Obtaining GPL'ed Qt for Windows
Overview
On Win32 operating systems, Trolltech has adopted a policy of crippling their GPL'd "open source edition" of Qt 4.1 so that it can only be built using the MinGW environment, which is based upon the gcc compiler ported to Win32. Developers who wish to use Qt with Microsoft compilers would normally be encouraged to purchase the commercial edition of Qt, see the Trolltech FAQ entry on this subject. Because Microsoft compilers are preferred for ParaQ builds on Win32, we are providing a patched version of the Qt GPL sources that can be built with Microsoft tools.
Installation
- Download [1], saving it to a convenient location (c:\qt is strongly recommended).
- Expand the ParaQ-qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4.zip file.
- Start a DOS shell, and cd to the c:\qt\paraq-qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4 directory.
- Run the Qt configure script (not configure.exe):
c:\qt\paraq-qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4> qconfigure.bat
- From this point forward, compilation and deployment of the Qt libraries should proceed normally. Begin compilation using the in-console instructions provided by the configuration process.
- Configure your PATH to point to c:\qt\paraq-qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4\bin.
- Use CMake to build ParaQ normally.
Advanced Users
For the curious, here is the procedure used to patch the Qt GPL sources:
The QtWin Project provides a set of patches that allow the Qt GPL libraries to be built with Microsoft compilers. You will need Cygwin installed on your machine to provide the "patch" command.
- If you don't already have Cygwin installed (why not?), run Cygwin Setup to download and install Cygwin.
- Download qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4.zip from Trolltech.
- Expand qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4.zip in a convenient location such as c:\qt. This will create a c:\qt\qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4 directory containing the full Qt sources.
- Download acs4qt414p1.zip from the QtWin project.
- Move the downloaded file acs4qt414p1.zip to the c:\qt\qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4 directory.
- Expand acs4qt414p1.zip in place.
- Start a Cygwin shell, and cd to your new Qt source directory:
$ cd /cygdrive/c/qt/qt-win-opensource-src-4.1.4
- Patch the Qt sources:
$ patch -p0 -i msvc_bcc32_414.patch
- Voila!
