CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cwindowsassemblygcccross-compiling
A user
A user

Reputation: 104

How to cross compile C to i386 on windows?

I am following a tutorial to create an operating system in C (and a little assembly), and since most of this stuff is done on linux I am having a hard time getting the various tools to work on windows. So far I am just trying to compile the code from the tutorial, and I haven't made any changes yet. This is the kernel (which gets loaded by an asm bootsector):

void dummy_test_entrypoint() {
}

void main() {
    char* video_memory = (char*) 0xb8000;
    *video_memory = 'X';
}

I am instructed to compile this using a gcc cross-compiler. And when I try to use the i386-elf-gcc windows binaries: link using the command:

i386-elf-gcc -ffreestanding -c kernel.c -o kernel.o

it gives me the error:

i386-elf-gcc: error: spawn: No such file or directory

This issue seems to be known, though I have no idea what that means. Any help would be appreciated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1630

Answers (1)

epic-coder-64
epic-coder-64

Reputation: 11

It might be best to install WSL2 on Windows. WSL2 is Linux running on Windows, and is completely compatible with gcc (and i386-elf-gcc). I have personally used it myself and have found no issues using it once I installed it.

Then, you can build i386-elf-gcc and i386-elf-ld using this shell script. i386-elf-g++ will also be built, so you can also write your OS in C++.

Make sure whenever you restart WSL2, you have /usr/local/i386elfgcc/bin/ added to you path. If it is not, you will get -bash: i386-elf-gcc: command not found. You can make sure this never happens by adding the following line to ~/.bashrc:

export PATH="/usr/local/i386elfgcc/bin/:$PATH"

EDIT: Remember to use the -nostdlib flag when compiling C source files!

Upvotes: 0

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