A bokeh wallpaper in a 2560x1600 pixel format from v3wall.com.

Compile xz for Windows using MinGW

xz is the new popular compression format. To build xz tools and libraries, I issued the following commands.

./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared --disable-nls --disable-lzma-links --disable-scripts
make
make install

I got the following files:

lzmadec.exe
lzmainfo.exe
unxz.exe
xz.exe
xzcat.exe
xzdec.exe

Note that xz can be used to create and decompress lzma files also.

Compile libcddb for Windows

libcddb is used to query for information about audio Compact Discs that has been loaded in media players and CD rippers. Compiling libcddb is not so hard with MinGW.

1. First, I installed MinGW. I compiled zlib and libiconv.

   
   
   

2. Then, I compiled libcdio. I downloaded the latest development source from its git web server.

   
   

   ./autogen.sh
   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make 
   make install

   
   
   

3. I compiled libcddb like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

FLAC for Windows

FLAC, short for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless. Thus, audio compressed in FLAC has no loss in quality. With digital storage getting cheaper everyday, it makes sense to copy or preserve sound in the near-perfect quality. I'm compiling FLAC with MinGW because it's needed by some programs I want to build.

1. I installed MinGW, of course. I also instaled NASM because it was suggested during configure. I just downloaded yasm-1.2.0-win32.exe and renamed it as nasm.exe.





2. I think it's not necessary, but I compiled zlib and libiconv.

   
   
   

3. I built OGG.

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

4. Then, I built FLAC.

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-sse

   
   
   

   The --enable-sse option is for SSE-capable CPU's which mean nearly all new desktop CPU's today. I began make.

   
   
   

   make

   
   
   

   I got errors about SIZE_T_MAX. To fix it, I just changed the line 38 in flac-1.2.1/include/share/alloc.h

   
   
   

   # if defined _MSC_VER || defined __MINGW32__

   
   
   

   I got another error compiling examples/cpp/encode/file/main.cpp. To fix it, I inserted the following line after <stdlib.h> on line 33.

   
   
   

   #include <string.h>

   
   
   

   I got no more error. I installed flac.

   
   
   

   make install

   
   
   

Kung Fu Hustle (2004) 功夫

Kung Fu Hustle is a funny but memorable movie from Hong Kong star Stephen Chow. If you haven't seen it yet, here's your chance to watch the movie.

And the one below is the original Chinese version with English subtitles.

Compile libRTMP with MinGW

The libRTMP library provides online multimedia streaming support for many open-source projects, such as ffmpeg and curl. I am building librtmp for use with ffmpeg and mplayer. I downloaded the latest release tarball from here.

1. First, I compiled zlib as shown in this post.

   
   

   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
   cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   

2. Then, I built OpenSSL as shown in this post.

   
   

   ./Configure -DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC -L/mingw/lib -lz -lpthreadGC2 -lws2_32 --prefix=/mingw threads zlib mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

3. Then, I built librtmp.

   
   

   make SYS=mingw
   cp -iv *.exe /mingw/bin

   
   

   To build the shared library, I typed:

   
   

   cd librtmp
   gcc -shared -o librtmp.dll -Wl,--out-implib,librtmp.dll.a rtmp.o log.o amf.o hashswf.o parseurl.o -lssl -lcrypto -lz -lws2_32 -lwinmm -lgdi32

   
   

   To install librtmp, I typed the following:

   
   

   cp -iv librtmp.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv amf.h http.h log.h rtmp.h /mingw/include/librtmp
   cp -iv librtmp*.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv librtmp.pc /mingw/lib/pkgconfig

   
   
   

4. Sometimes, librtmp.pc fails to be generated. In that case, make it yourself and copy it to /mingw/lib/pkgconfig.

   
   
   

   prefix=/mingw
   exec_prefix=${prefix}
   libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
   incdir=${prefix}/include/librtmp
   
   Name: librtmp
   Description: RTMP implementation
   Version: 2.3
   Requires: openssl libcrypto
   URL: http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu
   Libs: -L${libdir} -lrtmp -lz
   Libs.private: -lws2_32 -lwinmm -lgdi32 -lssl -lcrypto
   Cflags: -I${incdir}

   
   
   

Build OpenSSL with MinGW

OpenSSL is an open-source library that provides cryptographic and network security functions. It is used by so many open-source software that require SSL/TLS support. To build OpenSSL for Windows, first install MinGW. There are two flavors of MinGW: mingw and mingw64. Just pick one of the following and set it up accordingly:

• Installing MinGW on Windows
  
• Setting up MinGW64 with Cygwin
  

Then, download the latest source tarball from the OpenSSL website and unpack it with 7-zip. 7-zip should be used because MinGW/MSYS tar has trouble with tarballs containing symlinks. However, cygwin has no problem with tarballs containing symlinks.

OpenSSL optionally incorporates the following libraries when found.

• zlib
  
• pthreads-win32
  

Assuming that you compiled both zlib and pthread as shown in the above links, configure OpenSSL like this.

./Configure -DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC -DPTW32_STATIC_LIB -L/mingw/lib -lz -lpthreadGC2 -lws2_32 --prefix=/mingw threads zlib mingw

Then, run make.

make

If you run into errors compiling some test codes, just copy dummytest.c over. However, it doesn't happen under Cygwin.

cp -iv test/dummytest.c test/md2test.c
cp -iv test/dummytest.c test/rc5test.c
cp -iv test/dummytest.c test/jpaketest.c

Then, install OpenSSL.

make install

To Build the Live555 library with MinGW

The Live555 streaming media library is an open-source implementation of RTP/RTCP/RTSP/SIP multimedia streaming protocols. I mainly use it with MPlayer. To compile it with MinGW, download the source for live555 library and extract the tarball under /mingw/lib:

cd /mingw/lib
tar xzvf live555-latest.tar.gz
cd live

compile it like this:

./genMakefiles mingw
make

Live555 and MPlayer

Normally, mplayer will detect the live555 library automatically. If not, append --enable-live to the ./configure command.

After running ./configure, open config.mak in a text editor and make the following changes.

• Append the following text to CXXFLAGS= line.
  

  -I/mingw/lib/live/liveMedia/include -I/mingw/lib/live/UsageEnvironment/include -I/mingw/lib/live/BasicUsageEnvironment/include -I/mingw/lib/live/groupsock/include

  
  
• Append the following text to EXTRALIBS= line.
  

  /mingw/lib/live/liveMedia/libliveMedia.a /mingw/lib/live/UsageEnvironment/libUsageEnvironment.a /mingw/lib/live/BasicUsageEnvironment/libBasicUsageEnvironment.a /mingw/lib/live/groupsock/libgroupsock.a -lstdc++

  
  

Creating a Shared Library for live555

To create a shared library from the static live555 libraries, I ran the following command:

gcc -shared -o livemedia.dll -Wl,--out-implib,liblivemedia.dll.a -Wl,--whole-archive liveMedia/libliveMedia.a UsageEnvironment/libUsageEnvironment.a BasicUsageEnvironment/libBasicUsageEnvironment.a groupsock/libgroupsock.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive -lstdc++ -lws2_32

I got livemedia.dll and liblivemedia.dll.a. I copied these files under MinGW.

cp -iv livemedia.dll /mingw/bin
cp -iv liblivemedia.dll.a /mingw/lib

To use these files, I would define environment variables as follows:

CXXFLAGS='-I/mingw/lib/live/liveMedia/include -I/mingw/lib/live/UsageEnvironment/include -I/mingw/lib/live/BasicUsageEnvironment/include -I/mingw/lib/live/groupsock/include'



LIBS='-lstdc++ /mingw/lib/liblivemedia.dll.a'

Bonsai Rock Study #2 - Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA by Rich Capture

What can I say? Simply hypnotic. Otherworldly. Nice presentation of light and darkness in a serene setting.

Bonsai by Rob Birchard

A wonderful picture of bonsai that presents a miniaturized view of evergreen pine tress over a cliff.

Bonsai Rock Lake Tahoe IV by Joe Y Jiang

A serene scene of the Lake Tahoe with the nice natural blend of water, rock, distant forest and clear sky. Vivid blue and soft red present the viewer with pleasing contrast of color and the elliptical rocks on water are pleasant to watch.

