Introduction

MXE (M cross environment) is a GNU Makefile that compiles a cross compiler and cross compiles many free libraries such as SDL and Qt. Thus, it provides a nice cross compiling environment for various target platforms, which

Supported Toolchains

Compiler and runtime: MinGW-w64.

Target OS Packages
Static Shared
32 bit Windows 99% (379/381) 72% (273/381)
64 bit Windows 94% (360/381) 71% (271/381)

These numbers were last updated on December 16, 2015. See the current status for individual packages.

Executables built for 32 bit Windows can be executed on 64 bit Windows as well.

How to choose MXE target:

  1. If you want a 64 bit Windows executable, statically linked into one big executable: use MXE_TARGETS x86_64-w64-mingw32.static;
  2. If you want a 64 bit Windows executable, split into an executable and dependant dlls use MXE_TARGETS x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared;
  3. If you want a 32 bit Windows executable, statically linked into one big executable: use MXE_TARGETS i686-w64-mingw32.static;
  4. If you want a 32 bit Windows executable, split into an executable and dependant dlls use MXE_TARGETS i686-w64-mingw32.shared.

Remark: The 'w64-mingw32' in those names are left-overs from historical evolutions in the open source cross-compilation world and refer in no way to the result being 64 or 32 bit Windows.

OpenMP (libgomp) and pthreads (winpthreads) are always available.

When building shared libraries, there are several approaches to recursively finding DLL dependencies (alphabetical list):

Experimental support for GCC with posix threads was added in November 2015. Since January 2019 it is used by default.

Experimental support for alternate GCC Exception Handling was added in February 2017.

Screenshots

Cross compiling 4tH:

4th-compile

and running it:

4th-run

Tutorial

Step 1: Requirements and Download

First, you should ensure that your system meets MXE's requirements. You will almost certainly have to install some stuff.

When everything is fine, download the current version:

git clone https://github.com/mxe/mxe.git

If you don't mind installing it in your home directory, just skip the following step and go straight to step 3.

MXE builds and installs everything under the same top-level directory and is not relocatable after the first packages are built.

Due to limitations of GNU Make, the path of MXE is not allowed to contain any whitespace characters.

Step 2: System-wide Installation (optional)

Now you should save any previous installation of the MXE. Assuming you've installed it under /opt/mxe (any other directory will do as well), you should execute the following commands:

su
mv /opt/mxe /opt/mxe.old
exit

Then you need to transfer the entire directory to its definitive location. We will assume again you use /opt/mxe, but feel free to use any other directory if you like.

su
mv mxe /opt/mxe
exit

We're almost done. Just change to your newly created directory and get going:

cd /opt/mxe

Step 3a: Build MXE

Enter the directory where you've downloaded MXE. Now it depends on what you actually want – or need.

If you choose to enter:

make

you're in for a long wait, because it compiles a lot of packages. On the other hand it doesn't require any intervention, so you're free to do whatever you like – like watch a movie or go for a night on the town. When it's done you'll find that you've installed a very capable Win32 cross compiler onto your system.

If you only need the most basic tools you can also use:

make cc

and add any additional packages you need later on. You can also supply a host of packages on the command line, e.g.:

make gtk lua libidn

Targets can also be specified on the command line. By default, only i686-w64-mingw32.static is built, but you can build your toolchain(s) of choice with:

make MXE_TARGETS='x86_64-w64-mingw32.static i686-w64-mingw32.static'

or by adjusting the MXE_TARGETS variable in settings.mk.

You'll always end up with a consistent cross compiling environment.

If you have trouble here, please feel free to contact the mxe team through the issue tracker or mailing list.

After you're done it just needs a little post-installation.

Step 3b: Install MXE from the binary distribution

Instead of building MXE packages from source, you can install packages from our APT repository for the following distros:

See the distro list for current codenames and last build dates.

Ensure required tools are available (usually installed by default):

sudo apt-get install \
    software-properties-common \
    lsb-release

Add and refresh MXE repository:

sudo apt-key adv \
    --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
    --recv-keys 86B72ED9 && \
sudo add-apt-repository \
    "deb [arch=amd64] https://pkg.mxe.cc/repos/apt `lsb_release -sc` main" && \
sudo apt-get update

Note that all package and target names have underscores replaced with dashes. For example:

apt-cache search 'mxe.*sdl_net'

outputs:

mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.shared-sdl-net - MXE package sdl_net for i686-w64-mingw32.shared
mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.static-sdl-net - MXE package sdl_net for i686-w64-mingw32.static
mxe-x86-64-w64-mingw32.shared-sdl-net - MXE package sdl_net for x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared
mxe-x86-64-w64-mingw32.static-sdl-net - MXE package sdl_net for x86_64-w64-mingw32.static

Install the basic cross-compiler:

sudo apt-get install \
    mxe-{i686,x86-64}-w64-mingw32.{static,shared}-cc

Confirm installation (note standard MXE target naming for tools):

PATH=/usr/lib/mxe/usr/bin:$PATH \
    x86_64-w64-mingw32.static-gcc --version

outputs:

x86_64-w64-mingw32.static-gcc (GCC) 5.5.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

See the Lightspark project for examples of:

Step 4: Environment Variables

Edit the appropriate config script (.bashrc, .cshrc, .profile, .zshrc, etc.) for your shell in order to change $PATH:

export PATH=/where MXE is installed/usr/bin:$PATH

You may be tempted to also add $(TARGET)/bin to your path. You never want to do this, the executables and scripts in there will cause conflicts with your native toolchain.

In case you are using custom $PKG_CONFIG_PATH entries, you can add separate entries for cross builds:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="entries for native builds"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH_i686_w64_mingw32_static="entries for MXE builds"

Remember to use i686-w64-mingw32.static-pkg-config instead of pkg-config for cross builds. The Autotools do that automatically for you.

Note that any other compiler related environment variables (like $CC, $LDFLAGS, etc.) may spoil your compiling pleasure, so be sure to delete or disable those.

For the most isolated and repeatable environment, use a white-list approach:

unset `env | \
    grep -vi '^EDITOR=\|^HOME=\|^LANG=\|MXE\|^PATH=' | \
    grep -vi 'PKG_CONFIG\|PROXY\|^PS1=\|^TERM=' | \
    cut -d '=' -f1 | tr '\n' ' '`

Congratulations! You're ready to cross compile anything you like.

Step 5a: Cross compile your Project (Autotools)

If you use the Autotools, all you have to do is:

./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32.static
make

If you build a library, you might also want to enforce a static build:

./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32.static --enable-static --disable-shared
make

Don't worry about a warning like this:

configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.

Everything will be just fine.

Step 5b: Cross compile your Project (CMake)

If you have a CMake project, you can use the provided cmake wrapper:

i686-w64-mingw32.static-cmake ...

This will automatically use the MXE version of cmake and locate the toolchain file.

Step 5c: Cross compile your Project (Qt)

If you have a Qt application, all you have to do is:

/<where-MXE-is-installed>/usr/i686-w64-mingw32.static/qt5/bin/qmake
make

Note that Qt 5 is in the "qt5" subdirectory. Qt 4 is in the "qt" subdirectory and its qmake can be invoked similarly.

If you are using Qt plugins such as the svg or ico image handlers, you should also have a look at the Qt documentation about static plugins.

Qt 4 only: Sql drivers (-qt-sql-*) and image handlers for jpeg, tiff, gif and mng are built-in, not plugins.

Step 5d: Cross compile your Project (Makefile)

If you have a handwritten Makefile, you probably will have to make a few adjustments to it:

CC=$(CROSS)gcc
LD=$(CROSS)ld
AR=$(CROSS)ar
PKG_CONFIG=$(CROSS)pkg-config

You may have to add a few others, depending on your project.

Then, all you have to do is:

make CROSS=i686-w64-mingw32.static-

That's it!

