Well, after my somewhat interesting attempts to build Allegro in a mingw32 environment using code::blocks, I have taken the very good advice given to me and am attempting to build using the makefile.

So, I unpacked a fresh directory, ran "set.bat mingw", and, for good measure, I copied mingw32-make.exe to make.exe (in the proper path). Running "make all" gives me this output:

------------------------
make msg lib
make[1]: Entering directory `C:/CODE/libraries/allegro'
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, echo Compiling Allegro for MinGW32, optimised
. Please wait..., ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
make[1]: *** [msg] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `C:/CODE/libraries/allegro'
make: *** [all] Error 2
------------------------

Environment variables:

MINGDIR is set to c:\mingw
PATH includes c:\mingw\bin

gcc-v returns:

------------------------
Reading specs from c:/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/specs
Configured with: ../gcc/configure --with-gcc --with-gnu-ld --with-gnu-as --host=mingw32 --target=mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads --disable-nls --enable -languages=c,c++,f77,ada,objc,java --disable-win32-registry --disable-shared --enable-sjlj-exceptions --enable-libgcj --disable-java-awt --without-x --enable-java-gc=boehm --disable-libgcj-debug --enable-interpreter --enable-hash-synchronization --enable-libstdcxx-debug
Thread model: win32
gcc version 3.4.2 (mingw-special)
------------------------

I have installed the directx headers as well.

Another interesting thing to note is that "make clean" attempts to use 'rm' instead of 'del' even though no UNIX_TOOLS variable is set.

So, can anyone help me build this thing? I've read through the instructions, and I don't think I'm missing anything...

Oh, it does, I just didn't want to paste it all here, so I only made sure to note that it INCLUDES c:\mingw\bin

Actually, it generates the exact same error if I type mingw32-make.

And, yes, I meant "fix.bat". Sorry

Allegro 4.2.2

[edit]
deleted the make.exe, leaving only minggw32-make.exe

C:\CODE\libraries\allegro>mingw32-make
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, echo Compiling Allegro for MinGW32, optimised
. Please wait..., ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
mingw32-make: *** [msg] Error 2

[edit]
Okay, so something is seriously weird here. It's the msg target that's failing... and since the msg target simply echos "Compiling Allegro blah blah", that means that make is trying to spawn a process using a program called "echo" and is failing. I bet this has something to do with why "mingw32-make clean" tries to use "rm" instead of "del"

C:\CODE\libraries\allegro>mingw32-make clean
rm -fv obj/*/*.o obj/*/*/*.o obj/*/*/*/*.o obj/*/*.obj obj/*/*/*.obj
mingw32-make: [clean] Error -1073741790 (ignored)
rm -fv obj/*/*.h obj/*/*.s obj/*/*.exe obj/*/*/*.lst obj/*/*/*.asm obj/*/*.res o
bj/*/asmdef obj/*/*.inc lib/*/*.a lib/unix/*.so* lib/unix/sta* lib/*/*.lib lib/*
/*.exp lib/*/*.dll lib/*/*.pdb lib/*/*.ilk lib/*/*.map *.pdb */*.pdb */*.ilk */*
.map */*.sym gmon.out */gmon.out */*.prf allegro.log */allegro.log */*/allegro.l
og log */log */*/log core */core */*/core
mingw32-make: [clean] Error -1073741790 (ignored)

Nope. Just mingw32.

I don't think that's the problem. It looks to me like mingw32-make just isn't doing its job properly. Besides, I have Cisco Security Agent installed, and it complains any time something attempts to do anything sneaky (or potentially so) like inject code into a process or write to an executable behind the scenes.

The problem definitely seems to lie with the way make is attempting to build target msg. If I type mingw32-make lib, it putters away for awhile just fine before failing at another echo line.

Ah HAH. It was an sh.exe in my windows directory. Pernicious little booger. I renamed it, and it cleans and begins to build... until:

gcc -DALLEGRO_SRC -DALLEGRO_LIB_BUILD -Wall -Wno-unused -mtune=i586 -O2 -funroll
-loops -ffast-math  -fomit-frame-pointer -I. -I./include -o obj/mingw32/alleg/po
ly3d.o -c src/poly3d.c
src/poly3d.c:32:35: obj/mingw32/asmcapa.h: No such file or directory
mingw32-make: *** [obj/mingw32/alleg/poly3d.o] Error 1

Yeah. Spoke too soon. Just found this: http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/589188

Same error came up for asmdef.inc, so I made that, too.

Built and failed on linking because allegro.def was missing. That's because I'm stupid and had run "make veryclean" I think. Replaced it with a copy from the zip.

Then it failed on plugins.h, which I also had to re-make (because of veryclean?).

And now we're done. Successful build

Okay, time for a learning experience for me: what did I do wrong to prevent these files from being built initially? How is the .DEF file originally generated, and is there a make target to regenerate it (i.e. undo "make veryclean")?

[edit]
Found fixdll.bat, but am still unsure why asmdef and plugins.h weren't built. Also, it built it as "alleg42.dll". Is that correct?