Compiling on ARM board is like watching grass grow

Right now, the 5.10.4 kernel is compiling on my Rock64 board. I want to compile a 5.10.x kernel for the rpi4, and have followed instructions here:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/kernel/building.md

Not cross-compiling though, doing it on the Rock64 board. The Rock64 has EasyOS 1.0.4 Pyro, 64-bit. This is a nice board. I migrated to this in 2019, after trying to compile SeaMonkey on my rpi3 model-B, and all it did was hang after about 20 hours. SM did compile on the Rock64, and I also did woofQ builds on it. Here is a post about the Rock64:

https://bkhome.org/news/201808/rock64-rocks.html

And about EasyOS 1.0.4 Pyro:

https://bkhome.org/news/201902/easyos-version-104-for-rock64.html

Over the years, have accumulated ARM boards. This photo shows, from left, the pi4 (8GB RAM), Rock64 (4GB RAM), Odroid XU4, pi2B and pi3B:

Going back further, I also own a Mele ARM board, in a box somewhere.

Although the Rock64 compiles much faster than the pi3B, and successfully handles large jobs, it is still very slow. It has been chugging away all day compiling the kernel. Using a 500GB SSD plugged in via the USB3 socket. I know it will get there eventually!

I will publish the build scripts, patches etc., for compiling this kernel for the pi4. The patches are for aufs and cap_sys_mount.

Hope to put together EasyOS Dunfell-series 64-bit, 5.10.x kernel, on SD-card for the pi4 soon, and that should be a good native compile environment. Nowhere near the speed of my PC of course, but it can just be left to run, however long it takes. That's why I went for the 8GB RAM version. In future, will have to power it off the UPS, as there have been some momentary power dropouts recently -- apart from breaking the compile, that can also wreak an SD-card.

Note, the Rock64 is made by Pine64, the same people who make the PinePhone. 

Tags: easy