[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Yann E. MORIN]

From: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>

For the following reasons:
  - it used to be broken without anyone noticing for a long time,
  - it is still not fully integrated within the Buildroot set of options,
  - it has not gained much traction (not even I use it),
  - I've always argued that sustained development should use an external
    toolchain, and not rely on building one with Buildroot,
  - I did not submit any of the enhancements requested during the last
    developpers' day in Brussels,
  - I have neither the incentive nor the time to maintain and enhance it,

it is time to deprecate the crosstool-NG backend for the 2013.05 release.

Then, it will be entirely removed early in the 2013.08 cycle, to let some
time for those that rely on it to voice their opinions. ;-)

Signed-off-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Peter Korsgaard <jacmet@uclibc.org>
Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
---
 toolchain/Config.in | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/toolchain/Config.in b/toolchain/Config.in
index e6a3b25..665618c 100644
--- a/toolchain/Config.in
+++ b/toolchain/Config.in
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ config BR2_TOOLCHAIN_EXTERNAL
 
 config BR2_TOOLCHAIN_CTNG
 	bool "Crosstool-NG toolchain"
+	depends on BR2_DEPRECATED
 	depends on !BR2_microblaze && !BR2_aarch64 && !BR2_xtensa && !BR2_arc
 	select BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_SHADOW_PASSWORDS
 	help
-- 
1.8.1.2

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Yann E. MORIN,

On Tue,  7 May 2013 00:47:02 +0200, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> From: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
> 
> For the following reasons:
>   - it used to be broken without anyone noticing for a long time,
>   - it is still not fully integrated within the Buildroot set of options,
>   - it has not gained much traction (not even I use it),
>   - I've always argued that sustained development should use an external
>     toolchain, and not rely on building one with Buildroot,
>   - I did not submit any of the enhancements requested during the last
>     developpers' day in Brussels,
>   - I have neither the incentive nor the time to maintain and enhance it,
> 
> it is time to deprecate the crosstool-NG backend for the 2013.05 release.
> 
> Then, it will be entirely removed early in the 2013.08 cycle, to let some
> time for those that rely on it to voice their opinions. ;-)

I don't have real comments about the proposal to deprecate the
Crosstool-NG support, but I'd like to take this opportunity to unveil
my plans about the internal toolchain support (I hate unveiling plans
before the code is ready, but it seems like a good idea in this
particular case) :

 (1) I am currently converting the existing internal toolchain logic to
     use the package infrastructure. I've already done it for
     'gdb' (merged for 2013.05), I have patches that seem to work for
     elf2flt and linux-headers, and I've started working on converting
     gcc (which is the most complicated piece of the puzzle).

 (2) Once this conversion is done, I intend to work on adding (e)glibc
     support to the internal toolchain backend, so that regardless of
     what happens with the Crosstool-NG backend, Buildroot will
     continue to have the possibility to build a (e)glibc toolchain.

(1) and (2) represent a significant amount of work, so don't expect
those things to be ready overnight.

Best regards,

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

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Jeremy Rosen]

> 
> I don't have real comments about the proposal to deprecate the
> Crosstool-NG support, but I'd like to take this opportunity to unveil
> my plans about the internal toolchain support (I hate unveiling plans
> before the code is ready, but it seems like a good idea in this
> particular case) :
> 
>  (1) I am currently converting the existing internal toolchain logic
>  to
>      use the package infrastructure. I've already done it for
>      'gdb' (merged for 2013.05), I have patches that seem to work for
>      elf2flt and linux-headers, and I've started working on
>      converting
>      gcc (which is the most complicated piece of the puzzle).
> 
>  (2) Once this conversion is done, I intend to work on adding
>  (e)glibc
>      support to the internal toolchain backend, so that regardless of
>      what happens with the Crosstool-NG backend, Buildroot will
>      continue to have the possibility to build a (e)glibc toolchain.
> 
> (1) and (2) represent a significant amount of work, so don't expect
> those things to be ready overnight.
> 

ok, thanks for the news, I was a bit worried that we had would have no 
support for self-compiled glibc toolchain at some point (that was the 
main reason I was using ct-ng)

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Yann" == Yann E MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr> writes:

 Yann> From: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
 Yann> For the following reasons:
 Yann>   - it used to be broken without anyone noticing for a long time,
 Yann>   - it is still not fully integrated within the Buildroot set of options,
 Yann>   - it has not gained much traction (not even I use it),
 Yann>   - I've always argued that sustained development should use an external
 Yann>     toolchain, and not rely on building one with Buildroot,
 Yann>   - I did not submit any of the enhancements requested during the last
 Yann>     developpers' day in Brussels,
 Yann>   - I have neither the incentive nor the time to maintain and enhance it,

 Yann> it is time to deprecate the crosstool-NG backend for the 2013.05 release.