Step 5e: Cross compile your Project (OSG)

Using static OpenSceneGraph libraries requires a few changes to your source. The graphics subsystem and all plugins required by your application must be referenced explicitly. Use a code block like the following:

#ifdef OSG_LIBRARY_STATIC
USE_GRAPHICSWINDOW()
USE_OSGPLUGIN(<plugin1>)
USE_OSGPLUGIN(<plugin2>)
...
#endif

Look at examples/osgstaticviewer/osgstaticviewer.cpp in the OpenSceneGraph source distribution for an example. This example can be compiled with the following command:

i686-w64-mingw32.static-g++ \
    -o osgstaticviewer.exe examples/osgstaticviewer/osgstaticviewer.cpp \
    `i686-w64-mingw32.static-pkg-config --cflags openscenegraph-osgViewer openscenegraph-osgPlugins` \
    `i686-w64-mingw32.static-pkg-config --libs openscenegraph-osgViewer openscenegraph-osgPlugins`

The i686-w64-mingw32.static-pkg-config command from MXE will automatically add -DOSG_LIBRARY_STATIC to your compiler flags.

Further Steps

If you need further assistance, feel free to join the mailing list where you'll get in touch with the MXE developers and other users.

Download

To obtain the current version, run:

git clone https://github.com/mxe/mxe.git

To retrieve updates, run:

git pull

You can also browse the web repository.

In addition, feel free to join the mailing list and to propose new packages.

Requirements

MXE requires a recent Unix system where all components as stated in the table below are installed. It also needs roughly 2 GiB of RAM to link gcc and at least 700 MB of disk space per target (counted with only gcc built).

Detailed instructions are available for:

Autoconf ≥ 2.68
Automake ≥ 1.11.3
Bash
Bison
Bzip2
Flex ≥ 2.5.31
GCC (gcc, g++)
gdk-pixbuf
Git ≥ 1.7
GNU Coreutils
GNU Gettext
GNU gperf
GNU Make ≥ 3.81
GNU Sed
GNU Tar
Intltool ≥ 0.40
LibC for 32-bit
Libtool ≥ 2.2
Lzip
Mako Templates
OpenSSL-dev ≥ 1.01
p7zip (7-Zip)
Patch
Perl
Perl XML::Parser
Python3
Ruby
UnZip
Wget
XZ Utils
zlib ≥ 1.20

Alpine

apk add \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    bash \
    binutils \
    bison \
    bzip2 \
    flex \
    g++ \
    gdk-pixbuf \
    gettext \
    git \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libtool \
    linux-headers \
    lzip \
    make \
    openssl \
    openssl-dev \
    p7zip \
    patch \
    perl \
    python3 \
    py3-mako \
    ruby \
    unzip \
    wget \
    xz \
    zlib

Debian and derivatives

apt-get install \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    autopoint \
    bash \
    bison \
    bzip2 \
    flex \
    g++ \
    g++-multilib \
    gettext \
    git \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libc6-dev-i386 \
    libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev \
    libltdl-dev \
    libgl-dev \
    libpcre3-dev \
    libssl-dev \
    libtool-bin \
    libxml-parser-perl \
    lzip \
    make \
    openssl \
    p7zip-full \
    patch \
    perl \
    python3 \
    python3-distutils \
    python3-mako \
    python3-packaging \
    python3-pkg-resources \
    python3-setuptools \
    python-is-python3 \
    ruby \
    sed \
    sqlite3 \
    unzip \
    wget \
    xz-utils

On 32-bit installs and on arm64 installs,

    g++-multilib
    libc6-dev-i386
    

are not required, however there are potential issues with 32-bit systems.

Only the latest Debian stable series is supported.

You can install binary MXE packages from our APT repository.

Fedora/Red Hat/Centos

Ensure Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) is installed/available. On some systems, it may be as simple as:

yum install epel-release
yum install \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    bash \
    bison \
    bzip2 \
    flex \
    gcc-c++ \
    gdk-pixbuf2-devel \
    gettext \
    git \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libtool \
    lzip \
    make \
    mesa-libGL-devel \
    openssl \
    openssl-devel \
    p7zip \
    patch \
    perl \
    python3 \
    python3-mako \
    ruby \
    sed \
    unzip \
    wget \
    which \
    xz

On 64-bit Fedora, there are issues without a 32-bit compiler.

FreeBSD

pkg install \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    bash \
    bison \
    coreutils \
    flex \
    gcc \
    gdk-pixbuf2 \
    gettext \
    git \
    glib \
    gmake \
    gperf \
    gsed \
    intltool \
    libtool \
    openssl \
    p5-XML-Parser \
    p7zip \
    patch \
    perl5 \
    python3 \
    textproc/py-mako \
    ruby \
    unzip \
    wget

Use gmake instead of make.

Install file(1) from ports, because file(1) from base works very-very-very slow with long text files.

Do not build as root. See #902.

Ensure that /usr/local/bin precedes /usr/bin in your $PATH:

For C style shells, edit .cshrc

setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH

For Bourne shells, edit .profile

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

On 64-bit FreeBSD, there are issues without a 32-bit compiler.

N.B. FreeBSD is no longer fully supported

to build the remainder of MXE, run:

gmake EXCLUDE_PKGS='gtksourceviewmm2 ocaml% openexr pcl qtbase'

to see a list of all dependent downstream packages that will be excluded, run:

gmake show-downstream-deps-'gtksourceviewmm2 ocaml% openexr \
                            pcl qtbase'

Frugalware

pacman-g2 -S \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    bash \
    bison \
    bzip2 \
    flex \
    gcc \
    gdk-pixbuf2\
    gettext \
    git \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libtool \
    lzip \
    make \
    openssl \
    patch \
    perl \
    perl-xml-parser \
    python3 \
    python3-mako \
    ruby \
    sed \
    unzip \
    wget \
    xz \
    xz-lzma

On 64-bit Frugalware, there are issues without a 32-bit compiler.

Gentoo

emerge \
    app-arch/bzip2 \
    app-arch/lzip \
    app-arch/p7zip \
    app-arch/unzip \
    app-arch/xz-utils \
    app-shells/bash \
    dev-lang/perl \
    dev-lang/python \
    dev-lang/ruby \
    dev-libs/openssl \
    dev-perl/XML-Parser \
    dev-python/mako \
    dev-util/gperf \
    dev-util/intltool \
    dev-vcs/git \
    net-misc/wget \
    sys-apps/sed \
    sys-devel/autoconf \
    sys-devel/automake \
    sys-devel/bison \
    sys-devel/flex \
    sys-devel/gcc \
    sys-devel/gettext \
    sys-devel/libtool \
    sys-devel/make \
    sys-devel/patch \
    x11-libs/gdk-pixbuf

Mac OS X

Install the latest Xcode

MacPorts

Install MacPorts, then run:

sudo port -N install \
    coreutils \
    gdk-pixbuf2 \
    gnutar \
    gsed \
    intltool \
    lzip \
    p7zip \
    pkgconfig \
    py-mako \
    wget \
    xz
Rudix

Rudix has shut down since August 2018

Homebrew

Install Homebrew, then run:

brew install \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    coreutils \
    gdk-pixbuf \
    gnu-sed \
    gnu-tar \
    intltool \
    libtool \
    lzip \
    pkg-config \
    python3 \
    p7zip \
    wget \
    xz
python3 -m pip install mako

You will see messages about keg-only formulae and tools prefixed with 'g' - you can safely ignore these and no homebrew related $PATH modifications or brew links are necessary.

Genral Notes

You may be prompted to install a java runtime - this is not required.

Mac OS X versions ≤ 10.9 are no longer tested.

Certain packages have open issues on OS X

For Xcode <7.3, run:

make EXCLUDE_PKGS='nsis'

openSUSE

zypper install -R \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    bash \
    bison \
    bzip2 \
    flex \
    gcc-32bit \
    gcc-c++ \
    gdk-pixbuf-devel \
    gettext-tools \
    git \
    glibc-devel-32bit \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libgcc46-32bit \
    libgomp46-32bit \
    libopenssl-devel \
    libstdc++46-devel-32bit \
    libtool \
    lzip \
    make \
    openssl \
    p7zip \
    patch \
    perl \
    perl-XML-Parser \
    python3 \
    python3-Mako \
    ruby \
    sed \
    unzip \
    wget \
    xz

On 32-bit installs,

    gcc-32bit
    glibc-devel-32bit
    libgcc46-32bit
    libgomp46-32bit
    libstdc++46-devel-32bit
    

are not required, however there are potential issues with 32-bit systems.

