Building ARM ports (was Re: Globalscale Dreamplug and 8.3 RELEASE)

[Dave Hayes]

On 08/14/12 19:42, Warner Losh wrote:
>
> On Aug 14, 2012, at 6:26 PM, Dave Hayes wrote:
>
>> On 08/02/12 16:47, Ian Lepore wrote:
>>> I haven't yet tried to build ports using stock freebsd.  At work we have
>>> an arcane and complex and fragile system for cross-building ports, which
>>> I only partially understand.
>>
>> That's the entire problem with cross-building. Ports are very complex systems and I think it's cleaner to just build them in an ARM emulator.
>> There are far too many dependencies to keep track of otherwise, at least
>> for me.
>
> Yet the Linux folks are able to do it.  If we want to be competitive, we'll need to have a viable solution.

To be clear, I wasn't referencing ability when I wrote that, it was more 
of a time efficiency comment. Obviously it's possible. :)

As I understand the ports system, ports are not generally created with 
the idea of cross-compilation. Thus, I posit that it's best (lacking 
fancier hardware) in terms of time spent and port build integrity to run 
an emulator and do my port builds in a clean environment.

I could be very wrong here. QEMU may accomplish the goal of a compiled 
ARM port, but what other requirement am I missing?

>> When I find time to struggle with QEMU again, I'll try to post a summary here...presuming I can get this to work.
> This may or may not ultimately work.  I hope that the complexity of this is actually less than getting it right in the cross building world.

It is certainly appearing to be a struggle. I'm using virtualbox to run 
a machine which runs QEMU, that might actually be my problem. However, 
I'm under the impression that *this* struggle is much more likely to not 
affect the integrity of a ports build.
-- 
Dave Hayes - Consultant - Altadena CA, USA - dave at jetcafe.org
 >>>> *The opinions expressed above are entirely my own* <<<<

Advice is priceless ---
           when it becomes interference it is preposterous.