[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

Hi all,

I'm trying to compile a toolchain with elf2flt enabled, but I'm having 
problems getting binutils to compile.

Normally the parameter "-W,-elf2flt" is passed to GCC to tell it to pass 
"-elf2flt" to the linker.  elf2flt then picks this up and does what it needs 
to, courtesy of a wrapper script around "ld".  I have set this parameter in 
TARGET_CFLAGS in one of the buildroot makefiles.

However when I am compiling binutils, it seems that elf2flt has not been 
installed yet, so it is not recognising the -elf2flt option, and gives me this 
error:

arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi-gcc -o conftest -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE 
-D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -pipe -Os  -Wl,-elf2flt 
-DBR_BINFMT_FLAT   --static -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/foo conftest.c  >&5
arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi/bin/ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol 
lf2flt; defaulting to 00000000000080c0

I think binutils needs to use elf2flt, otherwise any binaries it produces will 
not be in BFLT format, so I am guessing I need to tell buildroot to compile 
elf2flt before binutils.  Does this sound correct?  Is it even possible to 
compile something like that before binutils?  Or do I have to somehow avoid 
passing the -elf2flt parameter to binutils?  How might one achieve this?

Many thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Adam Nielsen,

On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:26:09 +1000, Adam Nielsen wrote:

> I'm trying to compile a toolchain with elf2flt enabled, but I'm having 
> problems getting binutils to compile.
> 
> Normally the parameter "-W,-elf2flt" is passed to GCC to tell it to pass 

Should be -Wl,-elf2flt, but you got it correct in the log below, so I
guess this one was just a typo.

> "-elf2flt" to the linker.  elf2flt then picks this up and does what it needs 
> to, courtesy of a wrapper script around "ld".  I have set this parameter in 
> TARGET_CFLAGS in one of the buildroot makefiles.
> 
> However when I am compiling binutils, it seems that elf2flt has not been 
> installed yet, so it is not recognising the -elf2flt option, and gives me this 
> error:
> 
> arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi-gcc -o conftest -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE 
> -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -pipe -Os  -Wl,-elf2flt 
> -DBR_BINFMT_FLAT   --static -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/foo conftest.c  >&5
> arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi/bin/ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol 
> lf2flt; defaulting to 00000000000080c0
> 
> I think binutils needs to use elf2flt, otherwise any binaries it produces will 
> not be in BFLT format, so I am guessing I need to tell buildroot to compile 
> elf2flt before binutils.  Does this sound correct?  Is it even possible to 
> compile something like that before binutils?  Or do I have to somehow avoid 
> passing the -elf2flt parameter to binutils?  How might one achieve this?

Are we talking about the cross binutils (i.e the one that runs on your
development PC and generates code for your target platform), or the
target binutils (i.e the one that runs on your target platform and
generates code for your target platform) ?

Best regards,

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

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 06/15/13 12:26, Adam Nielsen wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to compile a toolchain with elf2flt enabled, but I'm having
> problems getting binutils to compile.
>
> Normally the parameter "-W,-elf2flt" is passed to GCC to tell it to pass
> "-elf2flt" to the linker.  elf2flt then picks this up and does what it
> needs to, courtesy of a wrapper script around "ld".  I have set this
> parameter in TARGET_CFLAGS in one of the buildroot makefiles.
>
> However when I am compiling binutils, it seems that elf2flt has not been
> installed yet, so it is not recognising the -elf2flt option, and gives me
> this error:
>
> arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi-gcc -o conftest -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE
> -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -pipe -Os  -Wl,-elf2flt
> -DBR_BINFMT_FLAT   --static -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/foo conftest.c  >&5
> arm-buildroot-linux-uclibcgnueabi/bin/ld: warning: cannot find entry
> symbol lf2flt; defaulting to 00000000000080c0
>
> I think binutils needs to use elf2flt, otherwise any binaries it produces
> will not be in BFLT format, so I am guessing I need to tell buildroot to
> compile elf2flt before binutils.  Does this sound correct?  Is it even
> possible to compile something like that before binutils?  Or do I have to
> somehow avoid passing the -elf2flt parameter to binutils?  How might one
> achieve this?

  elf2flt already depends on binutils (it uses libbfd), so this won't 
work. And as Thomas mentioned, this is only relevant for target-binutils 
(which you probably don't even need).

  However, it looks like there is no explicit dependency on elf2flt when 
building the toolchain. Probably elf2flt should be added to BASE_TARGETS, 
to make sure it gets built before all the rest.

  Regards,
  Arnout


-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7CB5 E4CC 6C2E EFD4 6E3D A754 F963 ECAB 2450 2F1F

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Are we talking about the cross binutils (i.e the one that runs on your
> development PC and generates code for your target platform), or the
> target binutils (i.e the one that runs on your target platform and
> generates code for your target platform) ?

