mingw32-make tries to create subfolder .lib an illegal name

Question

I am trying to compile a project that required freetype library so I was figuring out how to install freetype to mingw32 and the more safer way is to compile it.

Anyway the problem was compiling freetype-2.4.11 I went into bash provided in msys I did ./configure within freetype's main dir and everything looks fine next I did mingw32-make which created the problem

libtool: compile:  gcc -pedantic -ansi -Ig:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/objs -I./b
uilds/unix -Ig:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/include -c -Wall -g -O2 "-DFT_CONFIG_C
ONFIG_H=<ftconfig.h>" -DFT2_BUILD_LIBRARY "-DFT_CONFIG_MODULES_H=<ftmodule.h>" g
:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/src/base/ftsystem.c  -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC -o g:/Downlo
ads/freetype-2.4.11/objs/.libs/ftsystem.o
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: can't create g:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/objs/.libs/ftsystem.o: No
such file or directory
g:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/builds/freetype.mk:198: recipe for target 'g:/Downl
oads/freetype-2.4.11/objs/ftsystem.lo' failed
mingw32-make[4]: *** [g:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/objs/ftsystem.lo] Error 1

g:/Downloads/freetype-2.4.11/objs/.libs/ftsystem.o seemed like it is trying to use a directory that is illegal in windows.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Try to use make instead (i.e. the one from MSYS distribution), and avoid using mingw32-make (from MinGW distribution) in the future to save yourself time and nerves. Extract from MinGW Wiki:

What's the difference between make and mingw32-make?

The "native" (i.e.: MSVCRT dependent) port of make is lacking in some functionality and has modified functionality due to the lack of POSIX on Win32. There also exists a version of make in the MSYS distribution that is dependent on the MSYS runtime. This port operates more as make was intended to operate and gives less headaches during execution. Based on this, the MinGW developers/maintainers/packagers decided it would be best to rename the native version so that both the "native" version and the MSYS version could be present at the same time without file name collision.