CMake (was More about x-packages)

[Hal V. Engel]

On Saturday 22 December 2007 11:37:56 Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> > One question: What is the difference of installing Cmake in opposite to
> > MinGW in order to compile a software project?
>
> MinGW with MSYS and MinGW without MSYS are two possible windows platforms.
> CMake can be used to help build software on both those platforms. Autotools
> can be used to build software on MinGW but MSYS is required in that case.

More specifically.  MinGW is a minimal GCC installation (compiler, linker, 
make utility and compiler runtimes) and some Windows specific runtimes.  MSYS 
is autotools and some other unix utilities such as a bash shell, ls... so 
that you can build applications and libraries that use autotools in an 
environment that is unix like.  For applications/libraries that use build 
systems like cmake, scons, jam... you do not need MSYSwhen using MinGW.  
Because many applications that do not use autotools are dependant on 
libraries that do use autotools it is common to have MSYS installed along 
side MinGW so that those autotooled libraries can be built.

Hal