Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] MXE as virtual environment (python needs to run itself natively during installation)

[Václav Šmilauer]

> > A solution which might work is to compile only the base python
> > interpreter (no compiled modules; that works already) first, so that
> > headers can be installed and other compiled libs, which require
> > python (boost-python, pyqt4, ...) can be cross-compiled. As a second
> > step (those would be additional targets for MXE, not required in
> > itself), python installation would be finished/run on the target
> > (through wine, with some minimal and reproducible setup).
> While this is an entirely valid approach, it is not the
> way we usually go in MXE. We're using Wine for testing,
> but not as part of the build system.
>
> However, if this is the only way you get it work, by all
> means you should go that route.
I think I will try the compilation in virtual environment as the first 
step. I would attempt proper cross-compilation afterwards -- I guess 
patching python and getting those patches upstream would be beyond my 
capacity (mostly time-wise) at this moment.

1. If you use wine for testing, is there some infrastructure ready, like 
pre-generating wine configuration and such? Would you mind enabling wiki 
at github, so that I could make notes there, which would be eventually a 
mini-howto to do such a thing?

2. I would like to install MSYS (form what I understood, that is what I 
need for bash, make and other tools probably necessary to compile other 
stuff). I might first try binary installation (if that works),  though I 
would like to do source installation first. Is it ok to add a Makefile 
for it into src/ ?

3. I recall reading somewhere about windows installer being created with 
MXE, and it seems the project using MXE use that. Can I get some 
pointers here? I tried downloading toppler source, but see nothing 
relevant there... (I would put that on the wiki again)

4. Boost is currently compiled --without-python. SHould I aim at 
providing a special boost-python makefile, or would it be OK to make 
boost depend on python headers? (Python base installation is relatively 
small and the compilation takes a minute).

Cheers,

Vaclav