Managing ARM packages from an x86_64 system

[mipi]

Hi,
I wrote a short how-to for managing ARM packages from an x86_64 system. Maybe that's of interest for anybody here. This approach does not work for all packages, but most of the packages that I tested could be built that way.

It's actually a combination of two tools:

• crema is a tool to manage custom package repos
• armutils is a tools to build and utilize ARM chroots on x86_64 hosts.

The approach can also be combined with distributed builds (distcc).

mipi

[solskogen]

How fast is this compared to the distcc approach in the wiki?

[mipi]

I assume that you mean how fast the chroot-based approach is compared to using an ARM device instead. I did not test that.

distcc can also be used with the chroot-based approach. In my case, the chroot delegates the build work to another x86_64 machine. This improved the build performance significantly.

[moonman]

I would advise against this approach in a production system. emulation != native and some packages may end up broken and/or with weird issues. There is a reason cross compilers are used which run natively on x86 (for example) but spit out arm code.

[mipi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') would advise against this approach in a production system

[noah3]

The chroot-based technique may also be utilized with distcc. The chroot delegated the construction effort to another x86 64 machines in my situation. This dramatically improved cookie clicker the build's performance. I suppose you're referring to the speed of the chroot-based technique vs using an ARM device. I didn't put that to the test.

[mipi]

@noah3: I am also using the chroot-based technique together with distcc as you describe. This works quite well.