Cross platform building best practices (building 6 on 7)

[Alexander Sack]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Garrett Cooper <yanefbsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 6:29 AM, Alexander Sack <pisymbol at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Folks:
>>
>> I've done a lot of Googling and scouring the lists about this
>> particular subject so I apologize for rehashing it.  However, I'm
>> still confused on what's the best way to perform BSD cross platform
>> builds.  Ideally what I want to have is an environment whereby I can
>> build a 6.1-RELEASE tree on a 7.0-RELEASE box.  I thought originally I
>> could check out a 6.1 release version, perform make world, and then
>> use the output of that build as either a basis for a jail or a
>> toolchain.  However, as noted by previous threads, 6.x doesn't build
>> on a 7.x due to gcc4/binutils compatibility issues (please correct me
>> if I'm wrong).  I then thought I could potentially download a patched
>> binutils, copy it into src/contrib/binutils and that would potentially
>> fix it.  No dice (and I'm still debugging why since this binutils
>> package DOES build outside of the make world infrastructure without
>> issue, this very well could be pilot error on my part since I didn't
>> update the VERSION string and didn't trim the source files as per the
>> FreeBSD-deleteList etc.).
>>
>> I THEN thought if I build/install a gcc-3.x/bintuils toolchain I could
>> complie a 6.x on a 7.x machine.  Well I haven't done that yet since at
>> this point I believe I'm diverged from the path of FreeBSD build
>> enlightenment!  Moreover, if would be NICE if I could bootstrap the
>> normal dev tools from the exiting make world build tree.  I'm not yet
>> ready for a lot of hackery on the build tree without asking around.
>> :D!
>>
>> Does anyone due cross-platform builds (without host virtualization)?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -aps
>
> (I'll stick to just hackers@ because I don't want to pollute
> questions@ unnecessarily)

Sorry I felt really bad actually cc'ing questions its just that my
last groking produced many threads in freebsd-questions as opposed to
hackers.  I'll try to be more attentive to my posts (I have a habit
cc'ing multiple forums because sometimes they apply but questions is
for normal troubleshooting, not cross-platform build issues!).

> You touched on an important point. There were some code quality issues
> (I think) with 6.x that were resolved moving to 7.x, which caused
> gcc-4.2.x to barf.

Probably but I'm not trying to point fingers!  :D!

> gcc-4.2.x requires a newer version of binutils, just because (for API
> / usage compatibility).

Yea understood.  To be honest, this isn't documented very readily.  I
first thought it was pilot error on me, then I decided to take a look
at what failed to compile (I believe it was an innocent extern).  And
then got lost in gcc/binutils hell.  Luckily I've smelled this problem
before and after some research confirmed by suspicion.

> What you should probably do is create a jail then do your development
> for 6.x in a jail, 7.x in another, and (if you're bold enough ;)...)
> do 8.x development in yet a third. Jail's are a much better way to
> isolate things such that you don't have to worry about toolchain
> issues like these and are able to setup a sourcebase as the devs
> intended it (for the most part; you may run into issues with sysctls
> and virtual kernel stuff like that, but cest la vie... there isn't a
> better way I know of than that outside of running a VM).

I figured you were going ot say that Garrett.  Well OK, but I still
need to bootstrap my dev environment for 6.x development on 7.x.
Since binutils compatibility makes my 6.x make world barf on 7.x,
where should I go?  I HAVE not parsed through a lot of the build
infrastructure yet but it would seem to be IF make world bootstraps
the world including the development tools, why can't I update
binutils/gcc inplace and then compile (or is this a regression issue
which I failed to grasp).  Or do I need to update binutils on my
*host* system itself?  i.e. what I'm really asking is does make world
bootstrap the right bintuils/gcc etc. and then use THAT to compile the
rest or does it just perform a host build of everything and plops it
in DESTDIR?

Hope I make some sense here (still a n00b)....

-aps