Hilariously Awesome Martial Arts Classic: The Story of Ricky (电影: 力王)

Do you like classic horror movies or a Chinese kung-fu movie? Then, you may like the Hong Kong movie, “Ricki Oh: the Story of Ricky.” It's got both: blood and gore, and awesome kung fu. The fight scenes are gross and brutal like Kill Bill, but otherwise have outrageously cool kung-fu moves. However, I warn that some viewer discretion is advised.

Here's the same movie in Mandarin Chinese.

Building MPlayer and Mencoder for Windows

MPlayer is one of my favorite media players. It is used with a frontend like smplayer, gnome-mplayer and MPlayerGUI to provide a good alternative to Windows Media Player. Although there are already several Win32 builds of MPlayer on the net, I like to build MPlayer on my own using MinGW compiler because I want to optimize my build for my CPU. So I installed MinGW and compiled MPlayer as follows.

1. Build ffmpeg statically or dynamically as shown in this post.

   
   
   
2. (Optional) Compile the lzo library:
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install

   
   
   

3. (Optional) Fribidi is a rendering library for right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew. If you are a speaker of such right-to-left languages, compile fribidi statically as shown below:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared --disable-debug
   make
   make install

   
   

   More information can be found here.

   
   
   
4. Download JPEG source from ijg.org and complie JPEG:
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-static
   make
   make install

   
   
   
5. Compile libPNG:
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared
   make
   make install

   
   
   
6. Compile libiconv, Freetype, expat and fontconfig statically in that order:
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared
   make install

   
   
   
7. Compile libdca:
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   
8. (Optional) Download DirectX headers from any of the following locations and unpack them in /mingw/include:
   
   
   
   
   • http://www.videolan.org/vlc/dx7headers.tgz
     
   • http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/contrib/win32/dx7headers.tgz
     
   
   
   
9. Download the latest mplayer source (mplayer-export-snapshot.tar.bz2) and unpack it. (patch 1 and patch 2)
   
   

   tar xjvf mplayer-export-snapshot.tar.bz2
   cd mplayer-export-2010-02-07/

   
   

   Then, run ./configure:

   
   

   CPPFLAGS='-DFRIBIDI_ENTRY="" ' ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-runtime-cpudetection --enable-static --enable-theora --enable-fribidi --disable-ffmpeg_a --disable-gl --disable-vidix --yasm=/mingw/bin/yasm --extra-libs='-lfribidi'

   
   

   The CPPFLAGS value allows fribidi to be linked statically.

   
   
   
10. Build Mplayer:
    
    

    make

    
    
    

    After successful build, strip the executables:

    
    

    strip m*.exe

    
    
    

    Optionally, compress the executables with upx:

    
    

    upx --best --strip-relocs=0 mplayer.exe
    upx --best --strip-relocs=0 mencoder.exe

    
    
    

11. Download MPlayer codecs from here. The MPlayer codecs for Windows platform has a filename like windows-essential-20071007.zip. Extract the codecs package and you'll get a folder "windows-essential-20071007". Rename it as "codecs" and move the "codecs" folder inside where mplayer.exe file is located.

    
    
    

12. Make sure that HOME environment variable is set to your personal folder(for example, C:\Users\Jocelyn). Upon the first run of mplayer, a new folder named mplayer will be created in your HOME folder. Copy codecs.conf to the mplayer folder. The "config" file stores default options for playing movie files. Open the "config" file and make changes as follows:

    
    

    # Write your default config options here!
    cdrom-device=D:
    dvd-device=D:
    ao=dsound
    vo=direct3d
    font=C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\MALGUN.TTF
    framedrop=yes
    subcp=cp949

    
    

My win32 build of mplayer can be downloaded from here. It is recommended that the zip archive should be extracted in C:\Program Files.

Running MPlayer

Now, let's try mplayer. First, get a movie file ready. In the Command Prompt, type a command in the following form:

mplayer mymoviefile.avi

Alternatively,

mplayer -vo direct3d -ao win32 -font C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\Tahoma.ttf -framedrop mymoviefile.avi

A new window will pop up with the movie playing inside it.

The next step is to get and set up SMPlayer.

Building cdrkit for Windows

cdrkit is another CD/DVD burning tool that was spun off from the cdrtools project. Some say cdrkit is inferior to cdrtools, but I haven't found a problem with cdrkit yet. Although I prefer cdrtools to cdrkit, I'd like to give cdrkit a try. To build cdrkit with MinGW, I had to compile some libraries first.

1. zlib
   

   First, I compiled zlib:

   
   

   tar xzvf zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz
   cd zlib-1.2.7
   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
   cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   
2. POSIX threads for Win32
   

   New genisoimage seems to use pthread for making checksums. I compiled pthread like this:

   
   

   make clean GC
   cp -iv pthreadGC2.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv pthread.h semaphore.h sched.h /mingw/include/
   cp -iv libpthreadGC2.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libpthreadGC2.a /mingw/lib/libpthread.a

   
   
   
3. PCRE
   
   

   Then, I compile PCRE:

   
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-pcre16 --enable-unicode-properties
   make
   make install
   cp /mingw/include/pcreposix.h /mingw/include/regex.h
   cp /mingw/lib/libpcreposix.a /mingw/lib/libregex.a
   cp /mingw/lib/libpcreposix.dll.a /mingw/lib/libregex.dll.a

   
   
   
4. libmagic
   
   

   I built the open-source file command. I configured it like this:

   
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw

   
   
   

   Then, I added the following lines to config.h:

   
   
   

   #define WIN32 1
   #define MAGIC "magic"

   
   
   

   Compile libmagic:

   
   
   

   make && make install

   
   
   

   I got an error trying to build file.exe, so I modified src/Makefile:

   
   

   file_LDADD = libmagic.la /mingw/lib/libpcreposix.dll.a

   
   
   
5. libiconv
   
   

   I built libiconv like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   
6. CMake
   
   

   Then, I built CMake.

   
   

   ./bootstrap --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   
7. cdrkit
   

   I unpacked the cdrkit source and applied the patch that I found at the mailing list. Here are the modified patches of mine.

   
   
   
   • cdrkit-1.1.9-mingw.patch
     
   • cdrkit-1.1.11-mingw.patch
     
   
   
   

   I used the command below to applied the patch.

   
   
   

   patch -p1 -l < ../cdrkit-1.1.9-mingw.patch

   
   
   

   Then, I compiled cdrkit:

   
   
   

   cmake -G "MSYS Makefiles"
   make

   
   

   After successful build, I copied the executable files (*.exe) to my folder.

   
   

Issues and Fixes

1. 
   

   I got an error linking genisoimage. I edited genisoimage/CMakeLists.txt to resolve the issue:

   
   
   

   IF(USE_MAGIC)
    ADD_DEFINITIONS(-DUSE_MAGIC)
    LIST(APPEND EXTRA_LIBS "shlwapi")
    SET(MAGICLIBS magic)
   ENDIF(USE_MAGIC)

   
   
   

2. I got errors compiling sha256.* and sha512.*. I made the following changes.

   
   
   
   • I removed all lines that read #include <endian.h>.
     
   • Assume the target machine is little endian.
     
   • change all occurrences of __THROW to __attribute__ ((__nothrow__)).
   
   
   

3. The code in genisoimage/checksum.c gave me errors linking with pthread-w32. To fix it, I replaced a->thread with (a->thread).p.

   
   
   

4. I found that genisoimage and readom still used /dev/null. I changed it to NUL in genisoimage.c and readom.c.

   
   
   

Download my cdrkit Build

Here's my cdrkit build for Windows.

• cdrkit-1.1.9-win32.zip
  
• cdrkit-1.1.11-mingw.zip
  

Related Links

• Building cdrtools under Cygwin
  
• Using cdrtfe 1.5

Building cdrtools under Cygwin

cdrtools is a powerful open-source CD/DVD/BD burning tool. It is used as backend software for free DVD-burning applications, such as Infrarecorder and cdrtfe. To build cdrtools for Windows, install Cygwin as shown in this post. Additionally, I installed the following Cygwin packages.