Void

xbps-install -S \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    flex \
    gcc \
    gdk-pixbuf-devel \
    gettext \
    gettext-devel \
    git \
    gperf \
    intltool \
    libcurl-devel \
    libtool \
    lzip \
    make \
    p7zip \
    patch \
    perl-XML-Parser \
    pkgconf \
    python3 \
    python3-Mako \
    ruby \
    unzip \
    wget \
    xz

Windows Subsystem for Linux

Install the Windows Subsystem for Linux, noting that WSL1 does not support 32-bit code execution.

If mixing WSL1 and WSL2, ensure the distro-specific or global defaults are set.

Requirements should match the Debian, Fedora, openSUSE etc. sections above, but care should be taken to ensure MXE is installed in the Linux subsystem under / instead of the mounted Windows folders in /mnt.

It can be made to work using symlinks and specifying:

make MXE_TMP=/tmp/mxe-tmp ...

See further reading in:

Issues with 32-bit systems

32-bit systems may have insufficient virtual memory to build all of MXE.

Issues without a 32-bit compiler

Certain packages contain native tools that are currently 32-bit only. In order to build these on a 64-bit system, multi-lib support must be enabled in the compiler toolchain. However, not all operating systems support this.

To build the remainder of MXE, specify the affected packages to exclude:

make EXCLUDE_PKGS='ocaml%'

Usage

All build commands also download the packages if necessary.

In a BSD userland, substitute "make" with "gmake" as all commands are based on GNU Make.

make
build all packages, non-parallel
make cc
build a minimal useful set of packages, i.e. the cross compilers and the most basic packages, non-parallel
make foo bar
build packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, non-parallel
the package list can also be set in settings.mk
LOCAL_PKG_LIST := foo bar
.DEFAULT_GOAL  := local-pkg-list
local-pkg-list: $(LOCAL_PKG_LIST)
so a call to make will only build those packages (and their dependencies, of course)
make foo bar --touch
mark packages "foo" and "bar" as up-to-date after a trivial change in one of their dependencies (short option "-t")
make foo bar --jobs=4 JOBS=2
build packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, where up to 4 packages are built in parallel (short option "-j 4"), each with up to 2 compiler processes running in parallel
the JOBS variable can also be defined in settings.mk and defaults to the number of CPUs up to a max of 6 to prevent runaway system load with diminishing returns - see the GNU Make manual for more details on parallel execution
make --jobs=4 --keep-going
build all packages with 4 inter-package parallel jobs and continue as much as possible after an error (short option "-j 4 -k")
make foo bar MXE_USE_CCACHE=
disables use of ccache to eliminate potential error sources when debugging
make EXCLUDE_PKGS='foo bar'
build all packages excluding foo, bar, and all downstream packages that depend on them - mostly used when there are known issues
make foo_SOURCE_TREE=/path/to/local/source
build using local source tree for package "foo", bypassing download, checksum and patching
N.B. ensure "foo" has an out-of-source build configured to avoid generation of build artefacts in local tree
make check-requirements
check most of the requirements if necessary – executed automatically before building packages
make download
download all packages, non-parallel, such that subsequent builds work without internet access
make download-foo download-bar
download packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, non-parallel
make download-foo download-bar -j 4
download packages "foo", "bar" and their dependencies, where up to 4 packages are downloaded in parallel
make download-only-foo download-only-bar
download packages "foo", "bar", without their dependencies, non-parallel
make clean
remove all package builds – use with caution!
make clean-junk
remove all unused files, including unused package files, temporary folders, and logs
make clean-pkg
remove all unused package files, handy after a successful update
make show-deps-foo
print a list of upstream dependencies and all downstream dependents (direct and recursive)
make show-downstream-deps-foo
print a list of all recursive downstream dependents - suitable for use in shell scripts
make show-direct-downstream-deps-foo
print a list of direct downstream dependents - suitable for use in shell scripts
make show-upstream-deps-foo
print a list of upstream dependencies - suitable for use in shell scripts
make docs/build-matrix.html
generate a report of what packages are supported on what targets to docs/build-matrix.html
make update
update the version numbers of all packages, download the new versions and note their checksums
make update UPDATE_DRYRUN=true
show list of update candidates without downloading
make update-package-foo
update the version numbers of package foo, download the new version and note its checksum
make check-update-package-foo
check if package foo has an update available without downloading
make update-checksum-foo
download package foo and update its checksum
make cleanup-style
cleanup coding style

List of Packages

See something missing? Feel free to create a new package.

