Can't make FestVox compile due to missing -leststring and missing libeststring.a

Question

So I have installed / compiled speech_tools, and Festival (2.3) using Cygwin on my Win8.1 machine to the point that I can successfully produce speech using this command:

echo "hello world" | \src\main\festival --tts

The next step is for me to get FestVox running. I have downloaded FestVox 2.6 and I have run ./configure; however, the 'make' step is giving me trouble, producing this error:

gcc -O3 -Wall -o phonealign phonealign_main.o -LC:/cygwin64/Festival/build
/speech_tools/lib -lestools -lestbase -leststring -lncurses  -lstdc++ -lm -lwinmm -luser32
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -leststring
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:80: recipe for target 'phonealign' failed

So, I looked at my Makefile at where it might be trying to look for this file, and it looks like in that directory (build\speech_tools\lib) I am missing a libeststring.a partner for my libeststring.lib. Both libestbase and libestools have .lib and .a files in that directory.

At what step did I go wrong?? Should a libeststring.a have been created at some point??? When? How can I fix this?

Answer 1

I think the problem is that you should use compiler in Windows instead of gcc within Cygwin. The role in Cygwin for building Festival is to run configure to generate a Makefile for VC. Then run nmake in Windows command line not make within Cygwin.

Cygwin cannot build a native Windows application like what MINGW does. Application build in Cygwin can only run within Cygwin.

*.a is the static library for Linux, which is built by gcc. *.lib is the static library for Windows, which is built by VC.

So I suggest you taking a look at README, INSTALL files in FestVox. To find whether there is description for make a Makefile for Windows like process "3. Make makefile for VC in Cygwin" in my document (http://www.eguidedog.net/doc_build_win_festival.php)

Cameron