NetBeans IDE 6.8 not working nicely with cygwin 1.7.5.1

Question

I'm trying to use NetBeans to compile C code and have the following versions from cygwin

gcc 3.4.5 g++ 3.4.5 GNU Make 3.81 GNU gdb 6.8.0

Here are the messages from trying to compile the Welcome program

/usr/bin/make -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk SUBPROJECTS= .build-conf
make[1]: Entering directory `/cygdrive/c/Users/Milktrader/Documents/NetBeansProjects     /Welcome_1'
/usr/bin/make  -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk dist/Debug/MinGW-Windows/welcome_1.exe
make[2]: Entering directory `/cygdrive/c/Users/Milktrader/Documents/NetBeansProjects/Welcome_1'
mkdir -p build/Debug/MinGW-Windows
make[2]: mkdir: Command not found
make[2]: *** [build/Debug/MinGW-Windows/welcome.o] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/cygdrive/c/Users/Milktrader/Documents/NetBeansProjects/Welcome_1'
make[1]: *** [.build-conf] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/cygdrive/c/Users/Milktrader/Documents/NetBeansProjects/Welcome_1'
make: *** [.build-impl] Error 2
BUILD FAILED (exit value 2, total time: 1s)

Is it worth downloading a previous cygwin version (1.5)? Blog tutorials (including the NetBeans site) have this older version in their examples.

Answer 1

You need to select the Tools menu from the Main menu (it's between Team and Windows). Select Options and you'll get an elaborate dialog that has a big white box on the left side where you can add a Tool Collection. If you select c:\cygwin\bin as the base directory, NetBeans finds what it needs for the c, c++ compilers along with the make file and debugger. Remember to add c:\cygwin to the Windows PATH, but this is in the tutorial. Not sure why I needed to manually input this, but it doesn't matter because it works now.