From: tho_mica_l Date: 2008-01-03T05:50:00+09:00 Subject: Re: Windows Compilation Madness > I also gather that each of those environments has very different > build utilities (the Windows equivalent of make, config, autoconf, > and so on). rbconfig.rb stores information about the tools that were used to compile ruby. extconf.rb uses this information via mkmf.rb to compile extensions. AFAIK trouble starts if you try to compile an extension with a different compiler or if the extension relies on libraries that were not ported to windows. In order to clarify the cygwin side: cygwin includes most of the libraries available under linux if you use the posix-emulation layer (or you can easily compile them yourself). But with the emulation enabled you cannot link with a non-cygwin app and cygwin apps use non- windows path conventions which causes some difficulties when calling these programs form normal windows apps. In my experience, cygwin works quite well though. If you want to call a cygwin app from a windows app, you could always use a wrapper skript to work around path- convention issues. So, cygwin can compile most extensions for use with cygwin ruby but it cannot be used right away to compile stuff for the pure-windows one-click ruby installer (please somebody correct me if I'm wrong).