Installation on Windows

Install MinGW

Download MinGW-3.2.0-rc-3 or later from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw Install it into

C:/xxx/msys/1.0/mingw

(where /xxx/ is the top-level path you want to use, I use Nicola/GNUstep so I install it into C:/Nicola/GNUstep/msys/1.0/mingw) (earlier versions of MinGW won't work)

Install msys

Download MSYS-1.0.10 or later from the same site. Install it into C:/xxx/msys/1.0 The postinstall script should ask you for the mingw location, then detect it and be happy that it's there and all is setup properly.

Install msys developer toolkit

Download msysDTK-1.0.1 or later from the same site. Install it into

C:/xxx/msys/1.0

Now your MSYS/MinGW system should be setup! Go around and make sure you know how to use the Unix-like shell. Log into it and work in it.

Install GNUstep make

go in core/make and do

./configure --prefix=/C/xxx/GNUstep
make
make install

Setup your GNUstep environment

(you will need to do the same every time you start up your MSYS shell to do development)

. /C/xxx/GNUstep/System/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh

Also, set HOMEPATH, HOMEDRIVE and HOME ... add the following lines to your ~/.profile:

export HOMEDRIVE=C:
export HOMEPATH=/home/Nicola
export HOME=/C/xxx/msys/1.0/home/Nicola
. /C/xxx/GNUstep/System/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh

(obviously replacing 'Nicola' with your Login name) (not sure if this setting of HOMEDRIVE etc is really required, will investigate)

Install the ObjC runtime

Download gnustep-objc, and compile it

make
make install

sheldon: Actually, recent versions of gcc (3.2+) have a working libobjc on Windows so this step probably isn't strictly necessary.

Reinstall GNUstep make (with ObjC this time

go in core/make and reconfigure/recompile again so that gnustep-objc is detected:

make distclean
./configure
make 
make install

gnustep-make should have detected your custom libobjc.

Install ffcall

Download ffcall from the GNUstep website, or from here: ftp://ftp.santafe.edu/pub/gnu/ffcall-1.10.tar.gz, and type:

./configure --prefix=$GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT
make
make install

Alternatively, a zip containing a ffcall-1.9 is availabe here: ftp://ftp.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/binaries/windows/mingw-libs/ffcall-1.9-gnustep.zip

Unzip it into $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Library.

Install additional libs

Download the following packages:

Download libintl

libintl-0.11.5-2.bin.zip
libintl-0.11.5-2.lib.zip

Download libiconv

libiconv-1.8.1-bin.zip 
libiconv-1.8.1-lib.zip 

Download zlib

zlib-1.2.2-bin.zip
zlib-1.2.2-lib.zip

from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net, and install them. To install them, simply unzip them into

/C/xxx/msys/1.0/mingw.

Install XML support

XML support not working yet, step omitted

Install GNUstep base

go in gnustep-base, and type

./configure --disable-xml
make
make install

Install addditional GUI libs

for the gui, download and install the following packages:

Download jpeg

 jpeg-6b-3-bin.zip
 jpeg-6b-3-dep.zip
 jpeg-6b-3-lib.zip

Download tiff

 tiff-3.7.1-bin.zip
 tiff-3.7.1-dep.zip
 tiff-3.7.1-lib.zip

Download libpng

 libpng-1.2.8-bin.zip
 libpng-1.2.8-dep.zip
 libpng-1.2.8-lib.zip

The process is always the same: download the zip file from the gnuwin32 website, then unzip them into

/C/xxx/msys/1.0/mingw.

Install GNUstep gui

go in the gui, and type:

 ./configure
 make
 make install

Install GNUstep back

go in back, and type:

 ./configure
 make
 make install

Check the installation

go in a simple gui application (examples/gui a very good starting point), compile and run it. :-)

based on a mail from Nicola Pero