C++ cross-compiler from Windows to Linux

Question

Are there any user friendly tools out there to cross-compile from Windows to Linux?

Solution 1

crosstool-ng supports building cross-compilers with cygwin host.

Overview:

• Install cygwin, with development packages
• Download crosstool-ng
• Extract the tarball (tar xvjf crosstool-ng*)
• Run ./configure
• When configure complains about a missing tool, go back to cygwin setup and install the corresponding package (e.g. flex, libtool, ncurses-devel) You'll need at least the following:
  • Devel/gperf
  • Devel/bison
  • Devel/byacc
  • Devel/wget
  • Devel/patch
  • Devel/make (GNU version)
  • Devel/automake 1.10+
  • Libs/libncursesw10
  • Libs/libncursesw10-devel
• make
• make install
• Create a new directory for building the cross-compiler, e.g. /usr/src/cross-linux-gnu-root
• Enable system-wide case sensitivity support in the registry (see https://superuser.com/questions/266110/how-do-you-make-windows-7-fully-case-sensitive-with-respect-to-the-filesystem#answer-842670)
• Mount the directory case-sensitive (e.g. mount c:/cygwin/usr/src/cross-linux-gnu-root /usr/src/cross-linux-gnu -o binary,posix=1)
• From inside the cross-compiler build directory, ct-ng menuconfig
• In the menus, set target architecture to x86 (probably) and subarchitecture to i686 (avoids GCC 4.8 issues, thanks osm0sis), target kernel to linux, and target C library to glibc, and enable the C++ compiler.
• To work around make 4.0 issues, also enable EXPERIMENTAL in Paths and misc options then, go in Companion tools (at top-level) and enable Build some companion tools and then make 3.81 (Thanks osm0sis)
• wget has issues with the latest kernel.org certificates so use the .wgetrc method in this accepted answer: How do I fix certificate errors when running wget on an HTTPS URL in Cygwin? (Thanks osm0sis)
• Currently 3 file patches are required to avoid further errors:
  • the _libintl_gettext error as mentioned in the comments
  • the byteshift headers, and
  • the ELF headers (Thanks Duncan Calvert & osm0sis)
• ct-ng build

Of course, this is NOT going to enable you to build linux applications from inside Visual Studio. (VS2010 and later let you build with other toolchains such as gcc, but you'd need an appropriate toolchain description in addition to the cross-compiler built by crosstool-ng). But you'll have a working g++-linux-gnu, which you can either run directly or using a Makefile.

NOTE: Building the cross-compiler takes a LONG time. osm0sis has provided a prebuilt gcc 4.8.1 here, along with his notes on building the cross-compiler (used to update this answer).

Solution 2

Compile to Linux from Windows without to use virtualization or cross compiler but only natively via CoLinux. Create native Linux executable files without leave (reboot) windows. C/C++ Compiling for Linux under Windows through Cooperative Linux. The fastest switching between Windows and Linux through Alt+Tab (no restarting or rebooting needed):

1. Install CoLinux
2. Use CoLinux root file system image: Ubuntu-9.04-1gb.7z
3. Start CoLinux
4. Change string archive.ubuntu.com to old-releases.ubuntu.com with:

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

5. Update your configuration:

$ sudo apt-get update

6. Install two software packages to be able to compile your programs (c/c++, gcc compilers, mysql dev 5.1):

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev

7. Accessing Windows directories from CoLinux:

$ mount cofs0 /mnt/ -t cofs
$ cd /mnt

8. Compile

$ c++ your.source.cc -o executable.name

Solution 3

Your best bet is to use a cross platform IDE like Code::Blocks that can import MSVC projects, and generate a Makefile for Linux, which you can then run on a Linux (with even the same program if you so wish).

So your work flow would then look something like the following:

Code, Compile, and debug on MSVC -> import into Code::Blocks & generate Makefile
-> test compile and debug with GCC
-> copy to Linux with Code::Blocks -> test compile & debug on Linux

It's a little obtuse, probably, but at least Code::Blocks takes care of a lot of those small details with things like Makefiles, and what not.

