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From: Charles W. <cwi...@us...> - 2009-10-28 13:56:04
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zwz wrote: > I use mingw+msys on Windows. > I find there are some tools in both msys and mingw, such as libtool, > autoconf, automake, xz, zlib etc.. > > This really confuses me. I do not know why there will be two versions. > What is the difference? Which one should I use? The packages that are available in both "mingw" and "msys" flavors can be divided into three groups: 1) autoconf, automake, libtool, gettext, libiconv: These are "autotools". The "mingw" versions are the tools suitable for use when you want to build or maintain mingw (that is, native win32) applications and libraries. In other words, the mingw versions are the ones most people want. The "msys" versions are used to build and maintain msys tools. Most people have no need for the "msys" versions -- except for the runtime library libltdl-2.2.7a-1-msys-1.0.11-dll-7.tar.lzma, which is needed by some of the other msys applications. 2) gzip, bzip2, xz, (and eventually, libarchive/bsdtar) These are archiving and compression tools. Either version may be used. Historically, we have provided the msys versions. The mingw versions are a new addition -- that eventually will allow us to ship a "mingw" version of bsdtar that supports (gz/bzip2/lzma/xz) compression. With this new tool -- not yet available -- you will be able to "unpack" packages distributed by mingw.org on a "virgin" system -- one that does not already contain an existing msys installation. (The msys versions of gzip/bzip2/xz/libarchive/bsdtar/GNUtar all require the msys dll itself to have already been installed). I also expect that the new, currently-in-development mingw-get installer program will be compiled using the mingw gzip/bzip2/xz libraries so that it, too, will be able to deal with compressed archives. HOWEVER, if you a;lready have a regular MSYS installation, then the msys versions of these tools are normally preferred. 3) others: cygutils, popt popt is a runtime library used by cygutils. You only need the msys version if you have installed the msys version of cygutils. You only need the mingw version if you have installed the mingw version of cygutils. As for cygutils itself, the "cygutils-dos2unix" package is provided in both msys and mingw flavors as a historical curiosity: the mingw version replaces (part of) the historical "mingw-utils" package, which in version 0.3 provided dos2unix/unix2dos programs. The msys version provides updated versions of the d2u/u2d *scripts* that have been part of the core msys package for many years. You don't NEED either, and it really doesn't matter which flavor of cygutils-dos2unix you install -- or neither, or both. Note that cygutils-1.3.4-3-msys-1.0.11-bin is available only in an msys flavor. It provides the cygutils tools OTHER than d2u/u2d. Hope that helps. -- Chuck |