How to get runtime libraties with w64devkit?

[Qsfff]

I need mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc, mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL, mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_mixer, mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_ttf, mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_gfx, mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-glew, but i dont understand how to get them, guide for not working mingw toolchain suggests using "pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_mixer mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_ttf mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL_gfx mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-glew". But in this implementation there is no pacman, so how can i do that?

[daveshenal]

w64devkit doesn't have a package manager.. no pacman, no repo. The mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-* packages in that guide belong to MSYS2, a different project. If you want that pacman -S ... command to work, install MSYS2 and run it there.
To stick with w64devkit instead: download prebuilt MinGW-w64 dev binaries for SDL2/SDL2_mixer/SDL2_ttf from libsdl.org and extract them into your w64devkit folder (it acts as its own sysroot - lib/, include/, bin/). SDL_gfx and GLEW don't have reliable prebuilt MinGW binaries, so you'll likely need to build those from source.

[Qsfff]

MSYS2 fails to install for some unknown reason, so i need alternative way of getting those
Preferrably without having to build anything

[daveshenal]

You don't need MSYS2 installed. MSYS2 packages are downloadable archives on a public mirror.

One thing to check first: w64devkit seems to link against msvcrt.dll, not UCRT (you can verify this yourself... compile anything trivial and run objdump -p yourfile.exe | grep -i dll). If so, the mingw64 variants (mingw-w64-x86_64-*) are probably the safer pick over the ucrt64 ones in your original guide, since mixing the two runtimes can cause issues.

Steps:

1. Go to https://packages.msys2.org/packages/mingw-w64-x86_64-<name> for each library (SDL, SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf, SDL_gfx, glew) and grab the .pkg.tar.zst link on the page. Skip gcc, w64devkit already has its own.
2. Extract with 7-Zip.
3. Copy the bin/include/lib contents into your w64devkit folder.

worth testing on your end since I haven't run the SDL/glew setup myself.

[Qsfff]

And if i want to launch program that requires those, what do i need to do?

[daveshenal]

Copy the .dll files from the bin/ folder of those packages into the same folder as your .exe. That's all you need for the w64devkit-compiled runtime itself. w64devkit statically links its own runtime by default, so you won't need extra MinGW DLLs like libstdc++-6.dll.

One thing to watch out for... SDL_mixer and SDL_ttf pull in their own sub-dependencies (things like zlib.dll, libpng.dll, codec DLLs for audio formats), so copying just SDL2_mixer.dll often isn't enough. If you get missing DLL errors when running, the quickest way to find what's needed is to either run the exe and read the error message, or run objdump -p yourfile.exe | grep "DLL Name" to see the full list of what it's expecting.

[Peter0x44]

I think you should instead try to fix msys2 since you already have it. Can you give more details than 'unknown reason'?

If you really want to use w64devkit though, I suggest you get an agent like opencode and ask it to set up a cmake project that vendors all of the libraries you are talking about.

Install it and invoke it like:
SHELL=$(which sh.exe) opencode

[skeeto]

It would help to explain what you're trying to accomplish, since this looks like an X/Y problem. I see UCRT-flavored SDL and GLEW. Are you just trying to build an SDL program? You don't need these specific packages for that. For w64devkit you can download msvcrt-flavored builds, or build them yourself (relatively easy). Trying to run an SDL program someone else built, linked against these Msys2 libraries? That's mostly their responsibility to provide them.

If it's your own program, there are options depending on what you're trying to accomplish. For me, I like to build with CMake, and have it fetch these sorts of dependencies with FetchContent, then build them alongside my program (automatically handled by CMake). It works the same way on all platforms, and you get to control how it's all built.