Slightly off-topic, but if you're installing ODE on Windows, you're in for a world of hurt. I never had the chance to try any other dynamics packages that build on Windows, but I'd recommend shying away from ODE; this is a "devil I know, devil I don't" situation where the devil I know is pretty evil.
You'll find that ODE can be downright Windows-hostile in pieces of its implementation that have nothing to do with GNU toolchain issues. Take a look at http://www.ode.org/old_list_archives/2003-October/010046.htm... for the most common problem; they don't care that the stack has different restrictions in Windows and Linux. You'll also find ODE to be downright thread-hostile; the entire library is non-reentrant (they built their own non-threadsafe layer on top of malloc inside the engine; you can't trust any two functions to be callable from separate threads, even if they have logically nothing to do with each other).
ODE is the first physics package most people seem to suggest, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth.
You'll find that ODE can be downright Windows-hostile in pieces of its implementation that have nothing to do with GNU toolchain issues. Take a look at http://www.ode.org/old_list_archives/2003-October/010046.htm... for the most common problem; they don't care that the stack has different restrictions in Windows and Linux. You'll also find ODE to be downright thread-hostile; the entire library is non-reentrant (they built their own non-threadsafe layer on top of malloc inside the engine; you can't trust any two functions to be callable from separate threads, even if they have logically nothing to do with each other).
ODE is the first physics package most people seem to suggest, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth.