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MinGW cross compiled library packages for Debian



Dear Debian Mentors,

As already mentioned in my previous post, I plan to create mingw32
cross compile packages for zlib, SDL, etc., based on the mingw32-*
packages.

There are many ways to do that, so I'm asking here for advise, to
create them in "best practise". Here are my questions:


1) The debian-devel list is too much traffic for me. Do I really
   have to advertise my plans there?
   What people do I have to contact? For example, do I need to
   contact the upstream maintainer of the SDL project? They
   already know there are Debian packages created from their
   sources.

2) How should I name my packages?
   (this question is already covered in my last post)

3) What sources should I use?
   For each packages, I'm having some of the following options:

   Which of them are desirable ("good practice")?
   Which of them should I avoid?

    3.1) Compiling from upstream sources.
        This has the advantage that my sources are up-to-date.
        However, I wouldn't profit from any Debian patches made
        the the Debian version of that package.

    3.2) Compiling from debian sources.
        I could e.g. download the Debian sources of libsdl1.2,
        and modify the debian/rules and some other files in debian/,
        (manipulating ./configure parameters, etc.) to produce a
        binary package "mingw32-libsdl1.2-dev".
        However, this could clutter of the Debian source packages.

    3.3) Using precompiled binaries.
        Some projects like GnuWin32 (http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net)
        provide already compiled libraries for mingw32. I could
        take those zip files as "sources" and produce debian
        packages which adjust the paths, add some description,
        but didn't "compile" anything.

        (This is what I like most, since the Debian mingw32-* packages
        would use exactly the same binary libraries as a native Windows
        MinGW installation would)


4) In general, which packages should I orient towards?

    4.1) the current Debian packages
        (e.g. apt-get source libsdl1.2)

    4.2) the current MinGW packages
        (e.g. SDL-devel-1.2.9-mingw32.tar.gz)

    4.3) the current (upstream) source packages
        (e.g. SDL-1.2.9.tar.gz)



Addtitional Questions to 3.3)

Is it possible (and desirable) to produce a "native" and a
"mingw32" build in parallel? I.e., from the same Debian sources?

That would mean building the sources twice (with different options
for ./configure) and building one more binary package. This had
the disadvantage that the source package gets more build
dependencies (to mingw32-*), but on the other hand, the cross
build would profit from all bugfixes the Debian maintainer has
done for the native build.

In general, is it a good idea for cross compiled packages,
to be held in one Debian source package, or should one split
these source package?

Should one use the upstream sources, or should a Debian cross
compiled library treat the Debian sources as "their upstream
sources"?


-------------------------------


In combination with the packages nsis, zip and upx, one could produce a
Windows port with binary-zipfile, self containing installer-exe, etc.
without even touching any propritary operating system.

Probably one could even try to port WIX to Debian, to produce *.msi
(Windows installer) files. That's the big plan. :-)


Greets,

    Volker

-- 
Volker Grabsch
---<<(())>>---
Administrator
NotJustHosting GbR



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