[ANN] EasyWinBuilder - The Easy Way to Build Bitcoin on Windows

[BanzaiBTC]

I will test it when I get back home tonight First wallet I ever " compiled"  was by using this

Note: I noticed mingw64 in the source only.. No mingw32 version? I can alter it myself though

[cinnamon_carter]

I have not tried this since I am ok with making my own wallets for a while now however......... i found the link on Nitrogenetics thread ..........

It looks like a lot of hard work went into this and honestly I would have never thought of 'automating' something like this.....

If it works (and from just glancing over the code on github it looks like it is packing the right stuff...)  it is a great way for people to 'learn' the process who want to but lack the background in linux, or mingw or other things to set up the proper build environment.

For the people who are scratching their head when they read......oh just put that in your path.....   this is for you !!

I may even try it just to watch it work !!

Would probably use on windows 7 virtual box,  microsoft allows you to download the iso of win 7 from their website; then you can make a new virtual machine (realize this will run much slower than a normal computer)  as if win 7 was just installed !!!

I consider it like a work of art. 

Consider a great cook who has perfected a recipe to cook a large elaborate meal that takes several hours.....

To watch this build the client would be like sitting back and watching a robot build the client or for that cook to watch the meal cook itself !!!!

It looks pretty cool !!! 

[phelix]

I will test it when I get back home tonight First wallet I ever " compiled"  was by using this

Note: I noticed mingw64 in the source only.. No mingw32 version? I can alter it myself though

It will build 32bit though.


@cinnamon: thanks.      Maybe it will make it a little easier for people to start hacking on Bitcoin.

[m0mchil]

Testing on a clean WinXP 32bit in a VM

After installing MinGW, I should set MINGWPATH in set_vars.bat to C:\MinGW\bin to be able to proceed. The default is 'C:/MinGW'. Am I missing something?

[phelix]

Testing on a clean WinXP 32bit in a VM

After installing MinGW, I should set MINGWPATH in set_vars.bat to C:\MinGW\bin to be able to proceed. The default is 'C:/MinGW'. Am I missing something?

Thanks for testing. If you leave the defaults of the MinGW installer alone you should not have to change anything in set_vars.bat.

edit: oops. there was bug. I fixed the bin path in the 1_environment.bat

Did you do this when installing MinGW?

Unselect "... also install support for the graphical user interface."

Maybe I should add a couple of exclamation marks


btw:
The new version 0.7 is quite close to nitrogenetics instructions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252931.0):

Differences I am aware of because of build troubles:
* OpenSSL small config does not yet work    (any hint appreciated)
* different Boost version

[phelix]

Testing on a clean WinXP 32bit in a VM
[...]

I noticed another issue on WinXP - it does not work properly with forward slashes (e.g. cd /windows) whereas later windows versions do handle them ok. Should be fixed now.

[phelix]

Another fix and update to v0.11.0

[altcoinhosting]

does this one still works? I'm stuck crosscompiling my wallet using gitian on debian and i'm searching form something more straightforeward...

[phelix]

does this one still works? I'm stuck crosscompiling my wallet using gitian on debian and i'm searching form something more straightforeward...

yes - for me at least 

It's quite easy once you have figured this part out:

About to download MinGW/MSYS installer - you need to install it manually. Note:
Install to default directory: %MINGWPATH%
Unselect "... also install support for the graphical user interface."

It will start the MinGW download in your browser once you press a key. You then have to manually launch the downloaded MinGW installer and remember to unselect that option. Once the installer stops working it has finished and you can press a key in the easywinbuilder command line window.

[altcoinhosting]

does this one still works? I'm stuck crosscompiling my wallet using gitian on debian and i'm searching form something more straightforeward...

yes - for me at least 

It's quite easy once you have figured this part out:

About to download MinGW/MSYS installer - you need to install it manually. Note:
Install to default directory: %MINGWPATH%
Unselect "... also install support for the graphical user interface."

It will start the MinGW download in your browser once you press a key. You then have to manually launch the downloaded MinGW installer and remember to unselect that option. Once the installer stops working it has finished and you can press a key in the easywinbuilder command line window.

I'm going to try this one out this evening 

Compiling the bitcoind binary or the wallet for bitcoin or any altcoin for linux is pretty easy, but i've never actually been able to build a qt wallet for windows... I've tried using the windows compile tools, crosscompiling with mxe, crosscompiling with gitian (mingw)... Always hit a dead end after 2-3 days...

[phelix]

does this one still works? I'm stuck crosscompiling my wallet using gitian on debian and i'm searching form something more straightforeward...

yes - for me at least 

It's quite easy once you have figured this part out:

About to download MinGW/MSYS installer - you need to install it manually. Note:
Install to default directory: %MINGWPATH%
Unselect "... also install support for the graphical user interface."

It will start the MinGW download in your browser once you press a key. You then have to manually launch the downloaded MinGW installer and remember to unselect that option. Once the installer stops working it has finished and you can press a key in the easywinbuilder command line window.