• bison
  
• gcc4-core
  
• gcc4-g++
  
• gettext-devel
  
• libiconv
  
• libtool
  
• make
  
• patch
  
• pkg-config
  

I set up some environment variables before I started.

export CC=/usr/bin/gcc.exe
export CC_OPT="-O2"
export CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"

Then, I built smake.

cd smake-1.2
make
make INS_BASE=/usr install

Then, I built cdrtools.

smake
smake INS_BASE=/usr install

Using cdrtools

I tested my cdrtools build. To create an ISO file from a folder, I ran mkisofs:

mkisofs -J -R -hide-rr-moved ~/Downloads > dl.iso

To burn an ISO:

cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=8 driveropts=burnfree dl.iso

To make a copy of a data CD:

readcd dev=0,0,0 f=dl2.iso speed=8 retries=16 -nocorr -noerror

To scan a music CD, I ran cdda2wav:

cdda2wav -scanbus
cdda2wav dev=0,0,0 cddb=1 -cddbp-server=freedb.freedb.org -cddbp-port=8880 -J -N

To rip the second track of the music CD:

cdda2wav dev=0,0,0 cddb=1 track=2 ~/Music/track2.wav

Download my cdrtools build for Windows

Here you can get my cdrtools build.

• cdrtools-3.01a08-cygwin17.zip

Free cdrtools Graphical Interfaces for Windows

If you don't want to deal with the command line, there are, of course, user-friendly GUI frontends for cdrtools.

• Infrarecorder
  
• cdrtfe
  

Related Links

• Setting Up Cygwin For C/C++ Software Development on Windows
  
• Using cdrtfe 1.5
  

Compiling CMake with MinGW

CMake is a portable build system. CMake can be used to replace the traditional GNU build process, as in:

./configure

make

make install

Compiling CMake is fairly simple. After you install MinGW (as shown in this post), download and unpack the CMake source tarball. Run the following commands in order.

tar xzvf cmake-2.8.9.tar.gz
cd cmake-2.8.9
./bootstrap --prefix=/mingw
make
make install

To Compile ffmpeg with MinGW

ffmpeg is an important component of many open-source projects, such as MPlayer and VLC. I am compiling ffmpeg so that I can use it to transcode multimedia files. This guide shows how to use MinGW to compile ffmpeg either statically or dynamically. Installation of MinGW is explained in this post. The example commands below are meant to be entered into an MSYS window (not Command Prompt). I downloaded the FFmpeg source and unpacked it.

Preparing External Libraries for FFMpeg

FFMpeg can be linked with external libraries to add features to FFmpeg. I am adding most features to FFMpeg by compiling additional libraries. Most of these libraries are also covered in my posts on compiling MPlayer and Mencoder.

1. Compression Libraries: Zlib and bzLib
   
   Get the zlib source (zlib127.zip), unzip and compile it:
   
   

   unzip zlib127.zip
   cd zlib-1.2.7/
   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
   cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   

   Optionally, get bzip2 source from bzip.org and compile it like this:

   
   

   tar xzvf bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz
   cd bzip2-1.0.6
   make
   cp bzlib.h /mingw/include/
   cp libbz2.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   
2. libgsm
   
   Download gsm-1.0.13.tar.bz2, unpack and compile it as follows:
   
   

   tar xzvf gsm-1.0.13.tar.bz2
   cd gsm-1.0-pl13/
   make

   
   

   Just ignore the compile errors with fchmod and fchown when trying to build applications. Copy the header and static library to /mingw:

   
   

   mkdir /mingw/include/gsm
   cp inc/gsm.h /mingw/include/gsm
   cp lib/libgsm.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   
3. LAME is an excellent MP3 encoder. LAME makes use of the nasm assembler if available. So download yasm and save it as /mingw/bin/nasm.exe. Then, download the LAME source from lame.sf.net and compile it like this.
   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-expopt=full
   
   make
   
   make install

   
   
   
4. OGG, Vorbis, Speex and Theora
   

   The source code for these libraries can be obtained from xiph.org. Compile them each like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

   As for speex, use the version 1.2rc1 or later.

   
   
   
5. FAAC
   

   FAAC is an MPEG-4 AAC audio encoder. Get the source (faac-1.28.tar.gz) and unpack the package. Then, edit Makefile.am:
   

   SUBDIRS = include libfaac

   
   

   Also, edit the line beginning with AC_OUTPUT in the file configure.in:
   

   AC_OUTPUT(libfaac/Makefile include/Makefile Makefile)

   
   

   Then, compile FAAC like this
   

   sh bootstrap
   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   
6. XviD is a popular video encoder used to create movie files distributed in p2p networks. Xvid can use yasm assembler to build optimized binaries if found (/mingw/bin/yasm.exe). Get the XviD source from xvid.org and compile as follows:
   
   

   tar xzvf xvidcore-1.3.2.tar.gz
   cd xvidcore/build/generic
   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

   If you encounter "unrecognized command-line option -mno-cygwin" errors, open the file platform.inc in a text editor and delete "-mno-cygwin". Then, run make and make install again.

   
   
   

   Copy the import library for xvidcore.dll:

   
   

   cp -iv \=build/xvidcore.dll.a /mingw/lib/libxvidcore.a

   
   
   
7. x264 is yet another good video encoder. x264 requires YASM to build an optimized executable. So get yasm and save it as /mingw/bin/yasm.exe. Then, compile x264 like this:
   
   

   configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-win32thread --extra-cflags="-DX264_VERSION=20100422"
   
   make
   
   make install
   
   cp -iv x264.h x264_config.h /mingw/include
   
   cp -iv libx264.a /mingw/lib
   
   cp -iv x264.pc /mingw/lib/pkgconfig

   
   
   
8. Compile librtmp as shown in this post.
   
   

Building FFMpeg Statically

You need pr.exe from MYS coreutils package (coreutils-5.97-3-msys-1.0.13-ext.tar.lzma). I configured ffmpeg with the following command:

CPPFLAGS='-DHAVE_INT32_T' ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-avfilter --enable-w32threads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-memalign-hack --enable-bzlib --enable-libfaac --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-zlib --disable-debug

-DHAVE_INT32_T is used to allow static FAAC to be linked. Then, I began compilation and installation:

make
make install

Compiling FFmpeg Dynamically

Some Windows applications, such as Audacity, uses FFmpeg libraries when available. If you want to compile FFmpeg dynamically, append --enable-shared --disable-static to the ./configure command for FFmpeg.

./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-avfilter --enable-w32threads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-memalign-hack --enable-bzlib --enable-libfaac --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-librtmp --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-zlib --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-debug

If you get "int32_t" error when compiling libfaac.o, open /mingw/include/faac.h and insert the following line:

#include <stdint.h>

When I built mplayer with --enable-static and --disable-ffmpeg_a options to force linking with shared ffmpeg libraries, I had to rename ffmpeg libraries so their names end in *.a.

cd /mingw/lib
cp -iv libavcodec.dll.a libavcodec.a
cp -iv libavformat.dll.a libavformat.a
cp -iv libavutil.dll.a libavutil.a
cp -iv libpostproc.dll.a libpostproc.a
cp -iv libswscale.dll.a libswscale.a

Using cdrtfe 1.5

cdrtfe is free CD/DVD/BD burning software for Windows. cdrtfe actually use the command-line program cdrtools as its burning engine. I have used cdrtools on Linux to create ISO images and burn or rip CD. I'd like to have cdrtools on Windows also. Fortunately, cdrtfe includes cdrtools Win32 binaries along with the nice-looking GUI application.

To install cdrtfe, I downloaded the cdrtfe zip archive (cdrtfe-1.5.zip) and unpacked the zip archive. Double-clicking on the cdrtfe file will start the cdrtfe program. (Warning: Running the Cygwin terminal and cdrtfe at the same time can cause a problem due to cygwin1.dll incompatibility, so close the Cygwin terminal before starting cdrtfe.)

So far, I have only tried ripping music CD's with cdrtfe. I will add more as I get to know more about cdrtfe.

Ripping Audio CD's

To rip a music CD, click on the DAE tab and click the Options button. Check to make sure the options are okay.

Back to the main window, click Read TOC to update the track list, check the Save tracks to folder, and click Start to begin ripping.

Setting Up Cygwin For C/C++ Software Development on Windows

Cygwin provides a Unix-like environment for Windows users. Cygwin is useful for people who want to learn Unix or popular Linux without having to install Unix or Linux. Cygwin can also be used to port Linux applications to Windows or develop genuine Windows applications. To install Cygwin, download setup.exe from the Cygwin website and run it.

