[RFC] Recommend/Default to UCRT64 instead of MINGW64

[lazka]

This mainly means:

• Starting a UCRT64 shell after the installer finishes -> msys2/msys2-installer@1012614
• Using ucrt64 in examples in the docs and recommend it there -> msys2/msys2.github.io@0ecd2cf
• Run package-grokker etc for ucrt64 -> e6df55c
• Build source packages in an ucrt64 env -> msys2/msys2-autobuild@9d582e1
• Release a new installer with the new defaults -> https://github.com/msys2/msys2-installer/releases/tag/2022-10-28
• Using ucrt64 in the installation guide -> install guide: default to ucrt64 msys2.github.io#227
• Advertising the change in NEWS/on twitter etc. -> NEWS: Changing the default environment from MINGW64 to UCRT64 msys2.github.io#228

What needs to be done first:

There are 11 packages not built for ucrt64 right now: https://packages.msys2.org/repos

• Figure out which packages
• Try to fix them
• ???

[MehdiChinoune]

For the packages not available on UCRT64, if they are unbuildable with both MINGW64 and UCRT64 just drop them especially if they are too old or abandoned.

[jeremyd2019]

There are 11 packages not built for ucrt64 right now: https://packages.msys2.org/repos

• Figure out which packages

• advancecomp: Build on UCRT64 and CLANG64 #13375 mingw-w64-advancecomp
• creduce: Build from git #13374 mingw-w64-creduce
• globjects: build from git #13391 mingw-w64-globjects
• dnscrypt-proxy: update to 2.1.2 #13385 mingw-w64-dnscrypt-proxy
• riscv64-unknown-elf-newlib: update to 4.2.0.20211231 #13406 mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-newlib
• arm-none-eabi-newlib: update to 4.2.0.20211231 #13407 mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-newlib
• riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc: update to 12.2.0 #13449 mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc
• update ocaml to 4.14.0 and flexdll to 0.42 #13382 mingw-w64-flexdll
• arm-none-eabi-gcc: update to 12.2.0 #13444 mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-gcc
• mingw-w64-julia -> ignore for now, doesn't build at all
• mingw-w64-usbview-git -> ignore for now, doesn't build at all

Python script to generate

#!/usr/bin/env python

import re
import pacdb

pfxre = re.compile(r'^mingw-w64(?:-clang|-ucrt)?-(?:x86_64|i686|aarch64)-')

mingw64 = pacdb.mingw_db_by_name('mingw64')
ucrt64 = pacdb.mingw_db_by_name('ucrt64')


mingw64names = {pfxre.sub('mingw-w64-', pkg.name) for pkg in mingw64}

ucrt64names = {pfxre.sub('mingw-w64-', pkg.name) for pkg in ucrt64}

updates = mingw64names - ucrt64names


print(updates)

[Biswa96]

One liner

grep -r mingw_arch --include PKGBUILD | grep mingw64 | grep -v ucrt64 

[stahta01]

I am trying to build mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-gcc, mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-newlib, and mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-binutils for UCRT64.

Tim S.

[MehdiChinoune]

dnscrypt-proxy: source is not available anymore, don't know why. They recommend to build dnscrypt-wrapper https://www.dnscrypt.org/#dnscrypt-server, but I don't know if it could be considered as replacement or not!
globjects: Couldn't be built in all envs, maybe we should try git!
creduce: same as globjects

[stahta01]

I am also trying to add UCRT64 support to 'mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc' and 'mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-newlib'.

Edit: After I get mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-newlib to build I will start work on mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-newlib.

Tim S.

[wszqkzqk]

Will there be ucrt32 to take the place of mingw32?

[revelator]

globjects has not been able to build for years im afraid, glbinding one of the dependencies made some changes that broke it and it was newer updated so might as well remove it.

[stahta01]

The newlib PRs are #13404 and #13403 the GCC packages take so long that the build times out.
Once the changes to mingw-w64-arm-none-eabi-newlib and mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf-newlib are in the repo I hope the GCC changes will run without timeout on the CI server.

Edit: I have decide to work on mingw-w64-riscv64-unknown-elf toolchain before the Arm toolchain.
It is building faster.

Edit2: I gave up on the packages because someone else was doing an PR before I got done.

Tim S.

[lazka]

Will there be ucrt32 to take the place of mingw32?

There are no plans for a ucrt32 atm

[kmilos]

How about defaulting MINGW_ARCH=ucrt64 in makepkg-mingw as well?

[lazka]

How about defaulting MINGW_ARCH=ucrt64 in makepkg-mingw as well?

hm, good point. I'm worried that this will break things though. There is already a warning printed that calling it in a way that makes it use the default is deprecated. https://github.com/msys2/MSYS2-packages/blob/390cd56562eca024dcf2164d9444e5aa7cf7c6a8/pacman/makepkg-mingw#L94

[lazka]

I think we can leave the two remaining packages as is for now (mingw-w64-julia, mingw-w64-usbview-git), they don't even build under MINGW32/64 right now.

The next steps would be to create a new installer and merge msys2/msys2.github.io#227 and msys2/msys2.github.io#228 (feedback on those PRs welcome)

The only known issue left is #13608, but we can look at that later.

[lazka]

All done now. If any related issues come up, please let us know, or create new issues.