Is it possible to create binaries for other platform on Linux?

Question

Is it possible to create binaries of other platform on Linux? Say I have a program that can be compiled using gcc to .o file but can we use it to output exe that can be run on windows ?

Answer 1

Google for "linux cross compilation windows". The first link looks pretty good.

Answer 2

Yes. Look for the cross-compiler of the target platform.

This is how you develop mobile application for ARM processors and other embeeded platforms. Ex: When you write a symbian application you can run on windows simulator during development but when you deploy it you need to compile the project using ARM cross-compiler because almost all phones run on ARM processors.

Answer 3

I don't know that kind of tool, but principally I can't see any reason that makes that impossible.

For example there can be a tool on Linux which can compile C++ code by mapping to not Linux API function but to Win32 API functions (by knowing their addresses)!

Answer 4

Short version: yes, you can. This is called cross-compiling and any search on google with this keyword will give you adequate results.

Now the reality: It takes quite the effort to have even a relatively small piece of c/c++ code running on both platforms. Differences in API's, user interfaces, calling conventions, alignments and much more are common practice. Fortunately there are a lot of cross-platform tools that can help you. Google for Qt, a cross-platform user interface library. Or use Boost when and where you can. You'll probably need to add numerous #ifdef __WINDOWS__ or #ifdef __UNIX__ (these statements might be incorrect) to specify separate lines of code for each platform.

So it is not a sinecure to code for both platforms and, depending on the complexity of the software you're writing, requires in-depth knowledge of operating systems in general and both OS'es in particular.

In other words: there's no tool that makes an .exe out of your .o, just like that.

Good luck!

~Rob

Answer 5

Neither of my ideas directly answer your question, however they are worth considering.

Running Windows on another machine (physical or virtual) is an option too. Having a full Windows environment would make debugging and testing the Windows version far easier.

Of course, you could use Java or a interpreted language (ie: python) and try to minimize platform specific code.

Answer 6

Sure. If you have a compiler that can produce Windows binaries, it doesn't matter what system the compiler is running on.

A lot of Windows binaries for Unix-centric Open Source Projects are produced without anyone ever running Windows. E.g. Rake-Compiler is a project for building binary extensions for the MRI and YARV Ruby implementations. One of the main objectives of Rake-Compiler is that extension writers can publish extensions for Windows from Linux or OSX.

Answer 7

Try kdevelop and Qt if you need a GUI, you can 'definitely' build Windows GUI &/or console programs on a Linux host that way.

you could also try googling for "tool chains" and/or "cross compiling", I do the above to build software for my router (which is the 'other' platform - not Windows though) Basically the compile is accomplised by using a different compiler to compile for my target OS