Cygwin Packages for Software Development

In addition to the default packages, select the following packages for common development environment:

• bison
  
• gettext-devel
  
• libtool
  
• make
  
• patch
  
• pkg-config
  

To select a package for installation, type the name of the package in the Search box, expand the categories by clicking a plus, and clicking on the package until its version number shows up.

If you want to develop software applications that depend on cygwin1.dll (which emulates Unix on Windows), install one of the following packages. This is when you want to port Linux applications to Windows with little modification.

• gcc-g++
  
  outdated version 3.4.4
  
• gcc4-g++
  
  GCC 4.x that links applications with cygwin1.dll

If you want to develop pure Windows applications, install one of the following packages.

• mingw-gcc-g++
  
  The original MinGW compiler from mingw.org can't build 64-bit applications.
  
• mingw64-i686-gcc-g++
  
  New MinGW compiler from mingw-w64.sourceforge.net.
  
• mingw64-x86_64-gcc-g++
  
  Install these to develop 64-bit Windows applications.
  

When you see the Resolving Dependencies window, just accept and click Next.

Setting HOME Variable

Setting the environment variable %HOME% is useful for various reasons. First of all, it allows regular users to compile freely in their user folder without requiring access to C:\Cygwin. Secondly, it allows users to save user-specific configuration in their user folder. For example, user configuration files such as .profile, .gtkrc-2.0, .fonts.conf and .pango-aliases can be saved in the folder specified by %HOME%.

Setting Up mingw* compiler for Cygwin

The file C:\Cygwin\etc\fstab is used to set up mount points in Cygwin. If you installed mingw64 packages, open the file C:\Cygwin\etc\fstab in a text editor and append the following line.

/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw /mingw none bind

Start the Cygwin terminal and type the following commands to set up Cygwin for Windows compilation.

ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/g++.exe
ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/gcc.exe

Also, set up some environment variables.

export CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/mingw/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L/mingw/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export PATH=/mingw/bin:/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig

Setting Up gcc* Compiler for Cygwin

If you installed the gcc4 compiler (as opposed to mingw*), set up some environment variables to customize your build environment. I usually type the following commands:

CC="/usr/bin/gcc.exe"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export CC CFLAGS CPPFLAGS CXXFLAGS LDFLAGS

To Create a Live Linux CD/DVD

A live CD is a bootable CD that contains the whole operating system and any applications you want to run from the CD. With the increasing popularity of DVD and Blu-ray drives, there is even a live DVD. A live CD is useful when you want to copy your existing Linux system to a CD and run it on multiple computers. In this post, I show how I normally create a live CD.

Rebuild a kernel with SquashFS and UnionFS patch

A new kernel should be built with SquashFS and UnionFS patches. The live CD will have a huge file that is actually a SquashFS image containing a copy of your existing Linux system. We will use UnionFS so that any changes to the read-only SquashFS will be saved to the volatile memory. Download the patches from the following locations.

• squashfs.sourceforge.net
  
• unionfs.filesystems.org
  

After patching the kernel and rebuilding it, install the new kernel.

Make a SquashFS image of an existing Linux system

A SquashFS image needs to be created from an existing Linux system. Copy the contents of the Linux filesystem to an empty directory, assuming the filesystem is mounted at /mnt.

mkdir /tmp/livecd
cd /mnt
tar cf - . | (cd /tmp/livecd; tar xf -)

Empty the contents of fstab so that the live CD will not mount any hard disk partition, including the original root partition.

cp /dev/null /tmp/livecd/etc/fstab

Create a squashfs image.

mksquashfs /tmp/livecd /tmp/linuxfs.sqz -comp xz -b 262144 -Xdict-size 196608 -no-xattrs -e boot lost+found selinux srv

Create a Custom InitRamFS image

This is a tricky part of the job. Basically, the init script of the initramfs image will mount the CD-ROM, then mount the SquashFS image, and then mount a UnionFS. Refer to this post on building an initramfs image.

Create a Live CD structure.

Create an empty directory which will be the contents of live CD. The live CD will contain:

• SquashFS image (named linuxfs.sqz, for example)
  
• isolinux.bin and isolinux.cfg
  
• kernel
  
• initramfs image
  

Finally, create an ISO image for the live CD.

genisoimage -V LIVECD -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table /tmp/isofs > ~/livecd.iso

Burn the ISO image.

cdrskin -v dev=/dev/sr0 speed=8 driveropts=burnfree ~/livecd.iso

Manually Creating initrd / initramfs to Boot Linux

Initrd and initramfs files are used together with a Linux kernel and a bootloader (such as GRUB and syslinux) to start up Linux and boot it in many different ways. Many Linux distributions provide prepackaged kernels and convenient tools for creating initramfs, but I like to build my own kernel and initramfs because it allows me to customize the boot process. For instance, one can choose to boot from the local disk or network-mounted disk with the help of initramfs and some user-defined boot parameters. Here's a list of things that I'd like to achieve with my custom initramfs.

1. Boot from a live CD
   
2. Boot from a read-only filesystem image, compressed with SquashFS
   
3. Copy the filesystem image to a RAM disk and run Linux entirely on memory
   
4. Boot Linux from a USB flash drive or a Firewire disk
   
5. Boot Linux from a local disk partition
   
6. Boot Linux from a network drive
   
7. Run a rescue shell without booting Linux
   
8. Start a kdrive X-server and run gparted, partclone or partimage
   

In this post, I show how I normally create initrd / initramfs files. For this tutorial, the following Debian/Ubuntu packages are needed:

• busybox
  
  provides small essential utilities for booting and rescue shell.
  
• cpio
  
  is used to create the actual initramfs format.
  
• dash
  
  provides a minimalist shell for running the init script and the rescue shell.
  
• e2fsprogs, jfsutils, etc.
  
  provides fsck to check Linux filesystems and replay any stale journal
  
• lzma or xz-utils
  
  compresses the initramfs
  
• module-init-tools
  
  is used to load kernel modules necessary to activate hardware and mount the filesystem
  
• pciutils
  
  is used to detect PCI hardware
  
• unionfs-fuse
  
  makes it possible to use read-only Linux systems, such as live CD and filesystem images
  
• unzip
  
  is used to apply customized settings and changes to the unionfs boot mode
  
• v86d
  
  is used to set the screen resolution for the framebuffer screen
  

First, create a text file with a list of files to put in initramfs. The following is an example of such file:

bin/busybox
bin/dash
bin/mount
etc/filesystems
etc/fuse.conf
etc/group
etc/modprobe.d
lib/ld-linux.so.2
lib/libacl.so.1
lib/libattr.so.1
lib/libblkid.so.1
lib/libbz2.so.1.0
lib/libcom_err.so.2
lib/libc.so.6
lib/libdl.so.2
lib/libe2p.so.2
lib/libext2fs.so.2
lib/libfuse.so.2
lib/libkmod.so.2
lib/libmount.so.1
lib/libm.so.6
lib/libpci.so.3
lib/libpthread.so.0
lib/libresolv.so.2
lib/librt.so.1
lib/libselinux.so.1
lib/libsepol.so.1
lib/libuuid.so.1
lib/libx86.so.1
lib/libz.so.1
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/ata
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/block/loop.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/connector/cn.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/firewire/firewire-core.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/firewire/firewire-ohci.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/firewire/firewire-sbp2.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/i2c/algos/i2c-algo-bit.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/scsi/sd_mod.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/scsi/sr_mod.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ohci-hcd.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/drivers/video
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/ext3/ext3.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/ext4/ext4.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/fat/fat.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/fat/vfat.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/fuse/fuse.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/isofs/isofs.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/jbd2/jbd2.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/jbd/jbd.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/jfs/jfs.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/nls/nls_cp437.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/nls/nls_iso8859-1.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/nls/nls_utf8.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/squashfs/squashfs.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/fs/xfs/xfs.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/lib/crc16.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/kernel/lib/crc-t10dif.ko
lib/modules/3.5.3/modules.dep
lib/modules/3.5.3/modules.dep.bin
lib/modules/3.5.3/modules.pcimap
sbin/blkid
sbin/e2fsck
sbin/jfs_fsck
sbin/modprobe
sbin/v86d
usr/bin/pcimodules
usr/bin/unionfs-fuse
usr/bin/unzip

Then, create an empty directory, for example, /tmp/initrd and copy the files listed in the above-mentioned text file (called rd354.txt) to the new directory.

mkdir /tmp/initrd
cd /
tar cvhf - -T rd354.txt | (cd /tmp/initrd; tar xf -)

Then, create the necessary directory structure under /tmp/initrd:

cd /tmp/initrd
mkdir -p dev media mnt proc root sys tmp

Since I chose to use busybox, I need to create symbolic links to busybox in /bin. Busybox provides incomplete functionality for modprobe, mount, sh and unzip, so I removed their symbolic links.

cd /tmp/initrd/bin
for f in $(./busybox --list); do [ -e $f ] || ln -s busybox $f ; done
rm modprobe unzip

Then, create essential device nodes in /tmp/initrd/dev:

cd /tmp/initrd/dev
MAKEDEV std fb0 fd0 sda sdb scd
mknod console c 5 1
mknod fuse c 10 229
chmod 666 fuse

Now, create an init script. The contents of this init script is crucial for customization of the boot process. The following is the script I use. This script is capable of booting a live CD and running Linux within memory in addition to booting Linux from hard drives and USB flash.

