Cross-compilation (yet again, sorry...)

[DavidYon]

Back again. I've gotten my black plug working as a basic rsync backup for tertiary backups. Or so I think---we'll see how the first rsync goes tonight.

I've still got my Pink plug lying around, and I was hoping to use that as a USB device server. There is a third-party software vendor that provides a free Linux version, but all the user-space binaries are just that---binaries. They have a number of builds that cover a pretty wide spectrum of architectures, ARM included.

But no joy on the Plug. Running any of the pre-built ARM binaries results in a locked-up Plug that needs to be power-cycled.

The vendor offered to port to the Plug if I could provide a tool chain that correctly targets the Plug. They do not have a Plug in-house.

The supported configuration for cross-compiling seems to be distcc with a Plug running the top-level build. But in this case I'm going to either want to (a) build a tool chain on an x86 machine and send them instructions, or (b) build an x86 VM with the proper tool chain and send that to them.

Is there any way to do compiles without a Plug?

[WarheadsSE]

Seriously: READ THE DAMN GUIDES.

[DavidYon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WarheadsSE', 'S')eriously: READ THE DAMN GUIDES.

[DavidYon]

So, in short, the answer of "you need a plug to build something for a plug", is perfectly valid. It's the conclusion I came to after perusing every relevant page I could find on the site. But, since it's always possible that I missed something, I figured I'd just ask the question.

But the bar is pretty high on what get's a straight answer I guess.

[WarheadsSE]

I assume this is by the way, in reference to the following: http://www.incentivespro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=545

It's not a Sheeva, by the way. It's an ARM11 MPCore, ARMv6K (to be extremely specific), capable of upwards of 1Ghz/core, but clocked at 700Mhz in the Cloud Engines Pogoplug configuration.

Please google 'ct-ng' or 'crosstool linux', as many many documents exist on what, how and why. It's what we use, and we mention it specifically.

[kmihelich]

Our guides on building, guides that I wrote, detail how to duplicate the system we use for building packages for this distribution. I don't go over other scenarios because we don't use them, and I'm not going to maintain documentation for them. We run the top-level builds on the ARM device itself and distcc for compilation to a ct-ng toolchain. The two guides in respect to these operations cover the relevant information for their specific topic. The distcc guide goes over establishing distcc from an ARM device to an x86 computer. The cross-compiling guide covers building the ct-ng toolchain to use with distcc. Both guides imply a certain level of technical proficiency; I don't hand-hold for these subjects. Failure to understand them does not mean they are incomplete, nor require extraneous explicit information. Many developers have made use of these guides to great success with no further information.

We do things this way because it's been proven to result in stable and predictable binaries. It also allows us to build using the native tools, and make use of true file locations and other expectations that come with building packages for a specific distribution. There is no guesswork, it just works.

If you don't want to do things this way for your specific situation, then that falls out of the realm of our support. There are many ways to accomplish builds for ARM on x86, as a simple Google search would provide for you. You might try looking at ScratchBox.

[DavidYon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kmihelich', '
')We do things this way because it's been proven to result in stable and predictable binaries. It also allows us to build using the native tools, and make use of true file locations and other expectations that come with building packages for a specific distribution. There is no guesswork, it just works.

If you don't want to do things this way for your specific situation, then that falls out of the realm of our support. There are many ways to accomplish builds for ARM on x86, as a simple Google search would provide for you. You might try looking at ScratchBox.

[DavidYon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WarheadsSE', 'I') assume this is by the way, in reference to the following: http://www.incentivespro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=545

It's not a Sheeva, by the way. It's an ARM11 MPCore, ARMv6K (to be extremely specific), capable of upwards of 1Ghz/core, but clocked at 700Mhz in the Cloud Engines Pogoplug configuration.

Please google 'ct-ng' or 'crosstool linux', as many many documents exist on what, how and why. It's what we use, and we mention it specifically.

[DavidYon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crimsonredmk', 'I')t all depends on how much time you want to invest in maintaining it as well. Libraries change, kernels change, and you have to account for that in a cross-compiler, so it takes time to maintain and make sure everything works as time passes. You also do have to spend quite a bit of time getting it working in the first place. Or, you could install ALARM and have a working, slower compiler. Most people just want to compile "that one package" or a few, so there isn't much sense in setting up a cross-compiler and taking out a few hours to get it working instead of just letting makepkg work by itself on a plug.