Cross-compile toolchains

I thought that I would take a look at some of the alternatives out there. I have used T2 (many times) and Buildroot:

T2: http://t2-project.org/
Buildroot: http://buildroot.uclibc.org/
Crosstool-NG: http://crosstool-ng.org/
OpenEmbedded: http://www.openembedded.org/wiki/Main_Page
PTXdist: http://www.pengutronix.de/software/ptxdist/index_en.html

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Comments

Cross-compile toolchains
Username: linuxcbon
There is also : Aboriginal Linux http://www.landley.net/aboriginal/ Scratchbox http://sourceforge.net/projects/scratchbox/ CLFS http://trac.cross-lfs.org/ Don't know if good or bad. Maybe size and speed comparison is needed.

T2: ARM1176JZF-S CPU
Username: BarryK
"I am curious, decided to try a test build for an ARM CPU. Using T2, as that is what I know best, and it has an option for the ARM1176JZF-S CPU, which is the one used in the RaspberryPi alpha boards. T2 does not have any configuration settings specific to the RaspberryPi board -- it would be very much in the interests of the RasPi people to send a board to Rene, the chief guy at T2. I got the latest T2 from SVN, have just started it running now, it is currently downloading source packages.

Thumb instructions
Username: BarryK
"The ARM CPU has these things called "thumb instructions", I left that turned off, as that was the default. But apparently they can make the generated code more efficient for 16-bit operations.

"Common" repo
Username: Iguleder1
"Barry, I could help with the ARM efforts - I built [url=http://iguleder.info/Packages-puppy-dpup-official]this repository. I started the build at 0:00 and went to sleep - I woke up and everything was built successfuly :) The packages are [url=http://iguleder.info/pet_packages-dpup/]here and were built in a dpup chroot environment - we could do the same with an ARM one. It also include most of the "common" repo -incl. stuff like udev. Take a look at the size - those packages are very small.

Re dpup packages
Username: BarryK
"Iguleder, That's great. I mentioned recently that one of the Dpup initiatives should perhaps become another "official" Puppy. But then I started wondering if perhaps there might be too many official puppies, considering that Lucid is still one of them. I think that a group of us will have to discuss this sometime. About ARM, one problem, it appears, is that there are so many variants of the ARM architecture. We have to do a compile for one particular architecture, a "generic ARM" compile would be too inefficient. With T2, I already have some scripts for, not just importing the binary pkgs into Woof, but to convert them into PETs. So, it's all ready to go. I'm far from an expert on this, but cross-compiling is very complex and chroot on it's own won't do it I think. That is, running in an x86 PC, compiling for an ARM target. However, that is what T2 is designed for.

Allfine Net Browser (ARM 920)
Username: zygo
"I noticed this http://www.diskdepot.co.uk/acatalog/allfine-white-7-mini-netbook-notebook-computer-allfine-01002.htm http://www.tjhughes.co.uk/fcp/product/brands-for-less/Computing/Allfine-Net-Browser/10247 selling for 50 pounds. It comes with win ce but this struggles -- see the reviews http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B003OCBPP0 . If it can be booted from the SD card slot then would 128MB RAM be plenty to run Puppy?

Development Board
Username: Raffy
"Here are links to development board ARM11 OK6410 S3C6410: [url=http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/503734975-Free-Shipping-ARM11-OK6410-S3C6410-Android-2-3-4-WinCe-7-0-development-board-4-3-wholesalers.html]US$134.74 and [url=http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/321323123-ARM-OK6410-wholesalers.html]US$179.67 (as shipped to Australia). The board has "Samsung S3C6410 processor, ARM1176JZF-S core clocked at 533MHz/667MHz; 128 Mbytes of DDR memory..". Will this be useful?

Re RasPi VM
Username: BarryK
"Raffy, Fantastic. I will take a look at this soon. I was resisting it, but I seem to have got sucked into the RaspberryPi vortex of enthusiasm for an as-yet non-existing product. I have had experiences of vapourware that has turned out to be a big disappointment when it finally did arrive, after much hype, or even failed to appear, so I was staying reserved about RasPi for awhile.

Ordered ARM board
Username: BarryK
"Raffy, Thanks for the link: http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/503734975-Free-Shipping-ARM11-OK6410-S3C6410-Android-2-3-4-WinCe-7-0-development-board-4-3-wholesalers.html I have ordered one. I want hardware to play with! This has the same CPU as the RasPi, different GPU.

arm
Username: ttuuxxx
"Hi Barry I had a look at that board you ordered, it doesn't have any sata connections and only 1 usb, so I guess you'll need a usb splitter to use it, well usually the keyboard ,mouse and usb thumb stick, etc. ttuuxxx

Another board
Username: BarryK
"ttuuxxx, Well, strictly, it has two: [i]* One USB Host interface supporting USB1.1 protocol; * One USB Slave (MINI-USB) interface supporting USB2.0 protocol;[/i] There is also a "keyboard interface". If I had known about it, I would have ordered this board: http://www.minidevs.com/Tiny6410.html They have a lot of on-line support, plus extra add-on boards. Well, why not, I might buy that one as well. Hmmm, that website is down right now. Here is info via alibaba.com, it is available with different size LCD touchscreens, also comes with Ubuntu: http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/481991595-F80B-Tiny6410-4-3-Touch-Screen-533-MHz-S3C6410-256M-Memory-2G-Nand-Flash-Android2-3-wholesalers.html The first link has Ubuntu available for download, which I can probably get to work on the board that I have ordered.

Android as Default
Username: Raffy
"Both boards would likely have Android as default OS, and the first board (what you ordered) would be closer to the limited hardware options of the RP. If anyone finds an ARM1176JZF-S-based board using mainstream Linux, please post here. TIA.

Another distributor
Username: broomdodger
"BarryK another distributor for those ARM boards http://www.andahammer.com/ possibly more/different info

Re mainstream Linux
Username: BarryK
"Raffy, That tiny6410 comes with Ubuntu 9.10. If you look at the minidevs.com site, it has all the info.

arm
Username: ttuuxxx
"hi Barry why not just buy a arm tablet on ebay, you usually get one for around $100 that way possibly maybe it may have woof support in the future. http://www.ebay.com.au/dsc/i.html?_nkw=tablet+arm&_sacat=0&_odkw=tablet+arm&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313&LH_TitleDesc=1 ttuuxxx

Which arm
Username: BarryK
"ttuuxxx, I want something that has the same CPU as the RaspberryPi, the arm1176jzf-s. Can't get the same GPU though.

Tags: puppy