How to compile executable for Windows with GCC with Linux Subsystem?

Question

Windows 10 Anniversary Update includes the Linux Subsystem for Ubuntu. I installed gcc with sudo apt-get install gcc.

I wrote some simple C code for testing purposes:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void){
    printf("Hello\n");
    return 0;
}

And compiled it with gcc -c main.c but the execute (Linux only) main.o is generated. If I run it ./main.o, it displays Hello.

My question is, how can I compile main.c so that Windows can run it? Basically, how do you generate a *.exe file with GCC in Linux Subsystem ?

Solution 1

Linux Subsystem works as a Linux-computer. You can only run Linux executables inside it and default gcc creates Linux executables.

To create Windows executables, you need to install mingw cross-compiler:

sudo apt-get install mingw-w64

Then you can create 32-bit Windows executable with:

i686-w64-mingw32-gcc -o main32.exe main.c

And 64-bit Windows executable with:

x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -o main64.exe main.c

Note that these Windows executables will not work inside Linux Subsystem, only outside of it.

Solution 2

If you compile using gcc on linux it will produce an ELF file not a PE (what windows understand) file

To compile a program for windows inside linux you can use mingw.

Comments

[sam msft]

The man page for gcc seems to imply that there are some options for making Windows console and windowed exes. Is there any reason why they wouldn't work? -mconsole -mwindows

[Markus Laire]

I don't have much experience with creating Windows apps, so I don't know the details of those compiler options. Still those Windows-specific options will only work with *-mingw32-gcc compilers and not default gcc which is creating Linux executables.

[sam msft]

It seems like x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc is changed such that it is designed to use the windows C runtime (MSVCRT.DLL) and other core Windows libraries instead of the standard C libs gcc links (presumably whatever is in /lib?).

[user12346352]

it seems to work but how can compile the file to .exe if the .c needs a .txt file as parameter

[hippietrail]

I doubt this is exactly correct. It says you "need to" use mingw. Surely that's only one option. GCC is famously supposed to be able to cross-compile between anything so surely it can also cross-compile x86-PE on an x86-ELF system? I don't know how to do it but it seems shocking if it's impossible.

[Jackie]

Would there be any advantage to using mingw over cygwin? I was trying to avoid either.