a52dec0.7.4a52dec (aka. liba52)
abseil-cpp20250127.0Abseil
adwaita-icon-theme3.36.1GTK+
aec1.0.6aec
agg2.5Anti-Grain Geometry
alure1.2alure
aom3.12.0AV1 Codec Library
apr1.5.2APR
apr-util1.5.4APR-util
armadillo12.8.4Armadillo C++ linear algebra library
aspell0.60.6.1Aspell
assimp5.4.1Assimp Open Asset Import Library
atk2.36.0ATK
atkmm2.28.2ATKmm
aubio0.4.2aubio
autotools1Dependency package to ensure the autotools work
bfd2.43.1Binary File Descriptor library
binutils2.43.1GNU Binutils
binutils-host2.43.1binutils-host
blas3.12.1Reference BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms)
blosc1.21.6Blosc
boost1.87.0Boost C++ Library
box2d2.3.1box2d
brotli1.1.0brotli
bullet2.82-r2704Bullet physics, version 2
bzip21.0.8bzip2
c-ares1.34.4c-ares is a C library for asynchronous DNS requests
cairo1.18.2cairo
cairomm1.14.3cairomm
cblas3.12.1C interface to Reference BLAS
cc1Dependency package for cross libraries
ccache3.6ccache – a fast compiler cache
ccfits2.6CCfits
cegui9726a2b505fbCrazy Eddie’s GUI System (CEGUI)
cfitsio4.5.0cfitsio
cgal5.5cgal
chafa1.12.5The Chafa terminal graphics package
check0.15.2check
chipmunk7.0.2Chipmunk Physics
chromaprint1.5.1Chromaprint
cimg2.7.1CImg Library
cloog0.20.0CLooG Code Generator
cmake3.30.4cmake
cmake-conf1cmake-conf
cmake-host3.30.4cmake-host
cmark0.29.0CommonMark parsing and rendering library and program in C
cminpack1.3.4cminpack
coda2.18.3CODA
coin3.1.3Coin3D
coinor-symphony5.6.17coinor-symphony
cpp-netlib73d4024Boost C++ Networking Library
cppunit1.13.2CppUnit
cppzmq4.2.2C++ binding for 0MQ
cryptopp8.4.0Crypto++ Library
crystalhd1Broadcom Crystal HD Headers
cunit2.1-3cunit
curl8.12.1cURL
db18.1.40Oracle Berkeley DB
dbus1.15.8dbus
dcmtk3.6.0DCMTK
devilcba359bDevIL
djvulibre3.5.28DjVuLibre
dlfcn-win321.4.1POSIX dlfcn wrapper for Windows
eigen3.4.0eigen
exiv20.27.5Exiv2
expat2.6.4Expat XML Parser
faad22.8.8faad2
fc1Dependency package for cross libraries (Fortran)
fdk-aac2.0.0FDK-AAC
ffmpeg7.1ffmpeg
fftw3.3.10fftw
file5.46file
flac1.5.0Free Lossless Audio Codec
flann1.8.4FLANN
flint3.1.3-p1flint
fltk1.3.8FLTK
fluidsynth2.4.3FluidSynth - a free software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications
fmt9.1.0A modern formatting library
fontconfig2.16.0fontconfig
freeglut3.6.0freeglut
freeimage3.15.4FreeImage
freetds1.4.24FreeTDS
freetype2.13.3freetype
freetype-bootstrap2.13.3freetype (without harfbuzz)
freexl2.0.0FreeXL
fribidi1.0.16FriBidi
ftgl2.1.3~rc5ftgl
gc8.0.4gc
gcc14.2.0GCC
gcc-host14.2.0gcc-host
gcc14-overlaygcc14-overlay
gd2.2.5GD (without support for xpm)
gdal3.10.2GDAL
gdb15.2gdb
gdk-pixbuf2.42.12GDK-pixbuf
gendef12.0.0gendef
geoip-database20150317-1GeoIP Legacy Database
geos3.13.1GEOS
gettext0.24gettext
ghostscript10.04.0ghostscript
giflib5.1.9giflib
glew2.1.0GLEW
glfw22.7.9GLFW 2.x
glfw33.3.8GLFW 3.x
glib2.83.4GLib
glib-networking2.54.1Network-related GIO modules for glib
glibmm2.66.2GLibmm
glm0.9.9.0GLM - OpenGL Mathematics
glpk5.0GNU Linear Programming Kit
gmp6.3.0GMP
gnutls3.8.9GnuTLS
googlemock1.7.0Google Mock
googletest1.8.1Google Test
gpgme1.24.2gpgme
grantlee5.2.0Grantlee is a set of Free Software libraries written using the Qt framework
graphicsmagick1.3.38GraphicsMagick
grpc1.70.1gRPC
gsl2.7.1GSL
gsoap2.8.130gSOAP
gst-libav1.20.3gst-libav
gst-plugins-bad1.20.3gst-plugins-bad
gst-plugins-base1.20.3gst-plugins-base
gst-plugins-good1.20.3gst-plugins-good
gst-plugins-ugly1.20.1gst-plugins-ugly
gstreamer1.20.3gstreamer
gta1.0.8gta
gtk22.24.29GTK+
gtk33.24.32GTK+
gtkglarea2.0.1GtkGLArea
gtkglext1.2.0GtkGLExt
gtkglextmm1.2.0GtkGLExtmm
gtkimageview1.6.4GtkImageView
gtkmm22.24.5GTKMM
gtkmm33.24.5GTKMM
gtksourceview2.10.5GTKSourceView
gtksourceviewmm22.10.3GtkSourceViewmm
guile1.8.8GNU Guile
gumbo0.10.1Gumbo, an HTML5 parsing library
hamlib3.3HamLib
harfbuzz10.3.0HarfBuzz
hdf-eos220v1.00HDF-EOS2
hdf-eos51.16HDF-EOS5
hdf44.2.15HDF4
hdf51.12.1HDF5
hidapi2a24bf9HIDAPI
hiredis1.2.0HIREDIS
hunspell1.7.2Hunspell
hyperscan5.4.2Hyperscan
icu4c76.1ICU4C
id3lib3.8.3id3lib
ilmbase2.2.1IlmBase
imagemagick7.1.1-44ImageMagick
intel-tbb2022.0.0Intel Threading Building Blocks
isl0.24Integer Set Library
itk5.0.1Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK)
itpp4.3.1itpp
jack1.9.22JACK Audio Connection Kit
jansson2.12Jansson
jasper4.2.4JasPer
jpeg9fjpeg
jq1.7.1Jq command-line JSON processor
json-c0.18json-c
json-glib1.6.6JSON-Glib
json_spirit4.08json_spirit
jsoncpp1.9.6A C++ library for interacting with JSON
kealib1.6.1KEALib
lame3.100lame
lapack3.12.1Reference LAPACK — Linear Algebra PACKage
lcms2.17lcms
lcms11.19lcms1
lensfun0.3.2lensfun
lerc4.0.0Lerc
levmar2.6levmar
libaacs0.9.0libaacs
libao1.2.2AO
libarchive3.7.7Libarchive
libass0.17.3libass
libassuan2.5.7libassuan
libatomic_ops7.4.8The atomic_ops project (Atomic memory update operations portable implementation)
libbluray1.3.4libbluray
libbs2b3.1.0Bauer Stereophonic-to-Binaural library
libcaca0.99.beta19libcaca
libcddb1.3.2Access data on a CDDB
libcdio2.1.0Libcdio
libcdio-paranoia10.2+0.93+1Libcdio-paranoia
libcint3.0.18General GTO integrals for quantum chemistry
libcomm14cux2.1.3libcomm14cux
libcroco0.6.13Libcroco
libde2651.0.15libde265 is an open source implementation of the h.265 video codec.
libdeflate1.23libdeflate
libdnet1.11libdnet
libdvbpsi1.3.2libdvbpsi
libdvdcss1.4.2libdvdcss
libdvdetect0.71Fast database lookup for DVDs
libdvdnav6.0.0libdvdnav
libdvdread6.0.1libdvdread
libdwarf0.9.2libdwarf
libepoxy1.5.9libepoxy
libevent2.1.11libevent
libexif0.6.22libexif
libf2c1libf2c
libfcgi2.4.2FastCGI
libffi3.4.7libffi
libftdi0.20LibFTDI
libftdi11.5LibFTDI1
libgcrypt1.11.0libgcrypt
libgda4.2.13libgda
libgdamm4.1.3libgdamm
libgee0.20.1libgee
libgeotiff1.6.0GeoTiff
libgit21.9.0libgit2
libglade2.6.4glade
libgnurx2.6.1libgnurx
libgpg_error1.51libgpg-error
libgphoto22.5.30libgphoto2
libgsasl1.10.0Libgsasl
libgsf1.14.53libgsf
libharu2.3.0libharu
libheif1.19.5libheif is a ISO/IEC 23008-12:2017 HEIF file format decoder and encoder.
libiberty2.43.1libiberty
libical2.0.0libical
libiconv1.18libiconv
libid3tag0.15.1blibid3tag
libidn1.42Libidn
libidn22.3.7implementation of IDNA2008/TR46 internationalized domain names
libieee12840.2.11libieee1284
libircclient1.10libircclient
libjpeg-turbo3.0.1libjpeg-turbo
liblastfm1.0.9A Qt C++ library for the Last.fm webservices
liblastfm_qt41.0.9A Qt C++ library for the Last.fm webservices
liblaxjson1.0.5liblaxjson
liblo0.29liblo
liblqr-10.4.3liblqr-1
liblsmash2.14.5L-SMASH
libltdl2.5.4GNU Libtool Library (libltdl)
libmad0.15.1blibmad
libmariadbclient3.2.7MariaDB Client
libmicrohttpd0.9.38GNU Libmicrohttpd
libmikmod3.3.7libMikMod
libmms0.6.4a library for downloading (streaming) media files using the mmst and mmsh protocols
libmng2.0.3libmng
libmodplug0.8.8.4libmodplug
libmpcdec475Living Audio Compression
libmpeg20.5.1libmpeg2 - a free MPEG-2 video stream decoder
libmysqlclient6.1.6libmysqlclient
libnice0.1.16libnice
libntlm1.8Libntlm
liboauth1.0.3liboauth
libodbc++0.2.5libodbc++
liboil0.3.17liboil
libomemo0.7.0Implementation of OMEMO in C
libomemo-c0.5.0an implementation of Signal ratcheting forward secrecy protocol in C
libotr4.1.1Off-the-Record Messaging
libpano132.9.18libpano13
libpaper1.1.24+nmu5libpaper
libplist2.0.0libplist
libpng1.6.47libpng
libpsl0.21.5C library for the Public Suffix List
libqrencode4.0.2a fast and compact QR Code encoding library
libraw0.21.3A library for reading RAW files obtained from digital photo cameras
librosco0.1.11librosco
librsvg2.40.21librsvg
librtmp6f6bb13librtmp
libsamplerate0.1.9libsamplerate
libsbml5.20.4libsbml
libserialport0.1.1libserialport
libshout2.4.1libshout
libsigc++2.10.7libsigc++
libsigrok0.5.0libsigrok
libslirp4.7.0libslirp
libsndfile1.2.2libsndfile
libsodium1.0.20libsodium
libsoup2.74.2HTTP client/server library for GNOME
libspatialindex1.8.5libspatialindex
libspectre0.2.12libspectre
libsrt1.5.2libsrt
libssh0.11.1SSHv2 and SSHv1 protocol on client and server side
libssh21.11.1libssh2
