Free Compiler Setup Under Linux

This article explains how to setup a free compiler, MS VC++, under Linux through Wine, under assumption, that Orbiter itself can be ran under Linux through Wine for testing your modules. Latest possible setup that is capable of doing it is Wine 1.6.2 and Orbiter 2016, using the built-in DX7 graphical client and DX9 client. The steps presented here have been tested on Debian-stable ("jessie"). The concept is based on downloading and running MS VC++ executables, wrapped by Wine, and fed back to a native multiplatform IDE - Code::Blocks. Thanks to winetricks, it's of course easy to download the VC++ executables, along with its IDE, and run the whole VC's IDE through Wine, but such a setup is unstable.

Preparing Code::Blocks

Downloading build software and Code::Blocks

First, checkout and try to build C::B from source, to see if it the build succeeds. Alternatively, while the IDE builds, you may start hacking the source already.

# Build reqirements
sudo aptitude install subversion wine winetricks build-essential \
libtool automake libhunspell-dev libgamin-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev

# Codeblocks
mkdir -p ~/devel/codeblocks
mkdir -p ~/devel/bin
cd ~/devel/codeblocks
# Checking out version 16.01 which is the latest stable version.
svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/codeblocks/code/tags/16.01

Hacking Code::Blocks

The CB needs to be a bit hacked, to enable MS VC++ under Linux, which normally isn't possible. The hacking is kept to a minimum and additionally allows to use the same CB project file to compile code under Windows, using the same build targets. Save the following patch:

--- compilergcc.cpp	2016-04-11 18:16:50.181091749 +0200
+++ compilergcc-new.cpp	2016-04-11 18:17:22.013365534 +0200
@@ -869,6 +869,12 @@
         CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerIAR(wxT("8051")));
         CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerIAR(wxT("ARM")));
     }
+    else
+    {
+    	//CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerMSVC);
+        CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerMSVC8);
+        //CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerMSVC10);
+    }
     CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerICC);
     CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerGDC);
     CompilerFactory::RegisterCompiler(new CompilerGNUFortran);

Under the following full path:

~/devel/codeblocks/16.01/src/plugins/compilergcc/compilergcc-new.cpp

And perform the actual patching:

cd ~/devel/codeblocks/16.01/src/plugins/compilergcc/
patch < compilergcc-new.cpp

Compiling Code::Blocks

cd ~/devel/codeblocks/16.01
./bootstrap
# New compilers need the permissive flag
./configure --with-contrib-plugins=all --prefix=/usr CXXFLAGS=-fpermissive
make -j2
sudo make install

Preparing MS VC2005 Express and Platform SDK

Execute the following script and take note of the comments at winetricks installation:

#!/bin/bash

prefixName=vc2005express
prefixDir=$HOME/.local/share/wineprefixes
prefix=$prefixDir/$prefixName

export WINEPREFIX=$prefix
export WINEARCH=win32

winetricks vc2005express 	# Deselect every component at installation
winetricks psdk2003 		# Choose typical installation

# Link the installed VC and SDK
cd $prefix/drive_c
ln -s Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Visual\ Studio\ 8/VC
ln -s ../../psdk2003/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Platform\ SDK psdk # Symlink to psdk from other prefix

# Link an important dll, without which the toolchain fails
cd $prefix/drive_c/windows/system32
ln -s ../../Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Visual\ Studio\ 8/Common7/IDE/mspdb80.dll

VC++ Wine wrappers

Execute the following command to have a common (exchangeable) WINEPREFIX for the tool chain:

echo "$HOME/.local/share/wineprefixes/vc2005express" > $HOME/devel/bin/wineprefix-vc.txt

Create the following files:

~/devel/bin/cl.sh:

#!/bin/bash 

export WINEPREFIX=`cat $HOME/devel/bin/wineprefix-vc.txt`
wine c:/VC/bin/cl.exe /I"c:/VC/include" /I"c:/psdk/Include" "$@"

~/devel/bin/link.sh:

#!/bin/bash

export WINEPREFIX=`cat $HOME/devel/bin/wineprefix-vc.txt`
wine c:/VC/bin/link.exe /LIBPATH:"c:/VC/lib" /LIBPATH:"c:/psdk/Lib" "$@"

~/devel/bin/rc.sh:

#!/bin/bash

export WINEPREFIX=`cat $HOME/devel/bin/wineprefix-vc.txt`
wine c:/VC/bin/rc.exe /I"c:/VC/include" /I"c:/psdk/Include" "$@"

and make them executable:

chmod +x ~/devel/bin/*

Setting up Code::Blocks

• Execute codeblocks
• Go to Settings->Compiler
• Select Microsoft Visual C++ 2005/2008 compiler
• Select Toolchain executables tab
• In Compiler's installation directory, paste /home/<ENTER_YOUR_USERNAME>/devel/bin and modify the Program Files, to have the .sh extensions instead of the default .exe
• In Search directories remove all search directories (the proper ones are already defined in our .sh wrappers)
• Select Build options tab and set Number of processes for parallel builds to more than 1, even if you have 1 core. This is a workaround that enables the "persistent wineserver", which greatly reduces the compilation time.
• Download, open and use Launch MFD project file (available under launchmfd/LaunchMFD.cbp) as a template
• Download and use in your project the header file launchmfd/afxres.h. This is required for VS Express.
• Change orbiter2016/Orbitersdk/include/Lua to lua
• Add some sources and hit The Compile Button(TM) !