Windows Build environment -- Cygwin or MinGW?

GNU Radio
1

I’d like to get started building GNURadio for Windows, using the USRP
1, with the goal of writing some custom blocks. Do people prefer
Cygwin or MinGW style installations? Off the cuff, Cygwin looks more
straightforward. Any opinions?

Thanks in advance

Kevin

2

Kevin Dixon wrote:

I’d like to get started building GNURadio for Windows, using the USRP
1, with the goal of writing some custom blocks. Do people prefer
Cygwin or MinGW style installations? Off the cuff, Cygwin looks more
straightforward. Any opinions?

I use GNU Radio (with USRP1) on both, but prefer MinGW as my
“production”
environment.

Cygwin has more of the prerequisites available as easy-to-install
packages,
but they change fairly often, and anytime you update to the latest
packages
there is a risk that your next GNU Radio installation may not work. The
last time I tried it, they were in the process of moving from gcc 3.x to
4.x, but their gcc 4.x required some hacks to GNU Radio. At some point,
I
expect that 3.x versions of the dependencies will no longer be available
and
4.x will be the only option.

MinGW requires a little more work to get all the pieces together, but
once
you have a working system it is more likely to continue to work forever.

Neither one is in any way comparable to your typical download-and-run
Windows install. It really helps if you have (or are willing to
acquire)
some Unix/Linux experience, or are at least comfortable with using a
Windows
cmd shell. I assume you have seen the instructions at
http://gnuradio.org/redmine/wiki/gnuradio/WindowsInstall.

I have attached a rudimentary Python script to install MinGW, MSYS, and
GNU
Radio. You need to read the notes at the beginning of the script and
edit
it to suit your needs, and you may need to updated the versions and/or
locations of the dependencies. But once you get it right, it could save
you
a lot of work.

Good luck with it,

– Don W.

3

Just what I was looking for. In this case, it sounds like MinGW is the
way to go, especially since we may end up with multiple developers,
and a consistent environment would be best.
The script looks to be amazing. Thanks so much

Kevin