libsvm3.22libsvm
libtasn14.20.0GnuTLS
libtool2.5.4GNU Libtool
libtorrent-rasterbar1.1.6libtorrent-rasterbar
libunistring1.3libunistring
libusb1.2.6.0LibUsb
libusb11.0.27LibUsb-1.0
libuv1.50.0libuv
libv811.15.0V8 Library (from Node.js)
libvpx1.15.0vpx
libwebp1.5.0libwebp
libwebsockets2.4.2libwebsockets
libxml++2.40.1libxml2
libxml22.12.9libxml2
libxslt1.1.42libxslt
libyaml0.2.5A C library for parsing and emitting YAML.
libzip1.5.2libzip
libzmq34f7fa2ZeroMQ core engine in C++, implements ZMTP/3.0
lldsystemLLD Linker on host OS
llvm10.0.0llvm
log4cxx0.10.0log4cxx
lua5.4.6Lua
luabind0.9.1Luabind
luajit2.0.5LuaJIT
lz41.10.0lossless compression algorithm optimized for speed
lzma2201LZMA SDK
lzo2.10lzo
make-host4.2.1make-host
matio1.5.23matio
mdbtools1.0.0mdbtools
mesa23.1.7The Mesa 3D Graphics Library
meson1.6.1meson
meson-wrapper1meson-wrapper
metis5.1.0metis
mingw-w6412.0.0MinGW-w64 Runtime
miniupnpc2.0miniupnpc
minizip4.0.8minizip
mman-win329f115adMMA-Win32
mpc1.3.1GNU MPC
mpfr4.2.1mpfr
mpg1231.31.1mpg123
ms-gsl4.0.0guidelines support library
msmpid7d54d1Microsoft MPI SDK 10.1.1
muparser2.2.5muParser
muparserx4.0.7muParserX
mxml3.1Mini-XML
nasm2.14.02NASM - The Netwide Assembler
ncurses6.2Ncurses
neon0.30.2HTTP and WebDAV client library (libneon)
netcdf4.9.2NetCDF
netcdf-cxx44.3.1NetCDF-CXX4
netpbm10.35.96Netpbm
nettle3.9.1nettle
nghttp21.64.0nghttp2
ninja1.12.1A small build system with a focus on speed
nlopt2.10.0NLopt
nsis3.06.1NSIS
ocaml-cairo1.2.0cairo-ocaml
ocaml-camlimages4.0.1camlimages
ocaml-core4.00.1ocaml
ocaml-findlib1.4findlib
ocaml-flexdll0.31flexdll
ocaml-lablgl1.05lablgl
ocaml-lablgtk22.16.0lablgtk2
ocaml-native4.00.1ocaml
ocaml-xml-light2.2xml-light
oce0.18.2Open CASCADE Community Edition
ogg1.3.5OGG
old0.17old
openal1.19.1openal
openblas0.3.29OpenBLAS
opencensus-proto0.4.1Language Independent Interface Types For OpenCensus
opencore-amr0.1.6opencore-amr
opencsg1.4.2opencsg
opencv4.11.0OpenCV
opencv-contrib4.11.0OpenCV extra modules
openexr2.2.0OpenEXR
openjpeg2.5.3OpenJPEG
openmp-validationff8cf0cOpenMP Validation Suite
openscenegraph3.6.5OpenSceneGraph
openssl3.4.1openssl
openthreads3.6.5OpenThreads
opus1.3.1opus
opusfile0.11opusfile
osgearth3.3Geospatial SDK for OpenSceneGraph
ossim1af3774OSSIM
pango1.56.1Pango
pangomm2.46.2Pangomm
pcl1.9.1PCL (Point Cloud Library)
pcre8.45PCRE
pcre210.45PCRE2
pdcurses3.4PDcurses
pdflib_lite7.0.5p3PDFlib Lite
pe-parse2a1aa79Principled, lightweight C/C++ PE parser
pe-util2af684aList shared object dependencies of a portable executable (PE)
pfstools2.0.4pfstools
physfs3.0.2physfs
picomodel1142ad8picomodel
pire0.0.6PIRE
pixman0.44.2pixman
pkgconf1.8.0pkgconf
pkgconf-host1.8.0pkgconf-host
plib1.8.5-rc1Plib
plibccd7ed09Plibc
plotmm0.1.2PlotMM
plotutils2.6plotutils
poco1.9.4POCO C++ Libraries
polarssl1.3.9Polar SSL Library
poppler25.02.0poppler
poppler-data0.4.12poppler-data
poppler-qt525.02.0poppler-qt5
poppler-qt625.02.0poppler-qt6
popt1.16popt
portablexdr4.9.1PortableXDR
portaudio190700_20210…portaudio
portmidi217portmidi
postgresql13.20PostgreSQL
primesieve7.4Primesieve
proj9.5.1proj
protobuf29.3protobuf
pthreadsPOSIX 1003.1…POSIX Threads
pugixml1.8Light-weight, simple, and fast XML parser for C++ with XPath support
python-conf1python-conf
python-mako1.1.3Mako Templates for Python
python-markupsafe1.1.1Safely add untrusted strings to HTML/XML markup
python-setuptoolsdf51e62Easily download, build, install, upgrade, and uninstall Python packages
qca2.3.4Qt Cryptographic Architecture
qdbm1.8.78QDBM
qhttpengine1.0.1qhttpengine
qjson0.9.0QJson
qscintilla22.11.2QScintilla2
qt4.8.7Qt
qt3d5.15.16Qt
qt55.15.16Qt
qt5-host-toolsqt5-host-tools
qt66.8.1Qt6
qt6-conf6.8.1qt6-conf
qt6-qt5compat6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtbase6.8.1Qt6
qt6-qtcharts6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtdeclarative6.8.1Qt
qt6-qthttpserver6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtimageformats6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtmultimedia6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtscxml6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtserialport6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtservice11730d4Qt Solutions
qt6-qtshadertools6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtsvg6.8.1Qt
qt6-qttools6.8.1Qt
qt6-qttranslations6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtvirtualkeyboard6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtwebsockets6.8.1Qt
qt6-qtwebview6.8.1Qt
qtactiveqt5.15.16Qt
qtbase5.15.16Qt
qtcharts5.15.16Qt
qtcoap5.15.16Qt
qtconnectivity5.15.16Qt
qtdatavis3d5.15.16Qt
qtdeclarative5.15.16Qt
qtgamepad5.15.16Qt
qtgraphicaleffects5.15.16Qt
qtifw4.5.1Qt Installer Framework
qtimageformats5.15.16Qt
qtkeychain0.13.2QtKeychain
qtkeychain-qt60.13.2QtKeychain
qtlocation5.15.16Qt
qtlottie5.15.16Qt
qtmultimedia5.15.16Qt
qtnetworkauth5.15.16Qt
qtofficeopenxmlb26a85bQtOfficeOpenXml
qtpurchasing5.15.16Qt
qtquick3d5.15.16Qt
qtquickcontrols5.15.16Qt
qtquickcontrols25.15.16Qt
qtremoteobjects5.15.16Qt
qtscript5.15.16Qt
qtscxml5.15.16Qt
qtsensors5.15.16Qt
qtserialbus5.15.16Qt
qtserialport5.15.16Qt
qtserialport_qt45c3b6ccQt
qtservice11730d4Qt Solutions
qtsparklefde631fQt auto-updater lib
qtsparkle_qt4fde631fQt auto-updater lib
qtspeech5.15.16Qt
qtsvg5.15.16Qt
qtsystemse3332eeQt
qttools5.15.16Qt
qttranslations5.15.16Qt
qtvirtualkeyboard5.15.16Qt
qtwebchannel5.15.16Qt
qtwebkit5.212QtWebKit
qtwebsockets5.15.16Qt
qtwebview5.15.16Qt
qtwinextras5.15.16Qt
qtxlsxwriter01eb671QtXlsxWriter
qtxmlpatterns5.15.16Qt
quazip0.8.1quazip
qwt6.1.5Qwt
qwtplot3dd80c908QwtPlot3D
ragel6.10Ragel
raptor22.0.16raptor2
rasqal0.9.33rasqal
re22024-07-02Regular expression engine
readline8.2GNU Readline library
redland1.0.17redland
rttopo1.1.0RT Topology Library
rubberband1.8.1Rubberband
rucksack3.1.0rucksack
scons-local3.1.2Standalone SCons
sdl1.2.15SDL
sdl22.30.11SDL2
sdl2_gfx1.0.4SDL2_gfx
sdl2_image2.0.5SDL2_image
sdl2_mixer2.0.4SDL2_mixer
sdl2_net2.0.1sdl2_net
sdl2_ttf2.0.18SDL2_ttf
sdl33.1.6SDL3
sdl_gfx2.0.26SDL_gfx
sdl_image1.2.12SDL_image
sdl_mixer1.2.12SDL_mixer
sdl_net1.2.8SDL_net
sdl_pango0.1.2SDL_Pango
sdl_rwhttp0.2.0SDL_rwhttp
sdl_sound1.0.3SDL_sound
sdl_ttf2.0.11SDL_ttf
sfml2.5.1SFML
smpeg0.4.5+cvs200…smpeg
smpeg22.0.0smpeg
smtpclient-for-qt7e55309SmtpClient-for-Qt
sox14.4.2SoX
sparsehash2.0.3sparsehash
spatialite5.1.0SpatiaLite
spdlog1.11.0Fast C++ logging library.
speex1.2.1Speex
speexdsp1.2rc3SpeexDSP
sqlcipher4.4.3SQLite extension that provides 256 bit AES encryption of database files
sqlite3490100SQLite
subversion1.9.7subversion
suitesparse4.5.6SuiteSparse
t4k_common0.1.1t4k_common
taglib1.12TagLib
tcl8.6.10tcl
tclap1.2.1tclap
teem1.11.0Teem
termcap1.3.1Termcap
theora1.1.1Theora
tidy-html55.9.14-nextHTML/XML syntax checker and reformatter
tiff4.7.0LibTIFF
tinyxml2.6.2tinyxml
tinyxml27.0.1tinyxml2
tre0.9.0TRE
twolame0.4.0TwoLAME
ucl1.03UCL
udunits2.2.28udunits
unrtf0.21.10unRTF
unzip6.10bInfo-ZIP
upx3.96UPX
vamp-plugin-sdk2.5Vamp Plugins SDK
vc1.3.3SIMD Vector Classes for C++
vcdimager2.0.1vcdimager
vidstab1.1.1vid.stab video stablizer
vigra1.9.0vigra
vmime43b262bVMime
vo-aacenc0.1.3VO-AACENC
vo-amrwbenc0.1.3VO-AMRWBENC
vorbis1.3.7Vorbis
vtk8.2.0vtk
vulkan-headers1.3.280vulkan headers
vulkan-loadervulkan-sdk-1…vulkan loader
waf1.8.17Waf: the meta build system
wavpack5.8.1WavPack
wget1.25.0wget
wget22.2.0wget2
widl12.0.0Wine IDL Compiler
winpcap4_1_3WinPcap
winpthreads-host12.0.0winpthreads-host
woff21.0.2woff2
wt4.3.1Wt
wxwidgets3.1.7wxWidgets
x264373697b4x264
x2654.1x265
xapian-core1.4.16Xapian-Core
xerces3.1.4Xerces-C++
xmlrpc-cd4364f4xmlrpc-c
xmlsec1.2.29xmlsec
xmlwrapp0.7.0xmlwrapp
xorg-macros1.19.0X.org utility macros
xvidcore1.3.7xvidcore
xxhash0.7.2xxHash
xz5.6.4XZ
yaml-cpp0.8.0A YAML parser and emitter for C++
yasm1.3.0Yasm
zip3.0Info-ZIP
zlib1.3.1zlib
zstd1.5.7Zstandard is a fast lossless compression algorithm
zziplib0.13.69ZZIPlib

