zlib
zlib is a compression library, and is a prerequisite for building the building blocks of much free software. It is indispensable!
Prerequisites
Install MSYS + MinGW.
You can use 7zip to unzip, if you like.
Download source
The current version as of December 8, 2016 is 1.2.8.
Copy the file to your MSYS $HOME/.
Start the MinGW Shell, and extract using 7zip:
cd
tar xvfz zlib-1.2.8.tar.gz
If you downloaded by browser, it may have decompressed to a 2.7MB file; in that case, mv zlib-1.2.8.tar.gz zlib-1.2.8.tar
Build
The makefile for MinGW is provided with the source, no need to run configure:
cd zlib-1.2.8
make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
Install
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin /usr/local/include /usr/local/lib
cp zlib1.dll /usr/local/bin/
cp zconf.h zlib.h /usr/local/include/
cp libz.a libz.dll.a /usr/local/lib
You might want to use /usr/local instead.
What was installed?
Static and dynamic Zlib library was installed, as well as include files. You may now use #include <zlib>.