ext DHollenbeck wrote:
2) However, when the development system and the target are the same architecture and of compatible binary versions, (same glibc) one has to recognize potential benefits, and not absent-mindedly walk away from them:
As long as we do not make cross-compiling any more difficult than it is today, I don't object attempts at taking advantage of this.
1) nfs root mount to code on the dev system from target
With scratchbox I quite often use the same approach and I'm cross-compiling. This is not unique to native "same platform" builds.
2) usage of standard pre-compiled packages
With scratchbox we aim at being able to run "apt-get install package-name" and for it to download and install the package for the _target_ architecture and install it correctly into the target root filesystem structure inside scratchbox. Currently we use pre-built debian ARM binaries to initialize the build environment so that we can build all those packages which we are interested in. So far we can cross-compile 70 packages out of 90.
If there is interest in fixing Debian so that it can be built from scratch (natively at first), I'd be willing to discuss setting up a project to do it. I'm aware that it can be done even today, but the procedure is not exactly elegant :)
3) testing code on the dev system that presents a very similar environment as does the target.This case argues strongly for glibc usage.
I don't see how this implies glibc usage, to me the requirement says that there must be an easy way of building (cross or native) the embedded debian distribution for any desired architecture, without interfering with the host system. That is, we should be able to build and install it on a Debian/Redhat/SuSE/whatever without destroying the host filesystem. Then we must be able to use that "parallel" installation if it is of the same architecture as the host. chroot and user mode linux are two ways to solve this, there are others. I might plug scratchbox here, but if it can be done some other way, I'm happy since that most likely means that I can use the scripts with scratchbox as well.
regards, Lauri