Building on Windows with a focus on generating PDB files

[Ben Rush]

Hi, thanks, David. I really appreciate your response. That clears up a lot.

So, this brings me to a straightforward question: is GStreamer generally
more stable on Linux than Windows? Or at least, more used? I ask not to be
negative but to essentially confirm a belief I have picked up after using
it on Windows for a while. Honestly, I have dealt with quite a few more
ephemeral issues: random access violations, performance issues, etc. on
Windows than I have on Linux. Also, comments about it taking so long to
build on Windows, and that there are known bugs that people are potentially
not tracking, also makes me think Windows isn't as much the focus.

None of this is meant to be negative (honest), and I definitely believe
major products are using it on Windows, but I'm just curious if there is a
basis for these feelings? That perhaps getting it to work as well on
Windows as it does on Linux perhaps simply means more work for me.

Thanks again.

On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 2:43 PM David Ing <ding at panopto.com> wrote:

> The official Windows binaries are built using this tool:
> https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/cerbero
>
> The official WIndows binaries are built on a Windows machine, although it
> is possible to build the mingw binaries from Linux using a cross-compile
> (through cerbero).  The MSVC build is great because it provides *.pdb
> files, but not all components can be built using msvc, the remainder are
> built via mingw.  Unfortunately, building on a WIndows machine takes a
> really really really long time.  (The cross-compile from Linux is much
> faster.)
>
> With Cerbero, the 1.16 branches use a very old version of the mingw
> toolchain.  The master branch uses a newer version of the mingw toolchain.
>
> There are a number of known bugs with the Windows version of gstreamer
> which do not exist on Linux.  (I do not know if anybody is maintaining a
> list of those bugs.)
>
> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 11:51 AM Ben Rush <ben at ben-rush.net> wrote:
>
>> I have a desire to build Gstreamer on Windows, more specifically a debug
>> build so that I can track down some crashes that are occurring.
>> Unfortunately, it seems as though this isn't a thing that's well-traveled,
>> or I'm at least getting conflicting information on forums and blog posts
>> about the process. I thought I'd ask on here about the latest state of
>> things since blog posts/forum posts can be depreciated quickly with
>> updates. I'm cool with RTFM, but some sources I'm reading say the manual
>> itself is out of date.
>>
>> For example, a couple of blog posts (such as this one:
>> https://cardinalpeak.com/blog/build-gstreamer-on-windows-an-advanced-tutorial/)
>> that don't appear too old, mention the existing instructions are, and I
>> quote, "woefully out of date" (presumably when specifically targeting
>> Windows) and that the task is "fairly complex". There are Windows builds,
>> and so presumably there is a well-tested method for generating these
>> binaries on Windows. If so, surely there are well-tested steps out there
>> for doing what I want. But if instructions available to me (I'm assuming
>> this blog post meant the official instructions) are out of date, I'd like
>> to keep that in mind as I'm using them. Or if HE is wrong, I'd like to know
>> that. And if the official instructions are NOT out of date, I'm wondering
>> if anyone has had any luck using them to generate any other than release
>> builds?
>>
>> Any advice? Pointers? Feedback? Thanks for your time.
>>
>>
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