Building on Windows with a focus on generating PDB files

[Ben Rush]

I think getting the PDB files and analyzing specific cases will be
important as right now my descriptions will be vague without stack traces,
et al. Now that I realize there are actual PDB files, I will try to get
more information.

I also try getting a build going so that I can fix issues I find on Windows
and make suggestions.

On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:25 PM Nicolas Dufresne <nicolas at ndufresne.ca>
wrote:

>
>
> Le jeu. 5 sept. 2019 16 h 40, Ben Rush <ben at ben-rush.net> a écrit :
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> It always depends on what features you are using. But even though windows
> maintenance is getting bigger, CI now exist and may be able to run
> automatically in near future, the level or maintenance and testing remains
> bigger on Linux then any other platforms.
>
> Best is do bring some specific case, specific plugins and from there we
> can guide you through the known issues, or toward different solutions. It
> may also just help bringing some attention to specific issue. We have
> around 3K issues filed in gitlab, so of course we don't remember all of
> them, and may not hit them in our day to day work.
>
>
>> 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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