New DevKit for the holidays

Just in time for your holiday hacking, we’re pleased to announce an updated and enhanced DevKit delivering MinGW GCC v4.5.1 features. Enjoy the download!

As an integral part of the RubyInstaller project, the DevKit provides a powerful, yet easy-to-use foundational toolkit that enables you to use, build, and develop native RubyGem extensions on Windows systems.

Although the DevKit will remain true to it’s foundational roots while allowing you to customize to meet your unique needs, the DevKit will continue to be enhanced for both functional and ease-of-use reasons. This DevKit release delivers enhancements in the following three areas:

1. Ease of installation
2. User and 3rd party ease-of-use
3. Updates and additional functionality

DevKit Updates & Enhancements

• updated default toolchain to TDM-based gcc/g++ v4.5.1
• updated MSYS to v1.0.16 and bash to latest patch level
• added libtool to core
• added automake to core
• added mintty terminal emulator to core
• added PowerShell helper script devkitvars.ps1
• added DevKit identifier RI_DEVKIT to environment for use by 3rd parties
• taught the dk.rb install script to upgrade previously installed overrides via --force switch
• enhanced JRuby cext (C-extension) support
• removed fallback batch stubs

DevKit Build Recipe Enhancements

• modularized the build recipes to enable building multiple MinGW-based toolchains; selectable via the DKVER environment variable

Useful Links

• How to Install and Use
• How to Upgrade the SFX FAQ
• JRuby, Windows, and C Extensions
• Building a Custom DevKit

Posted by Jon on December 15, 2010