I'm not entirely sure.  I can run "make binutils" to cause the error, so I'm 
assuming it must be target binutils.  But then that doesn't make sense, 
because I have not configured buildroot to compile binutils for my target 
platform (BR2_PACKAGE_BINUTILS=n).

There is a file buildroot/build/host-binutils-2.23.2/.stamp_built so I am 
guessing that means the cross binutils worked.  So I am not sure why it is 
trying to compile target binutils?

Here's my buildroot config if it helps: 
<http://www.shikadi.net/files/buildroot/2013-06-17.br.binutils_elf2flt_err.config>

Be warned there are a couple of new options in there I have added myself.

Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:
>   elf2flt already depends on binutils (it uses libbfd), so this won't work.
> And as Thomas mentioned, this is only relevant for target-binutils (which you
> probably don't even need).

Hmm yes, since I'm not producing BFLT binaries (as they will run on the host) 
I can see that I should not be specifying these options.  However since the 
host/cross binutils builds successfully, it seems that part is working.

>   However, it looks like there is no explicit dependency on elf2flt when
> building the toolchain. Probably elf2flt should be added to BASE_TARGETS, to
> make sure it gets built before all the rest.

Would this mean elf2flt gets built before the target binutils, should I choose 
to enable it?  I am guessing that is what needs to happen for this to work 
correctly, assuming target binutils should be built.

Many thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 17/06/13 09:10, Adam Nielsen wrote:
> Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
>> Are we talking about the cross binutils (i.e the one that runs on your
>> development PC and generates code for your target platform), or the
>> target binutils (i.e the one that runs on your target platform and
>> generates code for your target platform) ?
>
> I'm not entirely sure.  I can run "make binutils" to cause the error, so
> I'm assuming it must be target binutils.  But then that doesn't make
> sense, because I have not configured buildroot to compile binutils for my
> target platform (BR2_PACKAGE_BINUTILS=n).

  If you explicitly ask to build binutils (for the target), then the 
value of BR2_PACKAGE_BINUTILS is ignored. So 'make binutils' tries to 
build binutils for the target.


> There is a file buildroot/build/host-binutils-2.23.2/.stamp_built so I am
> guessing that means the cross binutils worked.  So I am not sure why it
> is trying to compile target binutils?
>
> Here's my buildroot config if it helps:
> <http://www.shikadi.net/files/buildroot/2013-06-17.br.binutils_elf2flt_err.config>
>
>
> Be warned there are a couple of new options in there I have added myself.
>
> Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:
>>   elf2flt already depends on binutils (it uses libbfd), so this won't
>> work.
>> And as Thomas mentioned, this is only relevant for target-binutils
>> (which you
>> probably don't even need).
>
> Hmm yes, since I'm not producing BFLT binaries (as they will run on the
> host) I can see that I should not be specifying these options.  However
> since the host/cross binutils builds successfully, it seems that part is
> working.
>
>>   However, it looks like there is no explicit dependency on elf2flt when
>> building the toolchain. Probably elf2flt should be added to
>> BASE_TARGETS, to
>> make sure it gets built before all the rest.
>
> Would this mean elf2flt gets built before the target binutils, should I
> choose to enable it?  I am guessing that is what needs to happen for this
> to work correctly, assuming target binutils should be built.

  host-elf2flt is built before binutils, yes. (Note that host-elf2flt 
will actually be called elf2flt without the host because it has not been 
converted to the generic package infrastructure; it's also in the 
toolchain directory rather than the build directory.)


  Regards,
  Arnout

>
> Many thanks,
> Adam.
>
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot
>
>


-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7CB5 E4CC 6C2E EFD4 6E3D A754 F963 ECAB 2450 2F1F

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

>   If you explicitly ask to build binutils (for the target), then the value of
> BR2_PACKAGE_BINUTILS is ignored. So 'make binutils' tries to build binutils
> for the target.

Sorry, to clarify - I get the error running just "make", but if I want to 
experiment by changing build flags, I can run "make binutils" to skip 
recompiling gcc, uclibc, etc. and just attempt the bit that recently failed.

This is just a timesaver when testing though, the real problem is that I still 
get these errors from the target binutils when running "make".

Thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Adam Nielsen,

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:34:48 +1000, Adam Nielsen wrote:

> Sorry, to clarify - I get the error running just "make", but if I want to 
> experiment by changing build flags, I can run "make binutils" to skip 
> recompiling gcc, uclibc, etc. and just attempt the bit that recently failed.

I believe you're still confusing the target binutils (which gets built
when you run "make binutils") with the cross binutils (which gets built
together with gcc, uclibc as part of the cross-compilation toolchain,
this one can be rebuilt explicitly by doing "make host-binutils").

> This is just a timesaver when testing though, the real problem is that I still 
> get these errors from the target binutils when running "make".

Do you need the target binutils? If you need BFLT support, your target
system has no MMU, so is probably a bit memory limited, so what would
you need to have binutils on your target on a small system?

