Having some trouble statically linking libraries with MinGW

[Lars Uffmann]

Hi everyone!

I am using MinGW/MSYS on a new system (while on my old one I've been 
using Cygwin) and found that my new system doesn't statically link 
libraries into my executable as I would like it to.

To exclude Eclipse as a possible failure source, I am linking on the 
MSYS shell, and the command (using wxWidgets libraries)
  g++ -static -o"test.exe" test.o -L/mingw/lib -lwx_base-2.8 
-lwx_msw_core-2.8
refused to link the executable for not finding the libraries, however 
without the -static option it would compile just fine, then (obviously) 
needing the DLL files upon execution of the compiled program.

The actual library file names in /mingw/lib are
libwx_base-2.8.dll.a
libwx_msw_core-2.8.dll.a
so I altered the command to try and link with the .dll-extension:
  g++ -static -o"test.exe" test.o -L/mingw/lib -lwx_base-2.8.dll 
-lwx_msw_core-2.8.dll
Now this links "just fine" - as in: no complaints from the linker, 
however, the resulting executable is exactly the same as if I had never 
used the -static option to begin with: It will still require the dll 
files for execution.

Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Do I maybe have to compile my 
libraries differently so they can be statically linked?

Thank you in advance!

   Lars