Guidelines for Creating Packages

  1. The package should be a free software library that is really used by one of your applications. Please also review our legal notes.

    BTW, we're always curious about the applications people are porting. We maintain a list of projects which use MXE. No matter whether your project is free or proprietary – as long as it has its own website, we'd be happy to link to it.

    Also, feel free to link to us. :-)

  2. Grep through the src/*.mk files to find a project that is most similar to yours. (Really, grep is your friend here.)

    For instance, when adding a GNU library, you should take a package like gettext.mk or libiconv.mk as the base of your work. When using a SourceForge project, you could start with a copy of xmlwrapp.mk. And so on.

    GitHub hosted projects can automatically configure updates, urls, file names etc. by setting $(PKG)_GH_CONF instead of $(PKG)_FILE, $(PKG)_SUBDIR, $(PKG)_URL, and $(PKG)_UPDATE sections.

    To track releases set:

    $(PKG)_GH_CONF  := owner/repo/releases[/latest][, tag prefix, tag suffix, tag filter-out, version separator]

    Releases may require setting _FILE, _SUBDIR, _URL, depending on the naming convention used by the project for tarballs.

    To track tags set:

    $(PKG)_GH_CONF  := owner/repo/tags[, tag prefix, tag suffix, tag filter-out, version separator]

    To track branches, set:

    $(PKG)_GH_CONF  := owner/repo/branches/<branch name>

    See the following packages for examples:

    • gc.mk for release tracking with non-standard file name
    • yaml-cpp.mk for release tracking with standard file name
    • vmime.mk for branch tracking
    • libevent.mk for tag tracking
    • libffi.mk for externally hosted tarballs with generated sources not present in source tree

    The GNU Make Standard Library is also available (though it should be unnecessary for most packages).

    Alternatively you can use tool tools/skeleton.py to create a skeleton of new MXE package. It fills most of the fields of .mk file automatically and supports typical build scenarios through option --builder. It also adds a package to the list of packages (see below).

  3. Adjust the comments, fill in the $(PKG)_* fields.

    To fill the $(PKG)_CHECKSUM field, use a command such as (for file gettext.mk):

    make update-checksum-gettext

    or:

    openssl sha256 pkg/gettext-x.y.z.tar.gz

    if you have already downloaded the package.

    Be especially careful with the $(PKG)_DEPS section. The easiest way to get the dependencies right is to start with a minimal setup. That is, initialize MXE with make cc only, then check whether your package builds successfully.

    Always list the dependency on cc explicitly:

    $(PKG)_DEPS     := cc ...

    Specify official name and website of a package. If the official name coincides with the package name, you can omit $(PKG)_DESCR.

    PKG             := libdvdetect
    $(PKG)_WEBSITE  := https://www.dvdetect.de/
    $(PKG)_DESCR    := Fast database lookup for DVDs

    Always look for the SSL version of URLs, that is, prefer https:// URLs over http:// URLs.

  4. Write your $(PKG)_BUILD. If your library has a ./configure script, enable/disable all dependency libraries explicitly via "--enable-*" and "--disable-*" options.

    Things not to do:

    • do not run target executables with Wine, as Wine is not guaranteed to be installed. Instead build the needed tool natively or (if it is too huge to build one more time) add to MXE's dependencies. This policy is forced by setting WINEPREFIX to an empty directory, which breaks Wine;
    • do not download anything while building, as all files downloaded should be verified by checksums. Instead create a package which installs the needed file. This policy is forced on Linux by LD_PRELOAD trick, breaking network functions.

    Useful Makefile variables provided by MXE:

    • $(SOURCE_DIR) is a directory with package source and $(BUILD_DIR) is an empty directory intended for build files. Both directories are temporary. Prefer out-of-tree builds. Autotools and CMake support them.

    • $(PREFIX) is path to usr/ directory. $(TOP_DIR) is path to MXE root directory. $(TARGET) is target triplet (e.g., i686-w64-mingw32.static). $(BUILD) is build triplet (e.g., x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu).

    • $(MXE_CONFIGURE_OPTS) adds standard options to ./configure script. Typical usage:

      cd '$(BUILD_DIR)' && '$(SOURCE_DIR)'/configure \
          $(MXE_CONFIGURE_OPTS)
                  
    • $(MXE_DISABLE_CRUFT) disables installation of documentation and programs.

      $(MAKE) -C '$(BUILD_DIR)' -j '$(JOBS)' $(MXE_DISABLE_CRUFT)
      $(MAKE) -C '$(BUILD_DIR)' -j 1 install $(MXE_DISABLE_CRUFT)
                  
    • $(BUILD_SHARED) is TRUE for shared targets. Useful to add flags applicable only to shared targets.

      $(if $(BUILD_SHARED),LDFLAGS=-no-undefined)
                  

      Similarly, $(BUILD_STATIC) is TRUE for static targets; $(BUILD_NATIVE) is TRUE for native targets; $(BUILD_CROSS) is TRUE for cross targets.

  5. You might also have to provide a patch for it. In that case, have a look at other patches such as sdl2-2-libtool.patch. In particular, each patch file should be named as:

    PACKAGE-PATCHNUMBER-DESCRIPTION.patch

    and should start with:

    This file is part of MXE. See LICENSE.md for licensing information.
    
    This patch has been taken from:
    https://...

    where the URL points to the bugtracker entry, mailing list entry or website you took the patch from.

    If you created the patch yourself, please offer it to the upstream project first, and point to that URL, using the same wording: "This patch has been taken from:".

    Depending on the feedback you get from the upstream project, you might want to improve your patch.

  6. If you find some time, please provide a minimal test program for it. It should be simple, stand alone and should work unmodified for many (all?) future versions of the library. Test programs are named as:

    PACKAGE-test.c
    or
    PACKAGE-test.cpp

    depending on whether it is a C or C++ library. To get a clue, please have a look at existing test programs such as sdl-test.c.

    At the very end of your *.mk file you should build the test program in a generic way, using strict compiler flags. The last few lines of sdl.mk will give you a clue.

  7. You could also try to provide a $(PKG)_UPDATE section. However, that requires some experience and "feeling" for it. So it is perfectly okay if you leave a placeholder:

    define $(PKG)_UPDATE
        echo 'TODO: write update script for $(PKG).' >&2;
        echo $($(PKG)_VERSION)
    endef

    We'll fill that in for you. It's a funny exercise.

  8. Check that you don't have "dirty stuff" in your *.mk files, such as TAB characters or trailing spaces at lines endings. Run:

    make cleanup-style

    to remove these. Have a look at random *.mk files to get a feeling for the coding style.

    The same holds for your test program.

    However, patch files should always appear in the same coding style as the files they are patching.

    When patching sources with crlf line endings, the patch file itself should also have the same eol style. Use the convention of naming the file as *crlf.patch to instruct git not to normalise the line endings (defined in .gitattributes).

    Finally, in your $(PKG)_BUILD section, please check that you use our portability variables:

    bash $(SHELL)
    date $(DATE)
    install $(INSTALL)
    libtool $(LIBTOOL)
    libtoolize$(LIBTOOLIZE)
    make $(MAKE)
    patch $(PATCH)
    sed $(SED)
    sort $(SORT)
    wget $(WGET)
  9. Check whether everything runs fine. If you have some trouble, don't hesitate to ask on the mailing list, providing your *.mk file so far.

  10. Issue a pull request to propose your final *.mk file to us. If you have trouble with pull requests, send your file to the mailing list instead.

    Either way, don't forget to tell us if there are some pieces in your *.mk file you feel unsure about. We'll then have a specific look at those parts, which avoids trouble for you and us in the future.

(contact via the project mailing list)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Disclaimer - it's all code...

Modern legal systems are like any other large, complex, and evolving body of code you're likely to encounter.

They have their own language with quirky parsers, compilers, and interpreters (though these tend to be human). Their issue trackers are a backlog of court cases. They have bugs. They have traps for the uninitiated that may potentially do more than waste your time.

We currently limit ourselves to:

--enable-languages='c,c++,objc,fortran'

so nothing mentioned here or on the mailing list should be taken as legal advice. :-)

Choosing the right compiler

The best starting point for any legal questions would be the

FTF (Freedom Task Force of the FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe)).

They have been very helpful in the past, and maintain an extensive network of legal contacts, both within and outside Europe.

Your local jurisdiction may be a signatory to various international agreements, so be sure to mention where you are in any correspondence (much like any detailed bug report really).

Additionally, you should also do some background reading from the FSF (Free Software Foundation) and Wikipedia to familiarise yourself with some of the potential issues (and experience some context-switching overhead).

Contributions

Contributions are always welcome!

Ownership of all contributions (bug fixes, new packages, doc updates, etc.) remain with the author. All we require is a real name (no l33t handles, please), and that you release your work under our licence.

If you prefer not to be credited with a contribution, please notify the committer.

Package Licences

Each package is individually licensed under terms specified by the authors of that package. Please see the respective source tarball and/or project website for details.

Packages that are non-free or ambiguous will be removed or rejected.

The definition of free must be one of:

Please contact the mailing list if you notice a package that doesn't meet these guidlines.

In addition to the usual considerations (copyrights, patents, trademarks, export regulations etc.), building statically linked libraries for Windows exposes some edge cases that you may not have encountered before.

According to freedom 0 and our own licence, you can use mxe in countless different environments, each with it's own special legal considerations. The configuration options of certain packages (e.g ffmpeg) allow the use of non-free software and/or combinations that cause license violations.

For these packages, we will provide sensible defaults aimed at achieving the following goals:

  1. avoid causing inherent licensing issues with conflicting options
  2. make the package as feature complete as possible

Note that this does not prevent downstream violations, or affect any further obligations a licence may impose on you.

GNU Licenses

Review the FAQ

LGPL and Static Linking

Review the Differences from the GPL section of the Wikipedia article mentioned above.

GPL and OpenSSL

See conflicting accounts from the FSF and the OpenSSL project.

Since August 2015, there is an ongoing effort to re-license to Apache v2.

FDK AAC and GPL

The FDK license has a "no charging fees" clause that likely violates the GPL.

History

2015-05-04 – Retired the stable branch

The stable branch was retired as it did more harm than good. Everybody is using the master branch, because it is always recent and well enough tested. For historical reference, the last commit to the stable branch was 0c6cc9c, which was fully merged into master as usual.

Added support for shared toolchains for over 50% of all the packages.

Unfortunately, a number of factors have forced us to drop support for MinGW 3 (i.e. "MinGW.org"), in favor of the MinGW-w64 toolchain. This decision was made in a large part because of the dropping of support for MinGW by GLib and Qt5, which arguably are two of the most important packages in MXE. Other considerations have also been taken, like the lack of maintainership in MinGW and potential legal challenges that comes with using supplemental DirectX headers in MinGW in order to support Qt4. Worse yet, having to support the unsupported MinGW toolchain impedes adding or updating packages, as shown in the pull request of updating GLib.

Please note that dropping support for MinGW DOES NOT MEAN dropping support for the 32-bit architecture. MinGW-w64 also supports 32-bit target through i686-w64-mingw32.

To ease migration to the supported MinGW-w64 target, we have finished porting all packages that were MinGW-only to at least i686-w64-mingw32 (32-bit target of MinGW-w64). Hence your existing commands should work out-of-the-box assuming the MXE_TARGETS environment variable is set correctly.

2013-07-27 – Release 2.23

The stable branch was updated to the current development version after a thorough testing phase.

Current users are strongly encouraged to start with a clean tree as the toolchain has been updated and requires a full rebuild:

git pull && make clean && make

Most packages were updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: alure, apr-util, apr, armadillo, cegui, cfitsio, cminpack, flann, gtkglarea, gtkimageview, harfbuzz, hdf4, hdf5, hunspell, icu4c, itk, lensfun, levmar, libf2c, libftdi, libgda, libgdamm, libglade, liblqr-1, libmodplug, librtmp, libzip, log4cxx, mdbtools, ncurses, netcdf, netpbm, ocaml-cairo, ocaml-camlimages, ocaml-core, ocaml-findlib, ocaml-flexdll, ocaml-lablgl, ocaml-lablgtk2, ocaml-native, ocaml-xml-light, opencv, opus, opusfile, pcl, picomodel, plib, plibc, poppler, portablexdr, portmidi, protobuf, qdbm, qt5, qtactiveqt, qtbase, qtdeclarative, qtgraphicaleffects, qtimageformats, qtjsbackend, qtmultimedia, qtquick1, qtquickcontrols, qtscript, qtsensors, qtserialport, qtsvg, qttools, qttranslations, qtxmlpatterns, qwt, sdl_gfx, sfml, sox, teem, twolame, vtk6, wavpack, wget, winpthreads, xapian-core, yasm

Added support for mingw-w64 based toolchains targeting 32 & 64-bit architectures.

With the addition of Qt5, there is no longer a prefixed version of qmake, see the Qt section of the tutorial for the new way to invoke qmake.

FreeBSD is no longer fully supported. Qt5, ocaml*, and 8 other packages are excluded from the build.

2012-04-12 – Release 2.22

The release tarballs have been replaced with a stable branch that conforms to the new branch concept:

  • Any change of a build script goes into "master".
  • Any package upgrade goes into "master".
  • Any documentation upgrade that refers to a feature not present in stable goes into "master".
  • Anything else that doesn't affect the build goes into "stable".
  • Any non-critical improvement to the main Makefile goes into "stable".
  • Any improvement in the package download URLs or package version recognition goes into "stable".
  • When in doubt, "master" is used rather than "stable".
  • Every change to the "stable" branch will be merged into "master".
  • After a successful testing phase, the "stable" branch will be fast-forwarded to "master".