Comments

[Ben Voigt]

winelib is a good suggestion in case the code is full of Win32-isms. But saying there's no compiler to build Linux binaries is baloney.

[Austin Lamb]

To build linux binaries that magically thunk out all Windows APIs? I think it's a valid statement to say there's no compiler that does that - it's not a compiler's job to get APIs from one OS to work identically on another OS.

[Ben Voigt]

g++ supports an awful lot of cross and canadian cross configurations.

[Y.H.]

Is it possible to create and link against dynamic Linux libraries using this approach? if not, then why not just sticking to the easier-to-deply MingW which compiles the code to Windows/Linux binaries?

[Ben Voigt]

What's a "Windows/Linux" binary? AFAIK, mingw is just gcc-for-windows, and makes PE executables. Linux binaries must be in linux-compatible formats, of which ELF is the most popular. I'm in the middle of the ct-ng build step now, trying to make sure my answer is as complete as possible and includes solutions to any gotchas along the way. And yes, the compiler I'm building will generate ELF executables which are dynamically linked against glibc (and other libraries as appropriate).

[Y.H.]

What I meant is standard code that can be compiled either on GCC/Linux, or MingW/Windows. +1 for clarification about the different binary formats.

[Duncan Calvert]

I had a _libintl_gettext error and fixed it here: sourceware.org/ml/crossgcc/2012-05/msg00012.html

[Duncan Calvert]

While mounting the directory I got mount: warning: couldn't determine mount type. Still unresolved.

[Ben Voigt]

user Osmosis mentions that stackoverflow.com/questions/9224298/… may be helpful if the ct-ng build fails to download component packages

[Darryl]

I would still strongly recommend setting up a cross-platform build system, then building on each of the target platforms natively. Setting up a VM is a heck of a lot easier than the crosstool-ng option described below. Not only that, but tools like CMake allow you to use VS for debugging on windows, which the OP prefers.

[JSON]

This answer is wrong. There are multiple options for compiling Linux code on Windows. The biggest headache is dealing with libs. For example, a build build on cygwin may require libphp5.so of version 5.4.7 when Ubuntu may only have 5.4.8. Not a huge deal, just compile 5.4.7 on ubuntu and you'll be good, but it;s not exactly a zip-bam-boom solution.

[Darryl]

@JSON, Although you are right that there are options I was not aware of, the example you give is not one of them. Binaries compiled for cygwin don't run in Linux. See stackoverflow.com/questions/4143629/….

[JSON]

@Darryl - Android NDK is a good example of a cgywin based cross compiler that builds Linux compatible binaries on Windows. It's true that they are not standard cgywin based libs, but that's the point of any cross compiler in the end.

[Raman Sharma]

Are there similar cross-compilation steps documented somewhere for using clang on windows to produce binaries that run on linux?

[Amomum]

There is a problem with using prebuilt version from osm0sis - when I try to extract the archive, I got an alert that some files already exist in the folder. That's because some headers (I don't know how important they are) have names which differ only in case. I'm not sure how important that issue is.

[Amomum]

Also, I believe Intel Edison SDK (found here software.intel.com/en-us/iot/hardware/edison/downloads SDK - Cross Compile Tools) also contains prebuilt version of cross gcc and it doesn't require cygwin! But it has the same problem with file-names.

[Ben Voigt]

@Amomum: Enabling filesystem case-sensitivity is right there in my list. The only "problem" is you not following the instructions.

[Amomum]

@BenVoigt I hoped that step is not necessary for using pre-built version and your instruction is for building cross-compiler, not for using it. The problem is also present for Intel SDK, which doesn't require cygwin and has no reference of case sensitivity.

[sancelot]

This would be a "good" start, but generally what would you like to do ? In most cases, you want to develop some linux applications for a linux target system (and may be a linux distribution e.g. opensuse 13.2) . In the case you want to compile for a linux distribution, you will need a compiler crosscompiled with the same kernel release of your target system and the same glibc library with same kernel settings and a filesystem copy of the target distribution.

[Ben Voigt]

@sancelot glibc cares about kernel version somewhat, but the compiler doesn't.

[Hamid Rouhani]

Cooperative Linux does not support x64 architecture yet.