a cross-plattform app) and you should be aware of limitations. Your app might run fine on wine, but crash horribly when running on a real windows. (Or just not work as intended.)

My recommendation: Get yourself a vm and install a evaluation copy of server 2008 (/7/vista) on it (free Windows for ~ half a year! ;-) ), install VS express and make sure it runs on windows and builds on VS without warnings regularly. In my experience the best way to make sure your code actually works on Windows.

I usually test it on Solaris and OpenBSD, too, but hopefully you won't have to entertain such a diverse ecosystem. (IRIX will do things again a bit different, but then almost nobody uses it anymore. I fortunately never encountered HP-UX and similar.)

Trent

Member

From: Baltimore, MD (US)

Registered: 2009-04-16

Posts: 990

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

Question: do you need to take advantage of Windows extensions?  It may/probably will make your job simpler if you write portable code to begin with, so you don't have to jump through hoops to compile it on Linux.  For that matter, if you're writing Windows-specific apps, why would you use Linux in the first place?

Just wondering.

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: programming windows programs in arch linux

I'd still test on Wine anyways, so just in case other GNU/Linux aficionado later gets hold of your app, they'll have success using Wine with it
And, since MinGW/Wine is faster development-wise than even a VM, you might just want to do that and test under Real Windows(TM) only every few weeks or whatever -- would like to here your experiences if you choose this, as to how good Wine actually is in its implementation and how often you had to fix stuff for Windows, etc.