MSYS2 (Preview)

MSYS2 is a native build environment on Windows that provides Bash, POSIX tools, multiple GCC and Clang toolchains, and a Pacman-based package repository for both applications and development libraries.

Be aware that Crystal on Windows is not yet complete.

Install

MSYS2 comes in multiple environments which determine the active toolchain and C/C++ runtime libraries. Crystal is currently available for the UCRT64, CLANG64, and MINGW64 environments. To install or upgrade Crystal for one of the environments:

pacman -Sy mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-crystal  # UCRT64 environment
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-crystal # CLANG64 environment
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-crystal       # MINGW64 environment

Shards can be installed or upgraded similarly:

pacman -Sy mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-shards # ditto for other environments

The Pactoys package can simplify the installation process by not having to supply the full environment prefix; it provides pacboy, a Pacman wrapper that automatically infers this prefix from the currently active environment. To install Crystal and Shards this way:

pacman -Sy pactoys
pacboy -S crystal shards

Uninstall

To remove Crystal on MSYS2:

pacman -R mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-crystal # ditto for other environments