add windows README, package README files with distribution

2 files changed, 41 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 7fc7485..45aa9cc 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -8,4 +8,4 @@ if ENABLE_LIBTLS
 pkgconfig_DATA += libtls.pc
 endif
 
-EXTRA_DIST = VERSION config scripts
+EXTRA_DIST = README README.windows VERSION config scripts
diff --git a/README.windows b/README.windows
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..12e4963
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.windows
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+# Building
+
+For Windows systems, LibreSSL supports the mingw-w64 toolchain, which can use
+GCC or Clang as the compiler. Contrary to its name, mingw-w64 supports both
+32-bit and 64-bit build environments. If your project already uses mingw-w64,
+then LibreSSL should integrate very nicely. Old versions of the mingw-w64
+toolchain, such as the one packaged with Ubuntu 12.04, may have trouble
+building LibreSSL. Please try it with a recent toolchain if you encounter
+troubles. If you are building under Cygwin, only builds with the mingw-w64
+compiler are supported, though you can easily use Cygwin to drive the build
+process.
+
+To configure and build LibreSSL for a 32-bit system, use the following
+build steps:
+
+ CC=i686-w64-mingw32-gcc ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32
+ make
+ make check
+
+For 64-bit builds, use these instead:
+
+ CC=x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc ./configure --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
+ make
+ make check
+
+# Using Libressl with Visual Studio
+
+A script for generating ready-to-use .DLL and static .LIB files is included in
+the source repository at
+https://github.com/libressl-portable/portable/blob/master/dist-win.sh
+
+This script uses mingw-w64 to build LibreSSL and then uses Visual Studio tools
+to generate compatible library import files ready-to-use with Visual
+Studio projects. Static and dynamic libraries are included. The script uses
+cv2pdb to generate Visual Studio and windbg compatible debug files. cv2pdb is a
+tool developed for the D language and can be found here:
+https://github.com/rainers/cv2pdb
+
+Pre-build Windows binaries are available with the LibreSSL release for your
+convenience.