 Yann> Then, it will be entirely removed early in the 2013.08 cycle, to let some
 Yann> time for those that rely on it to voice their opinions. ;-)

Committed, thanks.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[soochon radee]

I know I'm chiming in late here, but I actively use ctng to build an eglibc
toolchain within buildroot. I hope that you can retain it until Thomas's
successor is in and running.

Thanks,

Soochon


>>
>> I don't have real comments about the proposal to deprecate the
>> Crosstool-NG support, but I'd like to take this opportunity to unveil
>> my plans about the internal toolchain support (I hate unveiling plans
>> before the code is ready, but it seems like a good idea in this
>> particular case) :
>>
>>  (1) I am currently converting the existing internal toolchain logic
>>  to
>>      use the package infrastructure. I've already done it for
>>      'gdb' (merged for 2013.05), I have patches that seem to work for
>>      elf2flt and linux-headers, and I've started working on
>>      converting
>>      gcc (which is the most complicated piece of the puzzle).
>>
>>  (2) Once this conversion is done, I intend to work on adding
>>  (e)glibc
>>      support to the internal toolchain backend, so that regardless of
>>      what happens with the Crosstool-NG backend, Buildroot will
>>      continue to have the possibility to build a (e)glibc toolchain.
>>
>> (1) and (2) represent a significant amount of work, so don't expect
>> those things to be ready overnight.
>>
>
>ok, thanks for the news, I was a bit worried that we had would have no
>support for self-compiled glibc toolchain at some point (that was the
>main reason I was using ct-ng)
>
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[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Yann E. MORIN]

Soochaon, All,

On 2013-06-14 16:24 -0400, soochon radee spake thusly:
> I know I'm chiming in late here, but I actively use ctng to build an eglibc
> toolchain within buildroot. I hope that you can retain it until Thomas's
> successor is in and running.

I understand your, and other's, concern, and that's why the support for
the ct-ng backend was not removed, and only marked deprecated.

I have always thought that te best course of action in this respect was
to have a toolchain pre-built once and for all, and that this toolchain
be used by Buildroot as an external toolchain.

I do not understand why people insist on building the toolchain everytime
from within Buildroot. Even on my fast machine, it takes almost as much
time as it takes to build the packages, if not more.

That the possibility exists (in its current, not-so-limited uClibc-based
incarnation) for beginners I understand. But not for sustained work.

This means that I won't push updates to the Buildroot ct-ng backend
anymore.

But, by popular demand, I'll also refrain from posting a patch that
removes it entirely! ;-)

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

-- 
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------.
|  Yann E. MORIN  | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: |
| +33 662 376 056 | Software  Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN     |  ___               |
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'------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'

[Buildroot] [PATCH] toolchain/crostool-NG: mark as deprecated

[Carsten Schoenert]

Hello,

Am 15.06.2013 00:55, schrieb Yann E. MORIN:
> Soochaon, All,
> 
> On 2013-06-14 16:24 -0400, soochon radee spake thusly:
>> I know I'm chiming in late here, but I actively use ctng to build an eglibc
>> toolchain within buildroot. I hope that you can retain it until Thomas's
>> successor is in and running.
> 
> I understand your, and other's, concern, and that's why the support for
> the ct-ng backend was not removed, and only marked deprecated.

In the first I was also a little bit unhappy with this advertising of
deprecation for crosstool-NG support inside buildroot. But in the end it
is really much easier to include a external toolchain into buildroot
then keep the crosstool-NG backend running. And, as Yann wrote, it saves
a lot of time while collecting things. :-)

I pushed my current used ARM1176 Toolchain config to github and wrote
(mostly for me) some lines how to use.
https://github.com/tijuca/ct-ng/blob/arm/howto-build.README

The resulting archive can be used as external toolchain inside buildroot
(as local file or via http URL).

Regards
Carsten