[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Vellemans, Noel]

Hi all,

While following the discussions on the buildroot mailing list, I saw
that for the next releases the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain will be used as
default, so a started to experiment with the CROSSTOOL-NG buildroot
toolchain (this morning).

Until now.. U used the buildroot to generate a 'cross-toolchain', even
'worse'; I used buildroot to generate 2 toolchains. 
	A) One running on LINUX 
	B) One running on top of CYGWIN (for the less Linux-minded
colleagues)

Which was quite easy to do... until now. 

1) Will this also be possible for the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain that is
build with buildroot?
2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain,
is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with ARM-VECTOR-floating
point support is this correct? 



Kind regards,
Noel.


NOTE: Of the record, the buildroot-CYGWIN-toolchain build was working
until some weeks ago (for me), in the current git-tree this is not
working anymore ( build troubles into mpc/mpfr and gmp), without looking
to much in detail (I think) it has to do with  'another' way of naming
libs 'libxxxxx' on Linux vs 'cygxxxxxxx' on cygwin!


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[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hello Noel,

Le Mon, 7 Nov 2011 16:07:35 +0100,
"Vellemans, Noel" <Noel.Vellemans@visionBMS.com> a ?crit :

> While following the discussions on the buildroot mailing list, I saw
> that for the next releases the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain will be used as
> default, so a started to experiment with the CROSSTOOL-NG buildroot
> toolchain (this morning).

Great! It's really nice to have feedback on this.

> Until now.. U used the buildroot to generate a 'cross-toolchain', even
> 'worse'; I used buildroot to generate 2 toolchains. 
> 	A) One running on LINUX 
> 	B) One running on top of CYGWIN (for the less Linux-minded
> colleagues)

Do you use Buildroot only to build a toolchain ?

> 1) Will this also be possible for the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain that is
> build with buildroot?

If you build only a toolchain, then crosstool-NG is a very good
replacement for Buildroot.

If you build a toolchain and then use Buildroot to build an embedded
Linux build system, then you can build your toolchain with crosstool-NG
separately, and then use it as an external toolchain in Buildroot, or
you can instruct Buildroot to use crosstool-NG has a backed to build
the toolchain.

Note that we intend to do in 2012.02 is move the crosstool-NG backend
as the default, not to remove the Buildroot code to build toolchain,
which will still be offered as an alternate choice. However, on the
long run, if everything works fine, we might drop the Buildroot code to
build the toolchain.

> 2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain,
> is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with ARM-VECTOR-floating
> point support is this correct? 

In Target Options -> Floating Point, you can choose between hardware
floating point and software floating point. There are patches being
discussed/reviewed to add a choice between the hard and softfp ABI to
pass floating-point arguments. And I'm sure than Yann, crosstool-NG's
maintainer, is definitely interested by patches improving things in
that area.

> NOTE: Of the record, the buildroot-CYGWIN-toolchain build was working
> until some weeks ago (for me), in the current git-tree this is not
> working anymore ( build troubles into mpc/mpfr and gmp), without looking
> to much in detail (I think) it has to do with  'another' way of naming
> libs 'libxxxxx' on Linux vs 'cygxxxxxxx' on cygwin!

Buildroot has never supported officially Cygwin, and nobody tests this.
I think crosstool-NG has better support for this, but Yann might
comment on this.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Yann E. MORIN]

Thomas, Noel, All,

On Monday 07 November 2011 16:35:57 Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Le Mon, 7 Nov 2011 16:07:35 +0100,
> "Vellemans, Noel" <Noel.Vellemans@visionBMS.com> a ?crit :
> > 2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain,
> > is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with ARM-VECTOR-floating
> > point support is this correct? 
> 
> In Target Options -> Floating Point, you can choose between hardware
> floating point and software floating point.

This is in the ctng-menuconfig.

This will probably be a FAQ at some point, when people notice that all the
nice target options they were used to finf in buildroot's menuconfig will
disapear when the crosstool-NG backend is used.
We'll have to prominently point to 'make ctng-menuconfig' in the doc.