The project has been renamed from mingw-cross-env (MinGW cross compiling environment) to MXE (M cross environment).

Most packages were updated to their latest version.

New packages are supported: agg, cgal, eigen, file, gta, json-c, libgnurx, libharu, libircclient, libssh2, libxml++, llvm, lzo, mpfr, nettle, opencsg, qjson, qwtplot3d, vtk, and wt.

2011-06-07 – Release 2.21

Download | Changelog

Minor bugfixes in several packages.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Packages gtkmm and gtksourceviewmm have been renamed to gtkmm2 and gtksourceviewmm2.

New packages are supported: libass, poco, and t4k_common.

2011-04-05 – Release 2.20

Download | Changelog

This release fixes a download error caused by the pixman project (a sudden change of their URL scheme without proper redirects). That sort of thing should never happen!

2011-03-19 – Release 2.19

Download | Changelog

The download mechanisms are improved.

A CMake toolchain file is provided to simplify cross-compiling projects which use CMake.

Support for Debian/Lenny is dropped.

Package gtk is renamed to gtk2.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

New packages are supported: dbus, graphicsmagick, libical, liboauth, physfs, and vigra.

Note for boost::filesystem users: Version 3 is a major revision and now the default in 1.46.

2010-12-15 – Release 2.18

Download | Changelog

This release fixes a checksum error caused by the atkmm project (a sudden change of their current source tarball). That sort of thing should never happen!

2010-12-11 – Release 2.17

Download | Changelog

This release provides some improvements of the build system such as an automatic check for most of the requirements.

All packages are updated to their latest version.

New packages are supported: bfd, blas, cblas, dcmtk, ftgl, lapack, lcms1, mingw-utils, mxml, suitesparse and tinyxml.

2010-10-27 – Release 2.16

Download | Changelog

This release provides lots of improvements to the build system as well as the documentation.

Support for OpenSolaris is dropped.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: atkmm, cairomm, cunit, faac, faad2, ffmpeg, gdk-pixbuf, glibmm, gtkglextmm, gtkmm, gtksourceview, gtksourceviewmm, imagemagick, lame, libiberty, libsigc++, libvpx, matio, openal, opencore-amr, pangomm, pfstools, plotmm, sdl_sound and x264.

2010-06-16 – Release 2.15

Download | Changelog

This release fixes download errors caused by the Qt project (a sudden change of their current source tarball).

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2010-06-08 – Release 2.14

Download | Changelog

This release fixes download errors caused by the MinGW project (a sudden change of their URL scheme without proper redirects). That sort of thing should never happen!

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

New packages are supported: libarchive, libgee and xvidcore.

2010-05-31 – Release 2.13

Download | Changelog

This release switches back from TDM to the official GCC, thus supporting the current GCC 4.5.

The set of DirectX headers is improved and more complete.

The deadlock issues with Pthreads-w32 are fixed.

A static build of GDB is provided, i.e. a standalone "gdb.exe" that doesn't require any extra DLLs.

More packages are backed by test programs.

Many "sed hacks" are replaced by proper portability patches.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: fribidi, gc, gdb, gmp, gsl, gst-plugins-base, gst-plugins-good, gstreamer, gtkglext, guile, libcroco, libffi, liboil, libpaper, libshout, libunistring and xine-lib.

2010-02-21 – Release 2.12

Download | Changelog

This release fixes some minor build issues, and contains a first small set of test programs to check the package builds.

The build rules are simplified by calling generators like Autotools and Flex, instead of patching the generated files.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

Many new packages are supported: aubio, devil, directx, exiv2, fftw, freeimage, gsoap, id3lib, liblo, libpano13, librsvg, libsamplerate, muparser, openscenegraph, portaudio and sdl_pango.

2010-02-20 – Release 2.11

Download | Changelog

This release contains a packaging bug. Please use release 2.12 instead.

2009-12-23 – Release 2.10

Download | Changelog

This release adds support for many new packages: flac, libmad, libsndfile, sdl_net, speex, postgresql, freetds, openssl, plotutils, taglib, lcms, freeglut, xerces and zziplib.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

In addition to the libraries some command line tools such as psql.exe are built, too.

The placements of logfiles, as well as many other build details, have been improved.

2009-10-24 – Release 2.9

Download | Changelog

This release adds support for Qt, VMime and libmng.

The target triplet is updated to i686-pc-mingw32.

OpenMP support is enabled in GCC.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2009-09-11 – Release 2.8

Download | Changelog

This release comes with a better look & feel by providing a highlevel overview of the build process.

The detailed build messages are stored into separate log files for each package, so parallel builds don't intermix them anymore.

The download URLs of SourceForge packages are adjusted to ensure that the selected SourceForge mirror is really used and not circumvalented via HTTP redirects to other mirrors.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

The whole mingw-cross-env project has moved to Savannah. So all URIs have changed, but the old URIs redirect to the new locations seamlessly.

Everyone is invited to join the freshly created project mailing list.

2009-08-11 – Release 2.7

Download | Changelog

This release provides an improved version recognition for SourceForge packages. SourceForge changed their page layout in a way that makes it much harder to identify the current version of a package.

Additionally, almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

2009-06-19 – Release 2.6

Download | Changelog

This release contains some portability fixes which allow it to run on a wider range of systems such as Frugalware.

The documentation and website are completely revised.

New packages such as CppUnit, libUsb, NSIS, Popt, SQLite and Theora are supported.

Almost all packages are updated to their latest version.

A new command "make download" is implemented.

2009-04-06 – Release 2.5

Download | Changelog

This release fixes a download error caused by the MinGW project. They suddenly changed the names of their source tarballs. That sort of thing should never happen!

This release also contains some bugfixes which allow it to run on a wider range of systems.

All downloaded files are now verified by their SHA-1 checksums.

New versions of various packages are supported.

2009-03-08 – Release 2.4

Download | Changelog

This release provides many new libraries such as wxWidgets, GTK+ and OpenEXR.

In addition, new versions of various packages are supported.

2009-02-09 – Release 2.3

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This release fixes some serious build problems on FreeBSD and MacOS-X.

The Makefile has a new target "clean-pkg" and allows to be called from a separate build directory via "make -f .../Makefile".

Some new versions of the packages are supported, especially GCC-4.3 by switching from MinGW GCC to TDM-GCC.

2009-01-31 – Release 2.2

Download | Changelog

This release fixes some minor build problems.

It also supports some new packages and some newer versions of the already supported packages.

Parallelization is now disabled by default.

2008-12-13 – Release 2.1

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This release fixes a download error caused by the GDAL project. They suddenly changed their download URLs. That sort of thing should never happen!

In addition, some newer versions of various packages are supported.

There is also a small compatibility fix for OS X.

2008-11-10 – Release 2.0

Download | Changelog

The shell script has been rewritten as Makefile and supports partial builds and parallel builds.

As usual, this release also supports some new packages and some newer versions of the already supported packages.

2008-01-11 – Release 1.4

Download | Changelog

This release now includes a tutorial by Hans Bezemer and has improved compile options of FLTK. As usual, it supports some newer versions of the libraries.

At the request of its author, libowfat is no longer supported from this release on.

The script now uses a specific SourceForge mirror instead of randomly chosen ones, because the download phase often stumbled on some very slow mirrors.

2007-12-23 – Release 1.3

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A sudden change in the download URLs of GEOS made the automatic download fail. Such changes should never happen! But it happened, and this quick release is an attempt to limit the damage.

This release also supports some newer versions of the libraries including support for fontconfig-2.5.0.

2007-12-13 – Release 1.2

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This release is a switch from gcc-3 to gcc-4. It also supports a new library and some newer versions of the already supported libraries.

2007-07-24 – Release 1.1

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This release is the result of the public attention the release 1.0 got. It contains many improvements suggested by its first users, and adds support for many new libraries.

Thanks to Rocco Rutte who contributed many code snippets.

2007-06-19 – Release 1.0

Download | Changelog

This first release has been created in a 7-day-sprint.

2007-06-12 – Project start

See also

This project

Related articles

Related projects

Projects which use MXE (alphabetical order)