I'm going to try this one out this evening 

Compiling the bitcoind binary or the wallet for bitcoin or any altcoin for linux is pretty easy, but i've never actually been able to build a qt wallet for windows... I've tried using the windows compile tools, crosscompiling with mxe, crosscompiling with gitian (mingw)... Always hit a dead end after 2-3 days...

yeah it's hell on earth. Hopefully this helps.

It made it clear for me that operating systems like Windows and Mac OS (by default) can't be taken serious any more for development.

[altcoinhosting]

yeah it's hell on earth. Hopefully this helps.

It made it clear for me that operating systems like Windows and Mac OS (by default) can't be taken serious any more for development.

Thanks for the effort, and for sharing... I'll probably report back on monday (if my build succeeds)

+1 on the fact that neither windows nor mac os are suitable for development

[altcoinhosting]

Just a heads up: your system works great... I used vmware to run a clean XP, and executed all .bat-files sequentially... Ended up with the bitcoin deamon, qt,... 

Now, i'm going to try to clone bitcoin 0.11.0 for educational purposes, and build it with your tool  (i'm not planning to release yet another altcoin into the community)

[phelix]

Just a heads up: your system works great... I used vmware to run a clean XP, and executed all .bat-files sequentially... Ended up with the bitcoin deamon, qt,... 

Now, i'm going to try to clone bitcoin 0.11.0 for educational purposes, and build it with your tool  (i'm not planning to release yet another altcoin into the community)

Thanks for the feedback!

[phelix]

Updated to include Libevent. This will be necessary for upcoming Bitcoin versions and is already now for some altcoins.

[bloods-n-cryptos]

EasyWinBuilder v0.7 for Bitcoin Core
========================
(c) 2014-2015 phelix / blockchained.com - MIT license

Source: https://github.com/phelix/easywinbuilder
Download (source in a zip file): https://github.com/phelix/easywinbuilder/archive/master.zip
Forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252931

Download environment software, all dependencies and build Bitcoin automatically. To run simply double click __all_easywinbuilder.bat or manually start the batch files in order.

If you have ever built Bitcoin on Windows you probably know it can be a pain. Hopefully these scripts will make things a little easier. Note that the official Windows binaries are cross compiled on Linux.

EasyWinBuilder can run on a mint windows system (e.g. a virtual machine) or a normal system. It might overwrite your MinGW or Qt installation, though. Please note the process takes about 1.5 hours (i3 with SSD) and will need about 3GB of hard drive space. All automatic downloads are now verified against included hashes.

Edit set_vars.bat to change the Bitcoin version or build similarly structured altcoins and to change directories and dependency versions. Also run downloadhashes_create.sh from within MSYS.

Based on build instructions by nitrogenetics (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149479.0), Matt Corallo and others


I will only answer support requests publicly posted in this thread.

This may be a bit much unnecessary work but it would be helpful to see a changelog on the OP to let people quickly see the that the project is still very active, which may be of particular interest to alt-coins since its looking to be more alt-coin compatible with latest changes.

[tommorisonwebdesign]

This is an interesting tool. If I ever decide to learn C, I will keep this in mind.

[phelix]

This may be a bit much unnecessary work but it would be helpful to see a changelog on the OP to let people quickly see the that the project is still very active, which may be of particular interest to alt-coins since its looking to be more alt-coin compatible with latest changes.

Thanks for the suggestion. On github you can see all changes in detail. I am once again playing with reproducible builds, if I get anywhere I will certainly write about it in the OP.

And yes, it should be compatible with various altcoins. I often use it to build Namecoin debug builds.

This is an interesting tool. If I ever decide to learn C, I will keep this in mind.

Thanks. I would start with something else (Python?) though.

[BTCDDev]

I (along with fsb4000 and mezzovide) developed a way to build BitcoinDarkd.exe for Windows using MXE cross compiler from Linux.

It's really nice and makes building coins for Windows just as easy as for linux.

https://github.com/jl777/btcd/blob/master/libjl777/make_win64.sh
https://github.com/jl777/btcd/blob/master/libjl777/Makefile.win

I got the QT building as well. MXE mxe.cc takes a while to build, but it's a self contained dev environment, and only needs to be build once.

mezzovide also got some btc packages committed to the official mxe repo as well, so you don't need to build them separately and manually link them into the makefile:

https://github.com/mezzovide/mxe/commit/1513af4a88fa268d97364b3f29f8e4fb2e1d54c4

Matthew

[phelix]

I (along with fsb4000 and mezzovide) developed a way to build BitcoinDarkd.exe for Windows using MXE cross compiler from Linux.

It's really nice and makes building coins for Windows just as easy as for linux.

https://github.com/jl777/btcd/blob/master/libjl777/make_win64.sh
https://github.com/jl777/btcd/blob/master/libjl777/Makefile.win

I got the QT building as well. MXE mxe.cc takes a while to build, but it's a self contained dev environment, and only needs to be build once.

mezzovide also got some btc packages committed to the official mxe repo as well, so you don't need to build them separately and manually link them into the makefile:

https://github.com/mezzovide/mxe/commit/1513af4a88fa268d97364b3f29f8e4fb2e1d54c4

Matthew

Nice. Any chance builds are reproducible?