Building on Windows from scratch

[Geert Janssens]

On Monday 23 December 2013 16:04:56 Gary Bilkus wrote:
> Hi Geert,
> I've downloaded your repository and started trying to follow the
> instructions in the README in /packaging/win32
> But I'm not getting very far....
> 1.  The location of MSYS needs to change  from:
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MSYS%20Base%20System/msys
> -1.0.11/MSYS-1.0.11.exe/download to
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MSYS/Base/msys-core/msys-> 1.0.11/MSYS-1.0.11.exe 2. Similarly wget has moved slightly to:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/Other/mingwPORT/Current%20
> Releases/
> 
> So I download these, install msys set up a minimal custom.sh and start
> msys But it immediately complains ./install-impl.sh mingw-get:
> command not found So should I install mingw as well? If so where to,
> or doesn't it matter? I'm sure I can work it out, but if the
> intention is a click and forget install, there seems to be at least
> one step missing.
> Or am I looking at the wrong instructions?
> Thanks,
> Gary

Gary,

I'm sorry I didn't mention this more clearly. The documentation is not updated yet. So the 
information in the README file is still for the old build process.

This is how I think you should proceed (I'm assuming you stick with the default path names):
- clear every trace of the previous gnucash build environment from your system, including 
mingw and msys.
- download this file: https://raw.github.com/gjanssens/gnucash/mingw-rebasing/packaging/win32/bootstrap_win_dev.vbs
This comes from my git repository, but you don't need to have git installed on your system just 
yet. The top of the file gives a bit more information on what it will do (install minimal mingw, 
msys, git and clone the gnucash repository).
- *intermediate step* edit the file and change the repos url in line 44 to:
REPOS_URL = "git://github.com:gjanssens/gnucash.git"
This is only necessary because my work is not in the default gnucash repository yet.
- save the file
- double-click to execute the file. It will open a console window in which you can follow its 
progress. Wait until it finishes.
- at this point, you should have a new directory c:\soft with at least directories mingw and 
gnucash.git. Perhaps also a git-1.7.10 directory if git was not yet installed on your system (or 
maybe even in that case).
- *intermediate steps* (no longer necessary when my work is integrated in the main gnucash 
git repository)
  * open a git bash window on the newly downloaded repository
    you can do this via a windows explorer and then right-click
    on the directory of the repository
  * track and checkout my mingw branch
    git branch -t mingw origin/mingw-rebasing
    git checkout mingw
- now open an msys console. The bootstrap script currently doesn't create a softlink on the 
desktop yet, so you will have to navigate to
c:\soft\mingw\msys\1.0\ and double-click msys.bat in there.
- within that console, start the gnucash build:
  * cd /c/soft/gnucash.git/packaging/win32
  * ./install.sh

With the current state of the branch this should work until the gnucash build step. There I run 
into no-undefined warnings I haven't had time to figure out yet.

Can you try these steps and let me know how it goes ? By the way I'm open to patches to either 
the build, the README file or other improvements on this subject :)

Geert