#!/bin/dash

# Define a function to parse kernel command line options.
get_opt() {
  echo $@ | cut -d "=" -f 2
}

# Define a function to load drivers.
loadmod() {
  for i in $@ ; do
    for j in $(grep $i /tmp/pcimodules.txt); do
      modprobe $j
    done
  done
}

# Define a function to guess the partition type.
gpart() {
  for i in $(blkid | grep $1); do
    case $i in
      *\=*)
        eval $i
        ;;
      *)
        true
        ;;
    esac
  done
}

# Define a function for mounting the root partition.
mountr() {
  if [ $uuid ]; then
    if [ $# = 2 ]; then
      mount -r -U $uuid $2
    elif [ $# = 1 ]; then
      mount -r -U $uuid $1
    else mount -r -U $uuid /mnt
    fi
  elif [ $label ]; then
    if [ $# = 2 ]; then
      mount -r -L $label $2
    elif [ $# = 1 ]; then
      mount -r -L $label $1
    else mount -r -L $label /mnt
    fi
  else
    gpart $1
    case $TYPE in
      ext*)
        e2fsck -p $1
        [ $# = 2 ] && mount $1 $2 || mount $1 /mnt
        ;;
      jfs)
        jfs_fsck $1
        if [ $# = 2 ]; then
          mount -t jfs -o ro,iocharset=utf8 $1 $2
        else mount -t jfs -o ro,iocharset=utf8 $1 /mnt
        fi
        ;;
      vfat)
        if [ $# = 2 ]; then
          mount -t vfat -o ro,gid=100,dmask=2,fmask=113 $1 $2
        else mount -t vfat -o ro,gid=100,dmask=2,fmask=113 $1 /mnt
        fi
        ;;
      *)
        [ $# = 2 ] && mount -r $1 $2 || mount -r $1 /mnt
        ;;
    esac
  fi
}

# Create a union filesystem
union() {
  mount -t tmpfs none /opt/tmp
  modinfo unionfs > /dev/null 2>&1 &&
  mount -t unionfs -o dirs=/opt/tmp=rw:/opt=ro none /mnt ||
  ( mkdir /opt/tmp/.change
    modprobe fuse
    unionfs-fuse -o allow_other,use_ino,suid,dev,nonempty,kernel_cache \
     -o cow,chroot=/opt,max_files=32768 /tmp/.change=RW:/=RO /mnt )
}

# Mount proc and sysfs.
mount -t proc none /proc
mount -t sysfs none /sys

# Find the available PCI hardware
mount -t tmpfs none /tmp
pcimodules > /tmp/pcimodules.txt

# Populate /dev (Needs kernel >= 2.6.32)
mount -t devtmpfs none /dev
mkdir -m 755 /dev/pts
mount -t devpts -o gid=5,mode=620 none /dev/pts

# Set default values
boot=ata
root=/dev/sda6

# Find the root=, label=, uuid= and boot= values on kernel command line.
for i in $(cat /proc/cmdline); do
  case $i in
    root\=*)
        root=$(get_opt $i)
        case $root in
          /dev/cdr* | /dev/dvd* | /dev/sr* | /dev/scd*)
            boot=cdrom
            ;;
          0x200)
            root=/dev/fd0
            ;;
        esac
        ;;
    label\=* | uuid\=* | boot\=* | vmode\=* )
        eval $i
        ;;
    single)
        RUNLEVEL=single
        ;;
    nox)
        RUNLEVEL=2
        ;;
  esac
done

# Activate framebuffer display devices.
if [ $vmode ]; then
  if [ $boot = cdrom ]; then
    modprobe uvesafb scroll=ywrap mode_option=$vmode-16
  else for i in $(grep fb /tmp/pcimodules.txt); do
    case $i in
      atyfb)
        modprobe $i mode=$vmode-16
        ;;
      nvidiafb | rivafb)
        modprobe nvidiafb mode_option=$vmode bpp=16 hwcur=1
        ;;
      radeonfb | savagefb)
        modprobe $i mode_option=$vmode-16
        ;;
      sisfb)
        modprobe $i mode=$vmodex16 mem=12288 font=SUN12x22
        ;;
      viafb | vt8623fb)
        modprobe viafb viafb_mode=$vmode viafb_bpp=16
        ;;
      *)
        modprobe $i
        ;;
    esac
  done
    if grep -q i915 /tmp/pcimodules.txt; then true
    else [ -c /dev/fb0 ] || modprobe uvesafb scroll=ywrap mode_option=$vmode-16
    fi
  fi
fi

case $boot in
    cdrom)
        # Boot Linux from a live CD.
        loadmod ata_ ahci pdc_adma ^.hci-hcd
        modprobe usb-storage &&
        modprobe sr_mod &&
        sleep 7
        modprobe isofs
        mount -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /media
        [ -d /media/isolinux -o -d /media/boot/isolinux ] || 
          mount -t iso9660 /dev/sr1 /media
        if [ -f /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* ]; then
          SQF=$(ls -t /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* | head -n 1)
          if [ $root = /dev/ram ]; then 
               echo "Please wait until the RAM disk is ready."
               dd if=$SQF of=/dev/ram1 bs=2048 &&
               mount -t squashfs /dev/ram1 /opt
          else modprobe loop
               mount -t squashfs -o loop $SQF /opt
          fi
        else
          mount --move /media /opt
        fi
        union
        ;;
    loop)
        # Boot Linux from an image file.
        loadmod ata_ ahci pdc_adma ^.hci-hcd
        modprobe usb-storage &&
        modprobe sd_mod &&
        sleep 7
        mountr $root /media
        modprobe loop
        if [ -f /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* ]; then
          SQF=$(ls -t /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* | head -n 1)
          mount -t squashfs -o loop $SQF /opt
        elif [ -f /media/*.[Ii][Ss][Oo] ]; then
          ISO=$(ls -t /media/*.[Ii][Ss][Oo] | head -n 1)
          modprobe isofs
          mount -t iso9660 -o loop $ISO /opt
        fi
        union
        ;;
    ram)
        # Boot Linux from ramdisk.
        loadmod ata_ ahci pdc_adma ^.hci-hcd
        modprobe usb-storage &&
        modprobe sd_mod &&
        sleep 7
        mountr $root /media
        echo "Please wait until the RAM disk is ready."
        if [ -f /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* ]; then
          SQF=$(ls -t /media/*.[Ss][Qq]* | head -n 1)
          dd if=$SQF of=/dev/ram1 &&
          mount -t squashfs /dev/ram1 /opt
        elif [ -f /media/*.[Ii][Ss][Oo] ]; then
          ISO=$(ls -t /media/*.[Ii][Ss][Oo] | head -n 1)
          dd if=$ISO of=/dev/ram1 bs=2048 &&
          modprobe isofs
          mount -t iso9660 /dev/ram1 /opt
        fi
        union
        ;;
    usb*)
        # Boot Linux from a USB drive.
        loadmod ^.hci-hcd
        modprobe usb-storage &&
        modprobe sd_mod &&
        sleep 7
        mountr $root
        ;;
    ata*)
        loadmod ata_ ahci pdc_adma &&
        modprobe sd_mod &&
        mountr $root
        ;;
esac

