[Dwedit]

My "bad experience" with MSYS2 was when I misunderstood how the different environments were set up.

There are several different environments, each with their own different and incompatible set of packages. When you run "mingw64", you are running a different environment than "msys2". If you install a package named "gcc", you are getting the "gcc" intended for "msys2", and not the package intended for "mingw64".

The "Msys2" version ships with Windows headers that are not compatible with some Windows programs, while the "Mingw64" has compatible headers. Then this led to me filing an invalid bug report.

The role of the different environments (with their color-coded icons), and the necessary prefixes to install packages for those environments could be made a lot clearer. And that if you are in the "Msys" environment, all software you build will depend on "Msys".

[michaelsbradley]

You’re right, getting started with it can/could be a bit confusing. The website explains everything clearly but is prose-heavy. The naming schemes for the environments and packages make sense after you understand how the system works, but it does seem like there’s room for improvement and simplification.