Re: towards a good embedded userland cross-build system (was: Re: _G_config.h is not installed)

[Robert Schwebel <robert at schwebel dot de>]

[To: reduced to crossgcc as this is OT for glibc...]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 10:52:38AM -0700, Dan Kegel wrote:
> Just wait until you try to support gcc-3.3 and glibc-2.3.2 -- you may
> change your mind!  Some files have to be installed twice, kind of, I
> think.  I'm not sure if that kind of dependency can be expressed.  But
> maybe I'm just pessimistic.

After my recent experiences with gcc-3* on Debian unstable I'm not quite
sure if I'll try it Very Soon (TM) ;) 

> I badly need something to build a whole userspace, and I went through
> the same list of build systems.  I also checked Rock Linux (too complex).

Jep, I forgot, I've tried Rock Linux as well. 

> I'm sorely tempted to keep the gcc/glibc build process separate from
> any framework.

The PTXdist "framework" is currently very thin: every makefile does
support a "get - extract - prepare - compile - install - targetinstall"
target; build targets touch state/foobar.target. Look at the less
complex examples (e.g. dropbear) in rules/ to get the idea. If you just
want the toolchain all you need is Makefile, rules/Rules.in and the
makefiles for binutils, *glibc, *gcc. Should not be more than what you
currentl have. 

Currently the "large" Makefiles (e.g. glibc) are bloated by the fact
that all possible combinations are hand-ifdefed which is plain uggly. I
suppose size and readability can be significantly reduced by using your
nice automatisms to find out which patches have to applied to which
packages based on the version numbers.

> Even when I finally settle on a userland build framework that uses
> Make or whatever, it may have a prerequisite that you have already got
> a toolchain installed and working.

You need a host toolchain for initial bootstrap; PTXdist builds a cross
compiler even for i386 (other x86s are not yet supported/tested).

> Melding the two seems like a bad match somehow -- I want totally
> correct dependencies, and am pretty sure I can do that using
> Makefilesu for all of userland except for the toolchain.

What I would like to see in the future is a collaboration regarding
things like the patches; it definitely needs a critical mass testing and
using stuff to make it maintainable, so doing the same thing twice is a
waste. If I cannot argue you into switching to PTXdist ;) I'll try to
integrate your patch system first to see how it feels like... 

Robert 
-- 
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