Re: Cross-compiling toolchain default location choice

[ncrfgs <ncrfgs at tin dot it>]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:18:26AM -0700, Dan Kegel wrote:
> > > > Yes, but I faced some problems when trying to use a custom versions
> > > > combo (I'm using a pretty exotic one at the moment)
> > >
> > > Can you tell me more?
> > 
> > Sorry, I'm afraid that "problems" was misleading. It was just a matter of 
> > personal tastes. Since the beginning I was looking for something I could 
> > have easily wrote some CRUX Pgkfile scripts from. 
> >
> > From this point of view, after I gave a look at both crosstool and 
> > cross-lfs, I found myself more comfortable with cross-lfs. Less patches to 
> > apply (actually I hadn't to patch anything at all) and few, standard 
> > scripts to follow.
> 
> Less patches?  The whole point of crosstool was to have only the
> bare minimum of patches, and to have just one simple script to run.
> Which patches are you objecting to?  Which scripts are you objecting to?

Well, I will try to tell you about my experience with crosstoll then. =)


After having downloaded the tarball I tried to make my way in the scripts 
archive. I immediately headed to the README file that pointed me to the 
doc/crosstool-howto.html page. Now it told me to look for my demo-$ARCH.sh 
file...

Not being able to find any file with powerpc-unknown in its name I continued 
with the demo-ppc750.sh script and then with the powerpc-750.dat and
gcc-3.3.3-glibc-2.3.2.dat files.

The next one was all.sh and it was the death strike.

We're just at the third script file and I have already got lost saying "oh my 
God. Where am I?". =)


I started askind myself things like...

"Where is my powerpc-unknown?"
"What of these I have to choose for powerpc-unknown?"
"If I choose another one will it work anyhow?"
"Can I safely change the values in the dat files?"
"What are all of those variables and functions in all.sh?"

... But, above all, I asked myself "where are the fine building scripts?". =)


Starting to be a bit frustrated I gave a look at what patches were going to be 
applied. I changed to the patches directory and I looked for something like 
gcc-3.3.3-hammer in it. Unfortunately there was no gcc-3.3.3-hammer directory 
and gcc-3.3.3 looked like the closest to gcc-3.3.3-hammer to me. Then I changed 
to the gcc-3.3.3 directory and...

> The whole point of crosstool was to have only the bare minimum of patches

... I found twentyone different patches. (!!!) Most of them were called 
pr<something> in a way that I found impossible to understand what were they 
about without opening the patch file itself.

Furthermore, if just for gcc there were twentyone different patches what about 
the other packages? It would have likely resulted in almost one hundred patches.

... I was scaried...


As I said in my previous messages, I wanted to use a quite exotic combination 
of packages. Among them are glibc-2.3.3-20040410 and gcc-3.3.3-hammer-20040515, 
a snapshot dated 20040515 of the hammer branch of the gcc repository. 

As all.sh states, crosstool is a "Script to download sources for, build, and 
test a gnu/linux toolchain".

How could I have made crosstool to download exactly the tarball I needed?
How could I have been sure everything would have worked and I would have ran 
no risk?


On the contrary cross-lfs requires just few patches and uses a patch naming
scheme where almost all the patches bring in their names the architecture the
patch is intended for, so one can easily skip the unneeded ones. Moreover the 
archive tree is organized in such a way that I was easily able to find the 
building scripts in no time.


Please, I hope that it's clear that this is just my opinion. Everywhere I read 
about cross-compiling your name comes out. You are an authority in this field 
now. :D I'm sure crosstool works great for almost everyone but one of my main 
goals was to understand what I were doing instead of "just let it run an wait 
for the results". I don't like the "do everything for me" things. Of course 
it's just a matter of taste.

As I said in my previous messages, from this point of view, cross-lfs seemed to 
suit better my needs. The cross-lfs naming scheme looked clearer to me and more 
easy to understand, the use of stream editing instead of patches makes them 
almost "binutils/glibc/gcc/... version" indipendent and all of this came out 
being a very rich educationl experience.

Once again this is just my opinion. =) I don't mean to flame. I hope to have 
been constructive and to have answered your questions.



Thanks in advance.

Best regards.
-- 
Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. 
``Don't bother us with politics,'' respond those who don't 
want to learn.

 -- Richard M. Stallman
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html

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