> And I'm sure than Yann, crosstool-NG's
> maintainer, is definitely interested by patches improving things in
> that area.

Yes, definitely. This all happens there:
  home: http://crosstool-ng.org/
  ML  : http://sourceware.org/ml/crossgcc/

> Buildroot has never supported officially Cygwin, and nobody tests this.
> I think crosstool-NG has better support for this, but Yann might
> comment on this.

Yes, indeed. There have been many reports of sucess.
Although Cygwin is not an official host in my point of view, as I can't test,
I try not to break it. If it happens, and someone sends a tested patch (or I
can trivially deduce how to fix it myself), I'm happy to apply Cugwin-related
patches to the tree. ;-)

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

-- 
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------.
|  Yann E. MORIN  | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: |
| +33 662 376 056 | Software  Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN     |  ___               |
| +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------:  X  AGAINST      |  \e/  There is no  |
| http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL    |   v   conspiracy.  |
'------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Le Wed, 9 Nov 2011 00:46:58 +0100,
"Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@anciens.enib.fr> a ?crit :

> This will probably be a FAQ at some point, when people notice that all the
> nice target options they were used to finf in buildroot's menuconfig will
> disapear when the crosstool-NG backend is used.
> We'll have to prominently point to 'make ctng-menuconfig' in the doc.

I have started upgrading the documentation, and documenting in more
details the three toolchain mechanisms is definitely part of what I
intend to work on.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds..

[Yann E. MORIN]

Noel, All,

On Monday 07 November 2011 16:07:35 Vellemans, Noel wrote:
> While following the discussions on the buildroot mailing list, I saw
> that for the next releases the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain will be used as

crosstool-NG, not all caps. ;-)

> default, so a started to experiment with the CROSSTOOL-NG buildroot
> toolchain (this morning).
> 
> Until now.. U used the buildroot to generate a 'cross-toolchain', even
> 'worse'; I used buildroot to generate 2 toolchains. 
> 	A) One running on LINUX 
> 	B) One running on top of CYGWIN (for the less Linux-minded
> colleagues)

I am not quite sure I understand correctly... I'll try to state what I
understood:
  A) you use buildroot on Linux, to build a Linux-hosted cross-toolchain
  B) you use buildroot on Cygwin, to build a Cygwin-hosted cross-toolchain

Right? AFAIK, Cygwin support was never official for buildroot. It working
would have been mere chance! ;-)

> Which was quite easy to do... until now. 
> 
> 1) Will this also be possible for the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain that is
> build with buildroot?

There have been many reports of successfully building toolchains on Cygwin,
both natively under Cygwin, and as a canadian-built from Linux, with
crosstool-NG. I did it myself a few times, and it worked.

> 2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain,
> is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with ARM-VECTOR-floating
> point support is this correct? 

When using the crosstool-NG backend, the toolchain options (most of them)
in buildroot are hidden. If you want to tweak the toolchain settings, you
can run:
    make ctng-menuconfig

which will prompt you the crosstool-NG configuration (like linux-menuconfig
or busybox-menuconfig would for the Linux kernel, or busybox).

Then, you can tweak the options at will (notice however that some options
will be forcibly set/reset by the backend mechanism, there is no easy way
for the crosstool-NG menuconfig if it makes sense to show/hide and/or set/
reset these options).

> NOTE: Of the record, the buildroot-CYGWIN-toolchain build was working
> until some weeks ago (for me), in the current git-tree this is not
> working anymore ( build troubles into mpc/mpfr and gmp),

Ah, yes, MPFR has issues building in Cygwin by default. Here's what is
done in crosstool-NG to fix this:
  http://crosstool-ng.org/hg/crosstool-ng/file/tip/scripts/build/companion_libs/mpfr.sh#l66

> without looking
> to much in detail (I think) it has to do with  'another' way of naming
> libs 'libxxxxx' on Linux vs 'cygxxxxxxx' on cygwin!

I've never experienced such weirdness... Surely, shared libraries in
Cygwin are named libxxx, from what I could see. It's the first time I
read about a 'cyg' prefix...