# Make sure that init exists and is executable.
if [ -x /mnt/sbin/init ]; then
  mount --move /dev /mnt/dev
  mount --move /proc /mnt/proc
  mount --move /sys /mnt/sys
  umount /tmp

# Start init from the root filesystem.
  cd /mnt
  [ -f /media/updates.zip ] && unzip -o /media/updates.zip
  case $boot in
    cdrom)
      [ $root = /dev/ram ] && umount /media
      [ $RUNLEVEL ] || RUNLEVEL=3
      ;;
    loop | ram)
      umount /media
      [ $RUNLEVEL ] || RUNLEVEL=3
      ;;
    *)
      [ $RUNLEVEL ] || RUNLEVEL=5
      ;;
  esac
  [ -d initrd ] && pivot_root . initrd
  exec chroot . /sbin/init $RUNLEVEL
fi

# Start a shell as a last resort.
echo "Error booting from the root filesystem. Starting a shell."
exec /bin/dash

Copy the init script to the initrd folder (Assuming its filename is init.sh).

cp init.sh /tmp/initrd/init
cp init.sh /tmp/initrd/etc
chmod 775 /tmp/initrd/init

Now, use cpio and lzma to create an initramfs file. This assumes that the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_RD_LZMA option enabled.

cd /tmp/initrd
find . | cpio -H newc -o | lzma -c > ../initram.lzm

A file named initram.lzm will be created. If you want to create an old-style initrd file instead, use the mkcramfs command. This assumes your kernel has built-in cramfs support (CONFIG_CRAMFS):

mkcramfs /tmp/initrd /boot/initrd.bin

Copy the kernel and the initramfs file to your boot directory (whereever it is). I use SYSLINUX which I installed at /dev/sda1 partition. Finally, edit the boot configuration file. The following is the contents of a sample syslinux.cfg:

LABEL debian
KERNEL 314.lnx
INITRD /initrd/initram.lzm
APPEND root=/dev/sda7

LABEL sid
KERNEL 314.lnx
INITRD /initrd/initram.lzm
APPEND boot=usb label=SID edd=off vmode=800x600

LABEL bfile
KERNEL 314.lnx
INITRD /initrd/initram.lzm
APPEND boot=loop root=/dev/sda1

LABEL ram
KERNEL 314.lnx
INITRD /initrd/initram.lzm
APPEND boot=ram ramdisk_size=524288 root=/dev/sda1

Getting Eclipse to Work with MinGW C/C++ Compilers

Eclipse is one of my favorite programming environment which is used to develop C, C++ and/or Java software efficiently. Let's set up Eclipse so that we can use it to work with MinGW C/C++ compiler and Java.

1. First, install MinGW (as shown in this post). You have two choices for the MinGW compiler:
   
   
   
   
   
   • MinGW (www.mingw.org)
     
     The original GCC toolchain for 32-bit Windows only
     
   • MinGW-w64 (mingw-w64.sourceforge.net)
     
     New breed of tools that allow you to compile for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows
     
   
   
   

   I prefer the original MinGW compiler to MinGW-w64, but individual tastes may vary. Make sure that you add the folder containing gcc.exe to the PATH environment variable.

   
   




2. Then, install JRE because Eclipse won't run without it. If you want to develop Java, then install JDK (Java SE or Java EE) instead of JRE.

   
   
   

3. Now, download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers (eclipse-cpp-juno-win32.zip) and unpack it. You need it to develop C/C++ programs.

   
   
   

4. If you also want to develop Java, then download Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (eclipse-java-juno-win32.zip). Just unpack the Java Developer package into the same folder as Eclipse for C/C++, avoiding to overwrite existing files.

   
   
   

5. Create a shortcut on your desktop that points to the Eclipse program (eclipse.exe). To start Eclipse, double-click the Eclipse shortcut that you just created.

   
   
   

6. Let's test our Eclipse installation and create a simple C++ program. Start a new C++ project (File->New->C++ Project). Type in any Project name, and select Empty Project under Executable Project types. Choose MinGW GCC for toolchains. Click Finish.

   
   
   
   

   Once a new C++ project is open, create a new source file (File->New->Source File).

   
   
   
   

   Try typing in a simple code like the following:

   
   

   #include <iostream>
   using namespace std;
   
   int main()
   {
     cout << "Hello, boys and girls.\n";
     return 0;
   }

   
   
   

   Save the project (File->Save). Build the project (Project->Build Project). If the build was successful, run the generated program (Run->Run, or Ctrl+F11).

   
   

MinGW: Compiling LZO Compression Library

LZO, short for Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer, is compression software that is designed for decompression speed. I compiled the LZO library like this.

tar xzvf lzo-2.03.tar.gz

cd lzo-2.03/

./configure --prefix=/mingw

make

make install

I only got a static library liblzo2.a. So I had to convert it to a DLL.

gcc -shared -o liblzo2-2.dll -Wl,--out-implib,liblzo2.dll.a -Wl,--whole-archive /mingw/lib/liblzo2.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive -L/mingw/lib -lwinmm

Compiling gtkmm for Windows with MinGW

gtkmm is a C++ wrapper library that makes it possible to write C++ programs with GTK+. After compiling the GTK+ library, you can build gtkmm as follows.

1. libsigc++ 2.2.10

   
   

   libsigc++ implements a typesafe callback system for standard C++. Download the libsigc++ source code from here and compile it:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

2. glibmm 2.32.1

   
   

   glibmm is a C++ wrapper for Glib. Compile it like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

3. atkmm 2.22.6

   
   

   atkmm is a C++ wrapper for ATK. Compile it like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

4. cairomm 1.10.0

   
   

   cairomm provides C++ interface to the Cairo library. Compile it like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

5. pangomm 2.28.4

   
   

   pangomm is a C++ wrapper for Pango. Compile it like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

6. gtkmm 3.4.0

   
   

   gtkmm is a C++ wrapper for GTK+. Build it as follows:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

Building GraphicsMagick

GraphicsMagick is a powerful tool for processing image files. I'm using MinGW to build GraphicsMagick for Windows.

1. zlib 1.2.7

   
   

   Download the zlib source (zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz) and unpack it.

   
   

   tar xzvf zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz
   cd zlib-1.2.7

   
   

   Compile and install zlib.

   
   

   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
   cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   

2. bzip2

   
   

   Now download bzip2 source from bzip.org and unpack it.

   
   

   tar xzvf bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz
   cd bzip2-1.0.6

   
   

   Change line 78 of bzlib.h to read:

   
   

   #if defined(_WIN32) && !defined(__MINGW32__)

   
   

   Compile and install bzip2.

   
   

   make
   cp bzlib.h /mingw/include/
   cp libbz2.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   

3. liblzma

   
   

   Get the XZ Utils source code and unpack it. Go to the src/liblzma folder and compile liblzma like this:

   
   

   tar xzvf xz-5.0.4.tar.gz
   cd xz-5.0.4
   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   cd src/liblzma
   make
   make install

   
   
   

4. libpng 1.5.12 and libjpeg 8d

   
   

   Compile libpng and libjpeg as follows:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

5. libjasper

   
   

   Compile Jasper:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

   If you encounter an error "undefined reference to _sleep", replace sleep() with _sleep with a factor of 1000 in the code:

   
   

   _sleep(1000)

   
   
   

6. JBig

   
   

   Get jbigkit from here.

   
   

   make
   cp libjbig/*.h /mingw/include
   cp libjbig/*.a /mingw/lib

   
   
   

7. libtiff 4.0.2

   
   

   Compile libtiff like this:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   

   If the shared library libtiff-5.dll is not generated and you want to create it manually, use such a command as the following and update libtiff.la accordingly:

   
   

   gcc -shared -o libtiff-5.dll -Wl,--out-implib,libtiff.dll.a -Wl,--whole-archive /mingw/lib/libtiff.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive -L/mingw/lib -ljpeg -ljbig -llzma -lz

   
   
   

8. freetype

   
   

   Compile freetype:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

9. libxml2

   
   

   Compile libxml2:

   
   

   ./configure --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

10. libwmf 0.2.8.4

    
    

    Compile libwmf:

    
    

    ./configure --prefix=/mingw
    make
    make install

    
    
    

11. Little CMS

    
    

    Compile liblcms:

    
    

    ./configure --prefix=/mingw
    make
    make install

    
    
    

12. Build GraphicsMagick

    
    

    Get GraphicsMagick code and build it like this:

    
    

    ./configure --prefix=/mingw --with-gs-font-dir='C:/Windows/Fonts' --with-windows-font-dir='C:/Windows/Fonts' LIBS='-ljbig'
    make 
    make install

    
    

Creating a PDF document from JPEG files

GraphicsMagick comes in handy when you want to convert scanned JPEG images to a PDF document:

gm convert *.jpg doc.pdf

HSQLDB Installation and Usage

HyperSQL is relational database software that can be downloaded and used for free. It works on top of Java.

