Default Tauri app won't build for target `x86_64-pc-windows-gnu`

[keen thistle]

I want to build a Tauri app on Windows for the Rust target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu. I can't use the MSVC target because my app will depend on several dlls that are compiled with MinGW, and I can't recompile them for MSVC because a dependency requires gfortran.

Reproduce
My environment:

• MinGW from https://github.com/niXman/mingw-builds-binaries/releases/download/13.1.0-rt_v11-rev1/x86_64-13.1.0-release-posix-seh-ucrt-rt_v11-rev1.7z
• LLVM installed

Create a template tauri app:

A:\repo\tauri-gnu-windows-2>npm create tauri-app@latest
✔ Project name · tauri-gnu-windows-2
✔ Choose which language to use for your frontend · TypeScript / JavaScript - (pnpm, yarn, npm)
✔ Choose your package manager · npm
✔ Choose your UI template · React - (https://reactjs.org/)
✔ Choose your UI flavor · TypeScript

Run cd tauri-gnu-windows-2 and npm install. Then run npm run tauri -- dev --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu. This error occurs:

   Compiling tauri-gnu-windows-2 v0.0.0 (A:\repo\tauri-gnu-windows-2\tauri-gnu-windows-2\src-tauri)
   Compiling webview2-com v0.19.1
error: linking with `x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc` failed: exit code: 1
  |
  = note: "x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc" "-fno-use-linker-plugin" "-Wl,--dynamicbase" "-Wl,--disable-auto-image-base" "-m64" "-Wl,--high-entropy-va"

...

"-nodefaultlibs" "A:\\repo\\tauri-gnu-windows-2\\tauri-gnu-windows-2\\src-tauri\\target\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\debug\\build\\tauri-gnu-windows-2-bf5a16e02a5fa2bb\\out/resource.lib" "C:\\Users\\Home\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rsend.o"
  = note: A:\repo\tauri-gnu-windows-2\tauri-gnu-windows-2\src-tauri\target\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\debug\build\tauri-gnu-windows-2-bf5a16e02a5fa2bb\out/resource.lib: file not recognized: file format not recognized
          collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status


error: could not compile `tauri-gnu-windows-2`

[devout mango]

that's a bit tricky. we really only officially support msvc

can you post the output of the tauri info command just to be sure it initialized it correctly?

[keen thistle]

[✔] Environment
    - OS: Windows 10.0.22621 X64
    ✔ WebView2: 114.0.1823.58
    ✔ MSVC:
        - Visual Studio Build Tools 2019
        - Visual Studio Build Tools 2022
        - Visual Studio Community 2022
    ✔ rustc: 1.70.0 (90c541806 2023-05-31)
    ✔ Cargo: 1.70.0 (ec8a8a0ca 2023-04-25)
    ✔ rustup: 1.26.0 (5af9b9484 2023-04-05)
    ✔ Rust toolchain: stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc (default)
    - node: 18.16.1
    - npm: 9.5.1

[-] Packages
    - tauri [RUST]: 1.4.1
    - tauri-build [RUST]: 1.4.0
    - wry [RUST]: 0.24.3
    - tao [RUST]: 0.16.2
    - @tauri-apps/api [NPM]: 1.4.0
    - @tauri-apps/cli [NPM]: 1.4.0

[-] App
    - build-type: bundle
    - CSP: unset
    - distDir: ../dist
    - devPath: http://localhost:1420/
    - framework: React
    - bundler: Vite

This is interesting because it says msvc is selected, do I have to change that?

[keen thistle]

I'm aware, but I have looked through some of the gh issues and people seem to have gotten it working at some point

[devout mango]

since you specify the target in the dev/build command it should be enough

[devout mango]

yes, and we do fix breaking issues too, i just wish it wouldn't be such a pain 🙃

oh and the bundler doesn't include the dll for the webview iirc so you'll have to include that yourself as a resource

actually, can you try setting the gnu toolchain as the default?

Right now you're using the msvc toolchain to compile to the gnu target which can cause issues

especially for the resource compiler

[keen thistle]

I've seen all the winres talk and patches, etc

[keen thistle]

This may be dumb but how do I do this

[devout mango]

globally: rustup default stable-gnu

i'd have to look up how to do it project-wide myself if you prefer that

[keen thistle]

It's fine globally

[keen thistle]

It's fine globally

That did the trick, thanks so much!

[keen thistle]

This must have been fixed because it was copied automatically

Just need to sidecar the rest of the dlls

[devout mango]

it was fixed once but i was pretty sure we broke it again

but good for you then :D

wait, are you sure it's inside the msi/setup.exe ? I really only see code that copies it into the target dir but nothing about that in the bundler

[keen thistle]

Idk but I ran the msi and it showed up in program files

[devout mango]

coolio

[keen thistle]

I'll just make sure to not allow it to update tauri automatically in case it breaks later again

Honestly gnu is so close to being perfectly supported idk why it's not official

[devout mango]

because it wasn't that close until very recently

and it's generally considered worse than the msvc one, and less of an ecosystem standard 🤷

and nobody in the team wanna actually maintain it

[keen thistle]

Understandable. As long as it works on this version I’m good

[devout mango]

i mean, we try not to break it either. or not more than the msvc one

[devout mango]

but yeah, comes down to this ^ so we may miss something when we change something while focusing on msvc

[devout mango]

Just checked again, and the msi bundler simply includes all dlls in the target dir but as far as i can see the nsis (setup.exe) does not (i missed the msi one 3 times though so take that with a grain of salt lol)

[keen thistle]

Interesting, I guess I could use that instead of sidecar to add my dlls

[devout mango]

well, i mean that's essentially what the resource feature does but that currently requires the dlls to be next to the tauri.conf.json file so a custom script may indeed be nicer

[keen thistle]

I could add something to the build.rs that copies them

[brave belfry]

Hello @keen thistle

[keen thistle]

umm hi?

[brave belfry]

could have 5-10 min ?