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

-- 
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------.
|  Yann E. MORIN  | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: |
| +33 662 376 056 | Software  Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN     |  ___               |
| +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------:  X  AGAINST      |  \e/  There is no  |
| http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL    |   v   conspiracy.  |
'------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds.

[Vellemans, Noel]

>> While following the discussions on the buildroot mailing list, I saw
>> that for the next releases the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain will be used as
>> default, so a started to experiment with the CROSSTOOL-NG buildroot
>> toolchain (this morning).
>

<<Thomas >> 
> Great! It's really nice to have feedback on this.

Having some troubles to get a buildroot-CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain build (on
Linux host)... But I'll keep you all informed.

>> Until now.. U used the buildroot to generate a 'cross-toolchain',
even
>> 'worse'; I used buildroot to generate 2 toolchains. 
>> 	A) One running on LINUX 
>> 	B) One running on top of CYGWIN (for the less Linux-minded
>> colleagues)

<<Thomas >> 
>Do you use Buildroot only to build a toolchain ?

Well it is a whole story, 

A) On Linux, no BUILDROOT is used to build a complete target, for the
at91sam9g10, at91sam9m10 (arm-9).. And recently one for the imx-537
(cortex-A8) (and x86 for test cases).

B) On Cygwin (windows) yes, I do only build the toolchain, for my
colleagues that not want (can?) switch to Linux (for several reasons).
(These colleagues are writing ... custom application-software.)

Having some troubles to get a buildroot-CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain build (on
Linux host)... But I'll keep you all informed.


>> 1) Will this also be possible for the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain that is
>> build with buildroot?

<<Thomas >> 
>
>If you build only a toolchain, then crosstool-NG is a very good
>replacement for Buildroot.

>If you build a toolchain and then use Buildroot to build an embedded
>Linux build system, then you can build your toolchain with crosstool-NG
>separately, and then use it as an external toolchain in Buildroot, or
>you can instruct Buildroot to use crosstool-NG has a backed to build
>the toolchain.

>Note that we intend to do in 2012.02 is move the crosstool-NG backend
>as the default, not to remove the Buildroot code to build toolchain,
>which will still be offered as an alternate choice. However, on the
>long run, if everything works fine, we might drop the Buildroot code to
>build the toolchain.

>> 2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG
toolchain,
>> is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with ARM-VECTOR-floating
>> point support is this correct? 

<<Thomas >> 
>In Target Options -> Floating Point, you can choose between hardware
>floating point and software floating point. There are patches being
>discussed/reviewed to add a choice between the hard and softfp ABI to
>pass floating-point arguments. And I'm sure than Yann, crosstool-NG's
>maintainer, is definitely interested by patches improving things in
>that area.

For some reason I missing this, in other words, when selecting a
CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain (in buildroot) the option for
arm-vector-FLOATING-point is disappearing and I'm not able to find any
option that allows me to turn this on.
Note: the 'use-software floating point by default' option is still
there, but I have not selected this.


>> NOTE: Of the record, the buildroot-CYGWIN-toolchain build was working
>> until some weeks ago (for me), in the current git-tree this is not
>> working anymore ( build troubles into mpc/mpfr and gmp), without
looking
>> to much in detail (I think) it has to do with  'another' way of
naming
>> libs 'libxxxxx' on Linux vs 'cygxxxxxxx' on cygwin!

<<Thomas >> 
>Buildroot has never supported officially Cygwin, and nobody tests this.
>I think crosstool-NG has better support for this, but Yann might
>comment on this.

I know thomas, and I was aware of this, this was the reason why I said
'of the record' !
But even if it was (and never will be, I understand this) suported, it
was nice that is was working :-)  
 
Regards Noel

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds.

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Noel" == Vellemans, Noel <Noel.Vellemans@visionBMS.com> writes:

Hi,

 Noel> A) On Linux, no BUILDROOT is used to build a complete target, for the
 Noel> at91sam9g10, at91sam9m10 (arm-9).. And recently one for the imx-537
 Noel> (cortex-A8) (and x86 for test cases).

