Bug#868895: xtensa toolchain(s)
On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 11:29:00PM +0200, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 03, 2018 at 04:46:16AM +0100, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> > I've been looking at generating binutils + gcc packages based on the
> > binutils-source + gcc-7-source packages for the xtensa-lx106 target
> > (ESP8266). I have something that seems to be working, and I'm
> > considering uploading them, but I don't think it's possible to build a
> > single toolchain that will target the ESP8266, ESP32 + ath9k Xtensa
> > variants. The xtensa-lx106 binary packages are turning out at about 20M
> > between them; is there enough use that it would be worth having all 3
> > options present in Debian?
>
> Let me argue that yes, that would be a good idea.
>
> We have esptool in the archive. The esptool comes with a flasher_stub
> (https://sources.debian.org/src/esptool/2.5.0+dfsg-1/flasher_stub/).
> Presently it cannot be built, because the toolchain would be required
> for doing so. It needs the xtensa-lx106-elf and xtensa-esp32-elf
> toolchains.
Yeah, I've ended up having to use the non-packaged esptool on occasion
because the flasher stub makes things easier.
> The open-ath9k-htc-firmware package presently builds an xtensa toolchain
> from gcc-7 sources during build
> https://sources.debian.org/src/open-ath9k-htc-firmware/1.4.0-97-g75b3e59+dfsg-1/debian/cross-toolchain.mk/
> using --target xtensa-elf. Having separate binary packages could
> simplify the packaging of open-ath9k-htc-firmware.
>
> Maybe the ath9k toolchain is less relevant as most users will be using
> open-ath9k-htc-firmware or firmware-atheros. Those that need can quite
> easily produce the toolchain from the open-ath9k-htc-firmware source
> package. But given the rising popcon of esptool (~200 now), toolchains
> for ESP8266 and ESP32 seem sensible to me.
To answer the question you asked on IRC (you left before I could
answer); I'm using the ESP8266 toolchain built from the pkg-electronics
git repo myself, with the esp-open-sdk and no problems. However I got
the ESP32 toolchain built and had problems getting it integrated with
the esp-idf SDK; various issues with not finding the system includes.
I'm sure it's a matter of fighting with the build system a bit more, but
I'm just getting started with the ESP32 so haven't investigated further.
> Note that any practical use will also need esp-idf. In particular, the
> flasher_stub from esptool needs esp-idf. Do you have any plans for
> packaging esp-idf?
The ESP8266 is of much greater interest to me. I'm a bit torn about
packaging the SDKs up, because they seem to be moving targets and aren't
as relevant from the Debian side of things. So I have no immediate plans
to do so, though I had some conversations with Keith Packard about at
least getting newlib/nano support for the ESP chips into Debian.
> Also moving to gcc-8-source seems in order.
I've had this on my todo for a while, just not got round to it yet.
J.
--
I may be cool Beavis, but I can't change the future.
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