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Explore alternatives to RTools #832
Description
We are still installing Rtools 40, which is about to be five versions out of date. Using a newer RTools is difficult, in part because they no longer provide stable download links. I also feel like using an R project at all is kind of strange
One alternative I think would be reasonable is the https://github.com/skeeto/w64devkit/ project. The build process is very transparent, the tools are up to date, and the download is relatively small. I need to actually verify that cmdstan builds once it is used, but I expect it will.
Activity
WardBrian commentedon Dec 10, 2025
Also consider: https://www.winlibs.com/
Edit: WinLibs doesn't include some basic utilities like
cutthat end up being used by the cmdstan makefiles.WardBrian commentedon Feb 13, 2026
Both winlibs and w64devkit failed to build cmdstan without additional tools or edits to the build files (the usual suspect, TBB).
I'm hopeful that w64devkit could be fixed, so we should monitor skeeto/w64devkit#326 (and skeeto/w64devkit#302 would be a bonus)
In the mean time, https://github.com/r-hub/rtools45/releases/download/latest/rtools45.exe does actually seem to be a stable link to rtools45, so we could use that.
amas0 commentedon Sep 18, 2026
Have we looked into https://www.msys2.org/ as an option for this? Not sure if #864 means we should just keep on with RTools for now.
WardBrian commentedon Sep 18, 2026
Rtools is essentially just a wrapper around msys2, I believe.
ndabas commentedon Sep 18, 2026
Yes RTools just bundles a copy of MSYS2, pre-configured with the required packages and toolchains.
amas0 commentedon Sep 18, 2026
Ahh gotcha. Regarding Brian's initial:
Seems like we have good confidence we could use MSYS2 directly, but in practice it would be mostly an aesthetic change?
WardBrian commentedon Sep 18, 2026
The real advantage would be if we could find a suitable distribution which avoids a dependency on
libwinpthread. Modern alternatives such asmcfgthreadcan be up to twice as fast for Stan's threaded autodiff, which would allow us to finally consider makingSTAN_THREADSthe default.