But I'm not! I'm just using *your* glib and I happen to have the Linux one installed! When I said "non-mingw glib" I was referring to the normal Linux glib. It is not "another" glib, it is glib-2.0.m4 that is the same for every package and every architecture. It runs touch from within a runtime test, so it tries to use a non-existing Windows touch. It's not the default, we have to bring the case upstream then. First of all, let's put aside Make-time generated binaries. They are just complicating the discussion, the problem occurs with any program that uses glib (*). I understand perfectly why you do not want to use Wine at compile time. Someone in the bugzilla audit trails said it does not require X . And that's not the reason indeed, just like the reason is not that it requires a $HOME (it does not---just use WINEPREFIX). The reason is that you want the packages to build on any architecture where the cross-compiler builds, which makes lots of sense. And I agree that run-time tests should not be needed. My question is this one: where does the scope of Fedora MinGW end? Do you want to discourage/allow/encourage *users* from coupling it with Wine so that it is an *emulation* environment and the cross-compiler becomes sort-of native? As I said, it wouldn't be unheard of; I know of companies that do the same using Qemu's user-space Linux emulation. And if so, do you agree that allowing run-time configure tests can be advantageous because of possibly increased precision and easier setup? Paolo (*) Try it yourself. Install wine, glib2-devel, mingw-glib2, and run this script: cat > configure.ac << \EOF AC_INIT AM_PATH_GLIB_2_0(2.0.0) AC_OUTPUT(Makefile) EOF cat > Makefile.in << \EOF CC = @CC@ CFLAGS = -O2 -g EXEEXT = @EXEEXT@ override CFLAGS += @GLIB_CFLAGS@ override LIBS += @GLIB_LIBS@ hello$(EXEEXT): hello.o ; $(CC) -o $@ $^ $(LIBS) hello.o: hello.c Makefile: Makefile.in config.status; ./config.status config.status: configure; ./config.status --recheck configure: configure.ac; autoconf clean: ; rm config.status Makefile hello.o hello$(EXEEXT) EOF cat > hello.c << \EOF #include <glib.h> #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf ("%s\n", g_strdup ("Hello, world!")); } EOF aclocal && autoconf ./configure --host=i686-pc-mingw32 && make ./hello.exe