Building a Linux Qt App on Windows

On Linux, it's fast and easy to install the Qt libraries and, if desirable, Qt
Creator.  On Windows? Not really, these days. It was straightforward in the
past, but now you have to get a Qt account, and install both packages. Not too
bad, but....

I wanted version 5 of Qt, not 6, because I'm not ready to deal with any upgrade
issues in my code. In Linux, you have both versions available in both Arch and
Debian easily. In Windows its a bit of a trek.

Being lazy, I wanted to avoid that, so I installed Msys2 and used it's
Arch-based pacman to install git, qt, qtcreator, mingw etc. Had to make some
fixes to configure.ac. I finally gave up when the build gave an error in a
standard include file saying "this features needs WIN32"; the include file was
in mingw64 directory. FTS.

I decided to go back to my virtual Win 10 machine, which has been what I was
using for Windows builds. I copied the VM to the new computer, as I intend to
eventually ditch the old laptop, which is now sitting under the desk.

Then I went to install virtualbox, only to find it is not available on Testing,
just Sid.  I had to google a bit, add a couple of entries to
/etc/apt/sources.list.d, and the update apt and install virtualbox.
The code built, but then segfaulted when run. FTS.

Went back to the Win 11 machine, tracked down the version 5 installers, and
installed Qt/Qt Creator. Of course I had to log into my Qt account, twice.
Whereas previously you had options to cut back on the install, there weren't
any, and the install took up 50+ Gb!  Took longer to install than a full
install of Linux!

Anyway, the code builds and runs. My next step is to use the Qt maintenance app
to pare out some of the stuff I don't need, like the Android development
package.

The original version of my app used Gtkmm. For the next version, in which the
internals will be radically re-implemented, perhaps I should revisit Gtkmm.

Can I do all of this stuff while I'm still alive? :-D

--
Q: Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?"
A: Easy.  It's because they can't figure out how to get the little
bottles into the typewriter.