Out of interest, have you done anything to integrate the imx53 bootup
sequence and/or gpu/vpu libraries in buildroot? I'm considering the
imx53 for a new project.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

[Buildroot] Future...TOOLCHAIN builds.

[Vellemans, Noel]

Resending .. Prev. mail seems not to have reached the list,Don't ask me
why.
Sorry for this.

Regards noel


>> While following the discussions on the buildroot mailing list, I saw 
>> that for the next releases the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain will be used as

>> default, so a started to experiment with the CROSSTOOL-NG buildroot 
>> toolchain (this morning).
>

<<Thomas >> 
> Great! It's really nice to have feedback on this.

Having some troubles to get a buildroot-CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain build (on
Linux host)... But I'll keep you all informed.

>> Until now.. U used the buildroot to generate a 'cross-toolchain', 
>> even 'worse'; I used buildroot to generate 2 toolchains.
>> 	A) One running on LINUX 
>> 	B) One running on top of CYGWIN (for the less Linux-minded
>> colleagues)

<<Thomas >> 
>Do you use Buildroot only to build a toolchain ?

Well it is a whole story, 

A) On Linux, no BUILDROOT is used to build a complete target, for the
at91sam9g10, at91sam9m10 (arm-9).. And recently one for the imx-537
(cortex-A8) (and x86 for test cases).

B) On Cygwin (windows) yes, I do only build the toolchain, for my
colleagues that not want (can?) switch to Linux (for several reasons).
(These colleagues are writing ... custom application-software.)

Having some troubles to get a buildroot-CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain build (on
Linux host)... But I'll keep you all informed.


>> 1) Will this also be possible for the CROSSTOOL-NG toolchain that is 
>> build with buildroot?

<<Thomas >> 
>
>If you build only a toolchain, then crosstool-NG is a very good 
>replacement for Buildroot.

>If you build a toolchain and then use Buildroot to build an embedded 
>Linux build system, then you can build your toolchain with crosstool-NG

>separately, and then use it as an external toolchain in Buildroot, or 
>you can instruct Buildroot to use crosstool-NG has a backed to build 
>the toolchain.

>Note that we intend to do in 2012.02 is move the crosstool-NG backend 
>as the default, not to remove the Buildroot code to build toolchain, 
>which will still be offered as an alternate choice. However, on the 
>long run, if everything works fine, we might drop the Buildroot code to

>build the toolchain.

>> 2) Another question that pops-up when building a CROSSTOOL-NG 
>> toolchain, is that I'm not able to select a toolchain with 
>> ARM-VECTOR-floating point support is this correct?

<<Thomas >> 
>In Target Options -> Floating Point, you can choose between hardware 
>floating point and software floating point. There are patches being 
>discussed/reviewed to add a choice between the hard and softfp ABI to 
>pass floating-point arguments. And I'm sure than Yann, crosstool-NG's 
>maintainer, is definitely interested by patches improving things in 
>that area.

For some reason I missing this, in other words, when selecting a
CROSSTOOL-NG-toolchain (in buildroot) the option for
arm-vector-FLOATING-point is disappearing and I'm not able to find any
option that allows me to turn this on.
Note: the 'use-software floating point by default' option is still
there, but I have not selected this.


>> NOTE: Of the record, the buildroot-CYGWIN-toolchain build was working

>> until some weeks ago (for me), in the current git-tree this is not 
>> working anymore ( build troubles into mpc/mpfr and gmp), without 
>> looking to much in detail (I think) it has to do with  'another' way 
>> of naming libs 'libxxxxx' on Linux vs 'cygxxxxxxx' on cygwin!

<<Thomas >> 
>Buildroot has never supported officially Cygwin, and nobody tests this.
>I think crosstool-NG has better support for this, but Yann might 
>comment on this.

I know thomas, and I was aware of this, this was the reason why I said
'of the record' !
But even if it was (and never will be, I understand this) suported, it
was nice that is was working :-)  
 
Regards Noel