cross compiling for freebsd from windows?

[Arnold Robbins]

FreeBSD will be running on an embedded system. Apps will have two
components: one on the Windows side and one on the FreeBSD side and they
will communicate with each other. The target audience for whom we want
cross-compilation is windows developers who are used to living inside visual
studio and/or eclipse and we'd like to make it easier to do all the
development (and debugging, if possible) from within one environment.

There is lots of prior art for this sort of thing in the Linux world, nor am
I a Unix newbie. But it looks like it hasn't really been done before for
FreeBSD, and I'd prefer to save myself as much pain as possible. :-)
Virtualization is indeed thecurrent solution, but it'd be nice to bring
things even closer to the developer if possible.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

Arnold
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Olivier Gautherot
<olivier at gautherot.net>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>  > >> Has anyone set up cross-compilers / cross-debuggers on Windows
>> (including
>> > >> using Cygwin) to compile applications for FreeBSD and debug them from
>> > >> Windows? If so, can you please send me any information, links, etc.?
>> > > why the effort of making cross compiling tools ? if one need to
>> develop application for given operating system,
>> > > isn't more convenient to use the os as primary incubator for that
>> software? + using virtualization is giving you false
>> > > idea of how your app and underline os perform and interact with each
>> other.
>> >
>> > Seriously? What's your idea of the issue with virtualisation? I don't
>> understand. I always thought that you were just getting an installation, but
>> using a software hypervisor instead of bare metal.
>> >
>>
>> The OS and application will run considerably slower in a virtual machine.
>> The user shouldn't assume that the poor performance is due to the OS and
>> application themselves.
>>
>
> To try and summarize the discussion, virtualization is slower, that's a
> fact - although it is far from unworkable and having a native environment
> also eases the task (including debuggers).
>
> In Arnold's case, performance is probably irrelevant as cross-compiling,
> which was the original issue, does not assume running the app on the
> compiling host. The real issue is whether the compiler has been ported to
> Windows and which libraries Arnold needs. As long as the compiler is not
> ported the latter does not matter either...
>
> Arnold, what type of app do you want to compile on your host?
>
>
> Olivier Gautherot
> olivier at gautherot.net
> Cel:+56 98 730 9361
> www.gautherot.net
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ogautherot
>
>


-- 
Aharon (Arnold) Robbins
Nof Ayalon, ISRAEL