Re: Cross compiling user applications for armv7

On Sep 21, 2025, at 23:40, Michał Kruszewski <mkru@protonmail.com> wrote:

>> So your context replicated the qemu hangup that I reported to
>> Warner from my attempt at doing a tiny build [poudriere(-devel)
>> itself, with pkg also building]. What version of FreeBSD was
>> involved in the replication. (Mine was a main 16 boot
>> kernel and world and poudriere jail world.)
> 
> 14.3 for host and target.
> 
>> Additional question: over what timescale might the need
>> for armv7 support to last?
>> 
>> While lib32 support for armv7 may last indefinitely,
>> including whatever in the kernel is required for that,
>> I'm unclear on the long term status of either of:
>> 
>> ) chroot into an armv7 world
>> ) jails based on an armv7 world
>> 
>> after freebsd 16.* (FreeBSD 17+).
>> 
>> poudiere(-devel) based port package builds depends on:
>> jails.
>> 
>> f jails were not to be supported indefinitely, could you
>> get by with targeting FreeBSD 16.*-RELEASE's indefinitely
>> but not FreeBSD 17 or later? Something to think about.
>> 
>> While FreeBSD 16.* will have armv7 kernels, after that
>> has no such guarantee --and seems unlikely for the kernel
>> to support booting atively, given that even for FreeBSD
>> 16.*-RELEASE armv7 is the last and only 32-bit boot
>> context supported by a FreeBSD 16.* kernel.
>> 
>> If the support time frame is spanned by FreeBSD 16.* then
>> this might not be a problem. But it you need the support
>> after that, ???Regards,

Note: I typed a bunch of references to 16.* that should
have been to 15.* for the armv7 boot kernel support.
Sorry.

Stable/15 for 15.* is supported for 4 years after its
15.0-RELEASE .

I've checked and, as things are, 15.0-ALPHA3 amd64 does
support chroot and poudriere jail world use of
stable/14 i386, despite that 15.0 and later will not
provide booting kernels. It appears to not be just
lib32 that is supported --unless something more is
disabled before 15.0-RELEASE .

> Basically, the message is "don't use FreeBSD for armv7 embedded development".

Linux, of course, has many distributions. Some have
dropped armv7 support already --but others have not.
Having 4 more years of armv7 support via 15.* looks
like armv7 will be supported longer than a number
of Linux distributions, but not all of them.

> Maybe you are right.
> I just wanted to try.
> However, based on the number of problems I have encountered even for such a primary build, it looks like FreeBSD is not a good alternative for Linux in embedded domain.


===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com