Environment: Linux under Windows – MSYS2, MinGW, and gcc

The first thing worth doing on Windows is installing Linux tools inside it. Below I describe a minimal setup based on MSYS2.

MSYS2 provides a Unix-like environment and toolset for Windows. The name comes from “Minimal SYStem”, generation 2.

MSYS2 is built on MinGW - a GNU toolchain for Windows. MinGW stands for “Minimalist GNU for Windows”.

GNU is the project that provides free system tools used in Linux systems, including the gcc compiler for C.

I use MSYS2 as a source of basic Linux tools on Windows. The main goal is to have a Linux terminal with the bash shell and the gcc compiler, along with utilities such as nano and tools like ImageMagick.

This gives me a mini-Linux inside Windows: MSYS2 as the environment, MinGW as the toolchain, and gcc as the compiler. For installing packages in MSYS2, I use the pacman package manager.

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Installing and Configuring MSYS2

Download it from:

https://www.msys2.org/

After installation, three shortcuts appear (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Result of MSYS2 installation: MSYS, MINGW64, UCRT64.

MSYS is mainly used for package management. MINGW64 and UCRT64 allow building native .exe files for Windows. I use MINGW64 - it is simpler than UCRT64 and sufficient for my purposes.

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Installing the gcc Compiler

Launch MSYS2 MINGW64 and install the compiler:

pacman -S --needed mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc

Verify the installation:

gcc --version

For playing with large numbers, I also need the GMP library. Install it in MSYS2 MINGW64:

pacman -S --needed mingw-w64-x86_64-gmp

GMP (GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library) is a C library for arbitrary-precision arithmetic, exceeding the limits of standard C numeric types.

Testing. Create a directory c:/code. In the MINGW64 terminal, navigate to it, create hello.c, compile, and run:

cd /c/code
nano hello.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    printf("Hello, world!\n");
    return 0;
}

gcc hello.c -o hello
./hello

File: hello.c.

Installing ImageMagick

Install ImageMagick in the MSYS2 MINGW64 environment.

Update packages (if not done recently):

pacman -Syu

Install the package:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-imagemagick

Verify the installation:

magick -version

Example usage:

magick input.png -gravity center -crop 1:1 -resize 512x512 output.png

Example: Creating a Screenshot for README.md:

1) Open the page in Chrome::

• F12 → DevTools
• Ctrl+Shift+P (Command Menu)
• Type: screenshot
• Select: Capture full size screenshot

Chrome generates a PNG file containing the full page height.

2) Use magick to add border and shadow,

magick screenshot-raw.png   -resize 500x   -bordercolor white -border 10   -alpha set   \( +clone -background black -shadow 40x3+0+2 \)   +swap -background none -compose over -composite   -strip -quality 92   screenshot.png

Summary

Minimal Unix-like environment for working under Windows:

• MSYS2 (bash shell + pacman package manager)
• MinGW64 toolchain
• gcc compiler
• nano editor
• GMP library
• ImageMagick

For a start, this is sufficient.