Cross-compile a Rust application from Linux to Windows

Question

Basically I\'m trying to compile the simplest code to Windows while I am developing on Linux.

fn main() {
    println!(\"Hello, and bye.\")
}

Answer 1

UPDATE 2019-06-11

This fails for me with:

     Running `rustc --crate-name animation examples/animation.rs --color always --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C debuginfo=2 --cfg 'feature="default"' -C metadata=006e668c6384c29b -C extra-filename=-006e668c6384c29b --out-dir /home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -C ar=x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-ar -C linker=x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -C incremental=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/incremental -L dependency=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps -L dependency=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/debug/deps --extern bitflags=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/libbitflags-2c7b3e3d10e1e0dd.rlib --extern lazy_static=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/liblazy_static-a80335916d5ac241.rlib --extern libc=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/liblibc-387157ce7a56c1ec.rlib --extern num=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/libnum-18ac2d75a7462b42.rlib --extern rand=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/librand-7cf254de4aeeab70.rlib --extern sdl2=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/libsdl2-3f37ebe30a087396.rlib --extern sdl2_sys=/home/roman/projects/rust-sdl2/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/deps/libsdl2_sys-3edefe52781ad7ef.rlib -L native=/home/roman/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/winapi-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu-0.4.0/lib`
error: linking with `x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc` failed: exit code: 1

Maybe this will help https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/44787

Static compile sdl2

There is option to static-compile sdl but it didn't work for me.

Also mixer is not included when used with bundled.

Let's cross-compile examples from rust-sdl2 project from Ubuntu to Windows x86_64

In ~/.cargo/config

[target.x86_64-pc-windows-gnu]
linker = "x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc"
ar = "x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-ar"

Then run this:

sudo apt-get install gcc-mingw-w64-x86-64 -y
# use rustup to add target https://github.com/rust-lang/rustup.rs#cross-compilation
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

# Based on instructions from https://github.com/AngryLawyer/rust-sdl2/

# First we need sdl2 libs
# links to packages https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev -y
curl -s https://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL2-devel-2.0.9-mingw.tar.gz | tar xvz -C /tmp

# Prepare files for building

mkdir -p ~/projects
cd ~/projects
git clone https://github.com/Rust-SDL2/rust-sdl2
cd rust-sdl2
cp -r /tmp/SDL2-2.0.9/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib/* ~/.rustup/toolchains/stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/lib/
cp /tmp/SDL2-2.0.9/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/SDL2.dll .

Build examples at once

cargo build --target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu --verbose --examples

Or stop after first fail:

echo; for i in examples/*; do [ $? -eq 0 ] && cargo build --target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu --verbose --example $(basename $i .rs); done

Run

cargo build will put binaries in target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples/

Copy needed files:

cp /tmp/SDL2-2.0.4/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/SDL2.dll target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples/
cp assets/sine.wav target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples/

Then copy directory target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples/ to your Windows machine and run exe files.

Run in cmd.exe

If you want to see the console output when running exe files, you may run them from cmd.exe.

To open cmd.exe in current directory in file explorer, right click with shift on empty place in window and choose Open command window here.

Backtraces with mingw should work now - if not use msvc https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/39234