HSQLDB Installation

I downloaded the HyperSQL package (hsqldb-2.2.8.zip) and extracted its contents into the "C:\Program Files\hsqldb" folder.

Starting an HSQLDB Server

The following example command starts the HyperSQL server with one database called "mydb" and the public name of "xdb". The public name hides the file names from users.

java -cp ../lib/hsqldb.jar org.hsqldb.server.Server --database.0 file:mydb --dbname.0 xdb

If the files named "mydb.*" do not already exist, they will be created. This way you can start the HSQLDB server and create a new database at the same time.

If the computer hosting the database server is restricted to the HTTP protocol by a firewall, use the HyperSQL HTTP Server.

java -cp ../lib/hsqldb.jar org.hsqldb.server.WebServer --database.0 file:mydb --dbname.0 xdb

When a HyperSQL server is running, client programs can connect to it using the HSQLDB JDBC Driver contained in hsqldb.jar.

Running Database Access Tools

HyperSQL includes the Database Manager JDBC frontend to connect to a HSQLDB server, query and modify tables.

java -cp ../lib/hsqldb.jar org.hsqldb.util.DatabaseManagerSwing

At the Connect dialog, enter the information necessary for connecting to the database.

SQL Commands

After I started the Database Manager using the command above, I entered the following SQL commands to create tables for MyBooks database.

CREATE CACHED TABLE Publishers (pnum INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, publisher VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, parent VARCHAR(50));



CREATE CACHED TABLE Authors (anum BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, author
VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, lastname VARCHAR(25), aka VARCHAR(50));



CREATE CACHED TABLE Books (index VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(20) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, title VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, edition TINYINT, pubdate DATE NOT NULL, author VARCHAR(64) NOT NULL, anum BIGINT NOT NULL REFERENCES Authors, pnum INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES Publishers, pages SMALLINT, format VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(20), isbn13 CHAR(13), isbn10 CHAR(10));



CREATE CACHED TABLE Keywords (index VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(20) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY REFERENCES Books, genre1 VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(25), genre2
VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(25), subject1 VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(36), subject2
VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(36), subject3 VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(36), keyword1
VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(25), keyword2 VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(25), keyword3
VARCHAR_IGNORECASE(25));

When you finish using the Database Manager, make sure that you properly shut down the database.



SHUTDOWN: To save changes and close the database.

SHUTDOWN COMPACT: To save the database in the minimal size and close it. Should be used periodically.

Using OpenOffice.org Base to Work with HSQLDB Server

You can use OpenOffice.org Base to work with a server-based HyperSQL database. First, you need to set up OpenOffice.org so that it can use the HyperSQL JDBC driver. Select Tools > Options > Java and click Class Path.

Click the Add Archive... button and enter the path to the hsqldb.jar file. Click OK to save the changes and restart OpenOffice.org Base. Make sure that you also close the OpenOffice.org Quickstart in the notification area of the taskbar. At the Database wizard, choose JDBC to connect to an existing database, and enter org.hsqldb.jdbc.JDBCDriver for the JDBC driver class.

Enter SA as username. Password is not required.

Setting Up Filezilla FTP Server In Windows 7

The Windows operating system has built-in features that allow you to share documents, photos, music and video with other Windows users in the local network. However, users of Linux or another non-Windows OS may have a hard time trying to access shared resources on Windows computers. Setting up an FTP server on a Windows machine can solve such interoperability issues in sharing files between different types of computers.

FileZilla Server is a free, fast and powerful FTP server for Windows. By default, the FileZilla server starts automatically with Windows, and the admin port is 14147.

I don't like to see the admin interface started at every login.

You should define some ports for passive mode.

I like to enable TLS/SSL for added security in FTP transfers.

I created a group called users.

Then, I created a user for myself.

You should create a new rule for FileZilla in Windows Firewall.

In the new inbound rule wizard, select the following settings.

• What type of rule would you like to create? Port
  
• Does this rule apply to TCP or UDP? TCP
  
• Does this rule apply to all local ports or specific local ports? 21, 990, 2100-2121
  
• What action should be taken when a connection matches specific conditions? Allow the connection
  
• Name: FTP connections
  

Open-Source Database Servers

I've been thinking about installing an open-source database server for personal and commercial uses. My choices were limited as shown below.

• Apache Derby
  
• H2
  
• HSQLDB
  
• MySQL
  
• PostgreSQL

Compiling MLDonkey for Windows

MLDonkey is a nifty program that helps you share files with other people. MLDonkey works on Linux, but the Windows version I downloaded didn't work on my computer running Windows XP. So I compiled MLDonkey using Cygwin's mingw64-i686-gcc-* compiler toolchain. Here I show how I did it. Part of the information below is taken from the MLDonkey Windows guide.

1. Cygwin Setup
   
   First, install Cygwin using the Cygwin installer(setup.exe). I set the Root directory to C:\Cygwin and chose to install the following packages in addition to base packages.
   
   
   
   
   
   • bison
     
   
   
   • gettext-devel
     
   
   
   • libtool
     
   
   
   • make
     
   
   
   • mingw64-i686-binutils
     
   
   
   • mingw64-i686-gcc-core
     
   
   
   • mingw64-i686-gcc-fortran
     
   
   
   • mingw64-i686-gcc-g++
     
   
   
   • patch
     
   
   
   • pkg-config
     
   
   
   
   

Open the file C:\Cygwin\etc\fstab in a text editor and append the following line.




/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw /mingw none bind





Set the HOME variable.





Start the Cygwin terminal and type the following commands to set up Cygwin for Windows compilation.





cp /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/g++.exe
cp /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/gcc.exe
cp /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-cpp.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/cpp.exe
export PATH=/mingw/bin:/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib/gcc/i686-w64-mingw32/4.5.3
export CC=/usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig



2. Compile zlib and bzip2
   
   Download the zlib source (zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz) and unpack it.
   
   
   

   tar xzvf zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz
   cd zlib-1.2.7

   
   Compile and install zlib.
   
   
   

   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
   cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
   cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

   
   Now download bzip2 source from bzip2.org and unpack it.
   
   
   

   tar xzvf bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz
   cd bzip2-1.0.6

   
   Change line 78 of bzlib.h to read:
   
   
   

   #if defined(_WIN32) && !defined(__MINGW32__)

   
   Compile and install bzip2.
   
   
   

   make
   cp bzlib.h /mingw/include/
   cp libbz2.a /mingw/lib

   
   



3. libiconv
   
   Download and compile libiconv:
   
   
   

   tar xzvf libiconv-1.14.tar.gz
   cd libiconv-1.14
   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --enable-static
   make
   make install

   
   



4. JPEG, PNG & Freetype
   
   Compile JPEG, libPNG and Freetype in the following way:
   
   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   
5. GD Graphics Library
   
   Now get the libgd source, unpack and configure:
   
   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw LIBS="-lbz2 -ljpeg -lws2_32 -liconv"

   
   Once Makefile is generated, change line 233 to read:
   
   
   

   DEFS = -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DBGDWIN32

   
   Also fix gd.h near line 25:
   
   
   

   --- ./gd.h      Sat Oct 30 12:54:58 2004
   +++ ./gd.h Sun Jan 05 17:56:09 2006
   @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
    #endif /* WIN32 */
   
    #ifdef NONDLL
   -#define BGD_DECLARE(rt) extern rt
   +#define BGD_DECLARE(rt) extern rt _stdcall
    #else
    #ifdef BGDWIN32
    #define BGD_DECLARE(rt) __declspec(dllexport) rt __stdcall

   
   Then, build and install gdlib:
   
   
   

   make install

   
   
   

   To create a DLL file called libgd-2.dll, run the following commands:

   
   
   

   mkdir /tmp/gdlib
   cd /tmp/gdlib
   ar x /mingw/lib/libgd.a
   gcc -shared -o /mingw/bin/libgd-2.dll -Wl,--out-implib,libgd.dll.a *.o -L/mingw/lib -lz -lbz2 -ljpeg -lpng -liconv -lfreetype

   
   
   



6. wget
   
   Build wget as shown in this post. If you don't want to compile wget yourself, get the executable (wget.exe) somewhere, and put it in the same folder as mlnet.exe later.
   
