Help setting up development environment (beginner)

Development
1

Hi all, first post here!
I’m trying to set up my development environment so I can compile plug-ins but have run into a problem. I’m using Windows 10 and followed the instructions exactly from the documentation. Everything seemed to go as described with no errors.
I cloned the Rack repository, set up the RACK_SDK variable to point to the correct place but when I type ‘make’ in the MSYS2 command window I get the following errors:

make: cc: Command not found
make: cc: Command not found
make: cc: Command not found
make: cc: Command not found
arch.mk:19: *** Could not determine architecture of . Try hacking around in arch.mk.  Stop.

From my limited knowledge of command line compiling, am I right in thinking that ‘make’ is looking for a compiler called ‘cc’ but cannot find it in the path? I was under the impression that mingw64 was the compiler but how do I tell ‘make’ to use that?

2

Did you follow these instructions:
https://vcvrack.com/manual/Building.html#windows

And the build instructions:
https://vcvrack.com/manual/Building.html#building-rack

Iv’e not used the downloadable SDK myself I compile everything based on the 2 above links and have not had issues.

3

Yes, followed exactly and all went as described with no errors during installation.

4

Okay, and you are in the right directory?

cd rack

Did you reboot or restart shell after installing packages?

5

I think I’ve just discovered my problem …
I was starting the MSYS2 shell and not the MINGW64 shell (blushes)

I’m still getting an error though when I try to compile Rack …

make: *** No rule to make target ‘build/dep/nanovg/src/nanovg.c.o’, needed by ‘Rack.exe’. Stop.

And when I try to compile Fundamental I get the error …

g++ -std=c++11 -Wsuggest-override -Idep/include -fPIC -ID:\Rack-SDK/include -ID:\Rack-SDK/dep/include -MMD -MP -g -O3 -march=nocona -funsafe-math-optimizations -Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -DARCH_WIN -D_USE_MATH_DEFINES -c -o build/src/Delay.cpp.o src/Delay.cpp
src/Delay.cpp:2:10: fatal error: samplerate.h: No such file or directory
2 | #include “samplerate.h”
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [D:\Rack-SDK/compile.mk:62: build/src/Delay.cpp.o] Error 1

6

I think this message is related to submodule update.

cd dep
make clean
cd ..

git submodule update --init --recursive

make dep -j$
(adding -j$ will be faster as it will spread jobs across all your cores)
replace $ with the number of physical cores your cpu has

make -j$ as above
make run

And for fundamental
make dep -j$
make -j$

8

The path of the rack directory should be something like:
C:\msys64\home\yourname\Rack

If you have compiled from source.

9

Success!

My initial problem was using the wrong the command shell.

After that I followed your instructions and it built correctly and ran OK!

Thank you very much for your time Phil.

10

You’re welcome!