   
7. regex and libmagic
   

   Download regex-0.12.tar.gz and compile regex as required by libmagic.

   
   

   gcc -DSTDC_HEADERS -DHAVE_STRING_H=1 -I. -c regex.c
   ar ru libregex.a regex.o
   cp -iv libregex.a /mingw/lib
   cp -iv libregex.a /mingw/lib/libgnurx.a
   cp -iv regex.h /mingw/include

   
   

   Get the source tarball of open-source file command. Configure as follows:

   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw

   
   

   Open config.h and add the following lines:

   
   

   #define WIN32 1
   #define MAGIC "magic"

   
   

   Then compile:

   
   

   make && make install

   
   
   
8. OCaml
   
   You need flexdll (flexdll-0.27.zip) to build OCaml. Extract it to /mingw/bin. Then, download the latest OCaml source (3.12.1). Patch ocaml with this Unicode patch.
   
   
   

   tar xzvf ocaml-3.12.1.tar.gz
   cd ocaml-3.12.1
   patch -p1 -l < ../ocaml-3.12.1-unicode.patch

   
   
   

   In the config subfolder, copy Makefile.mingw to Makefile.

   
   
   

   cp config/m-nt.h config/m.h 
   cp config/s-nt.h config/s.h 
   cp config/Makefile.mingw config/Makefile 

   
   
   Begin compiling OCaml.
   
   
   

   make -f Makefile.nt world
   make -f Makefile.nt opt
   make -f Makefile.nt opt.opt
   make -f Makefile.nt install

   
   
   Set up OCaml environment variables:
   
   
   

   export CAMLLIB=/mingw/lib
   export OCAMLLIB=/mingw/lib
   export CAMLP4LIB=/mingw/lib/camlp4

   
   



9. Build MLDonkey
   
   Get the MLDonkey source, then unpack and configure it.
   
   
   

   tar xjvf mldonkey-3.1.0.tar.bz2
   cd mldonkey-3.1.0
   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --disable-fasttrack

   
   
   

   To link with the static GD library, append -DNONDLL to the CPPFLAG line of config/Makefile.config

   
   
   

   CPPFLAGS=-I/mingw/include -DNONDLL

   
   
   Start compilation.
   
   
   

   export OCAML_SRC=~/ocaml-3.12.1
   cp -iv /mingw/lib/stublibs/dllunix.dll .
   make depend
   make mlnet.static 
   strip mlnet.static 
   mv mlnet.static mlnet.exe

   
   If the final linking stage fails, here is the command I used to produce mlnet.exe:
   
   
   

   g++ -g0 -O3 -o mlnet.exe -Wl,--subsystem,windows -L/lib/gcc/i686-w64-mingw32/4.5.3 -L/mingw/lib /tmp/camlstartup00193d.s build/flexdll_mingw.o /mingw/lib/std_exit.o src/daemon/common/commonMain.o build/driver.a build/core.a build/client.a build/common.a build/magic.a build/bitstring.a build/cdk.a build/extlib.a /mingw/lib/nums.a /mingw/lib/str.a /mingw/lib/unix.a /mingw/lib/bigarray.a /mingw/lib/stdlib.a src/utils/cdk/gdstubs.o src/networks/direct_connect/che3_c.o src/utils/lib/CryptoPP.o src/utils/lib/CryptoPP_stubs.o src/utils/net/upnp_stubs.o src/daemon/common/commonHasher_c.o src/utils/lib/magiclib_stub.o src/utils/bitstring/bitstring_c.o src/utils/cdk/zlibstubs.o src/utils/cdk/heap_c.o src/config/mingw/os_stubs_c.o src/utils/lib/fst_hash.o src/utils/lib/md4_comp.o src/utils/lib/md4_c.o src/utils/lib/charsetstubs.o src/utils/lib/md5_c.o src/utils/lib/sha1_c.o src/utils/lib/tiger.o src/utils/lib/stubs_c.o -lnums -lcamlstr -lunix -lbigarray -lgdi32 -luser32 -ladvapi32 -limm32 -lshell32 -lole32 resfile.o -lpthread -lmagic -lgd -ljpeg -lfreetype -lpng -lz -lbz2 -lws2_32 -lshlwapi /mingw/lib/libasmrun.a /mingw/lib/libcharset.dll.a /mingw/lib/libiconv.dll.a

   
   
   Optonally, compress the executable with upx.
   
   

   upx --best --strip-relocs=0 mlnet.exe

   
   
   


Here's my mldonkey builds.




• mldonkey-3.1.0-win32.zip
  

To build wget.exe with MinGW

wget is a useful command-line downloader. To build wget for the Windows platform, first install MinGW. Then, compile zlib, openssl and wget in that order. To compile zlib:

make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib

To compile openssl:

./Configure -DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC -DPTW32_STATIC_LIB -L/mingw/lib -lz -lpthreadGC2 -lws2_32 --prefix=/mingw threads zlib mingw
make
make test
make install

Now, build wget

./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads=win32 --disable-nls --with-ssl=openssl
make
make install

Compiling Zip and Unzip with MinGW

The current version of zip supports higher compression with the bzip2 method. To build zip with bzip2 compression using MinGW, first prepare the bzip2 library:

tar xzvf bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz
cd bzip2-1.0.6
make
cp bzlib.h /mingw/include/
cp libbz2.a /mingw/lib

Then, get the zip source. Use the LOCAL_ZIP environment variable to configure zip.

export LOCAL_ZIP='-DLARGE_FILE_SUPPORT -DZIP64_SUPPORT -DUNICODE_SUPPORT -DBZIP2_SUPPORT -DALLOW_REGEX

Edit the LIBS line in the file makefile.gcc in the win32 folder to link zip with bzip2 library

LIBS=-luser32 -ladvapi32 -lbz2

Compile zip.

make -f win32/makefile.gcc

You'll find zip.exe in the source folder.

Compiling Unzip with MinGW

Unzip is a command-line extraction tool for .zip archives. In order to be able to unpack bzipped .ZIP archive, I need to compile unzip with bzip2 support. After compiling bzip2 as above, I downloaded unzip60.tar.gz from Info-Zip project at Sourceforge and unpacked it.

tar xzvf unzip60.tar.gz
cd unzip60

I fixed the file win32/Makefile.gcc in the section following "# optional inclusion of bzip2 decompression"

INC_BZ2LIB = -I/mingw/include
LOCFLAGS = -I/mingw/include -DUSE_BZIP2
LD_BZ2LIB = -L/mingw/lib -lbz2
LIBBZIP2 = /mingw/lib/libbz2.a

Then, I compiled Unzip like this:

make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
ls -l *.exe

Three executables unzip.exe, unzipsfx.exe and funzip.exe are created. Copy them to a folder in your path or /bin.

cp -iv *.exe /C/Windows

Usage Examples

To back up a folder:

zip -Z bzip2 -b C:\Windows\Temp -SDurX backup.zip *

Logging Into Linux Desktop with Xming, Xnest and Putty

I use Xming and Putty to remotely log into my Linux desktop over a secure connection. Since I use xdm for the X11 login screen, I had to set up xdm for remote login. I made sure /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config had this setting:

DisplayManager.requestPort: 117

I changed /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess to allow any connection:

echo "*" > /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess

I installed xnest on the Linux machine.

On Windows, install xming and X11 fonts. Start the Xming server.

Xming.exe :16 -clipboard -multiwindow -nolisten inet6

Then, start putty, enable X11 port forwarding and connect to the Linux box. Once you are logged into the remote terminal, start Xnest:

Xnest :16 -ac -geometry 960x720 -once -query 127.0.0.1

A window will pop up showing your lovely Linux destkop. Now, enjoy your Linux applications on Windows.