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

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

>> Sorry, to clarify - I get the error running just "make", but if I want to
>> experiment by changing build flags, I can run "make binutils" to skip
>> recompiling gcc, uclibc, etc. and just attempt the bit that recently failed.
>
> I believe you're still confusing the target binutils (which gets built
> when you run "make binutils") with the cross binutils (which gets built
> together with gcc, uclibc as part of the cross-compilation toolchain,
> this one can be rebuilt explicitly by doing "make host-binutils").

That's possible, but I don't believe so.  I understand that "make binutils" 
will compile the target binutils.  But when I just run "make" it successfully 
builds the host binutils, then continues on to build the target binutils, 
where it fails.  So I was just running "make binutils" as a quick way of 
recompiling the target binutils while I was trying to figure out a way around 
the problem.  I now realise that the problem is this package (target binutils) 
shouldn't be being built at all, so you can probably forget my comment about 
"make binutils" now :-)

> Do you need the target binutils? If you need BFLT support, your target
> system has no MMU, so is probably a bit memory limited, so what would
> you need to have binutils on your target on a small system?

No I don't want the target binutils, but I don't seem to be able to disable 
it.  It's deselected in the buildroot config, but it still seems to be getting 
compiled.  How would I go about working out why?  I'm not sure how to debug 
all the make dependencies.

Thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Adam Nielsen,

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:03:51 +1000, Adam Nielsen wrote:

> No I don't want the target binutils, but I don't seem to be able to disable 
> it.  It's deselected in the buildroot config, but it still seems to be getting 
> compiled.  How would I go about working out why?  I'm not sure how to debug 
> all the make dependencies.

./support/script/graph-depends > dependencies.dot
dot -Tpdf -o dependencies.pdf dependencies.dot
<Your Preferred PDF Viewer> dependencies.pdf

and check what is pointing to "binutils". The "dot" command is part of
the "graphviz" package in most distributions.

Another solution is to pastebin your full .config file somewhere and
give us the link, we may be able to point what's triggering the target
binutils build.

Best regards,

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

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

>> No I don't want the target binutils, but I don't seem to be able to disable
>> it.  It's deselected in the buildroot config, but it still seems to be getting
>> compiled.  How would I go about working out why?  I'm not sure how to debug
>> all the make dependencies.
>
> ./support/script/graph-depends > dependencies.dot
> dot -Tpdf -o dependencies.pdf dependencies.dot
> <Your Preferred PDF Viewer> dependencies.pdf

Do I need to do anything special since I am using "make O=..." to keep the 
output separate from the buildroot git repo?  I get this when I run it in the 
buildroot git folder:

$ ./support/scripts/graph-depends > dep.dot
   File "./support/scripts/graph-depends", line 40
     print "Usage: graph-depends [package-name]"
                                               ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

$ python2 ./support/scripts/graph-depends > dep.dot
Getting targets
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "./support/scripts/graph-depends", line 184, in <module>
     for tg in targets:
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not iterable

And if I run it in my output folder:

$ python2 ../../../buildroot/support/scripts/graph-depends > dep.dot
Getting targets
Getting dependencies for ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox', 
'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs', 
'rootfs-squashfs']
Error getting dependencies ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox', 
'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs', 
'rootfs-squashfs']

So I'm not sure whether I need to do something differently?

> Another solution is to pastebin your full .config file somewhere and
> give us the link, we may be able to point what's triggering the target
> binutils build.

Here's the link I posted earlier: 
<http://www.shikadi.net/files/buildroot/2013-06-17.br.binutils_elf2flt_err.config> 
but be aware I have made a few changes to buildroot itself (added a few new 
config options), but none that I am aware of that would affect binutils.

Many thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Adam Nielsen,

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:56:34 +1000, Adam Nielsen wrote:

> $ python2 ../../../buildroot/support/scripts/graph-depends > dep.dot

This one is correct.

> Getting targets
> Getting dependencies for ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox', 
> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs', 
> 'rootfs-squashfs']
> Error getting dependencies ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox', 
> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs', 
> 'rootfs-squashfs']
> 
> So I'm not sure whether I need to do something differently?

What does the output PDF looks like?

> > Another solution is to pastebin your full .config file somewhere and
> > give us the link, we may be able to point what's triggering the target
> > binutils build.
> 
> Here's the link I posted earlier: 
> <http://www.shikadi.net/files/buildroot/2013-06-17.br.binutils_elf2flt_err.config> 
> but be aware I have made a few changes to buildroot itself (added a few new 
> config options), but none that I am aware of that would affect binutils.

Ok, thanks.

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

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

>> $ python2 ../../../buildroot/support/scripts/graph-depends > dep.dot
>
> This one is correct.

Great, thanks!

>> Getting targets
>> Getting dependencies for ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox',
>> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs',
>> 'rootfs-squashfs']
>> Error getting dependencies ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox',
>> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs',
>> 'rootfs-squashfs']
>>
>> So I'm not sure whether I need to do something differently?
>
> What does the output PDF looks like?

I can't generate the PDF, the dep.dot file is zero bytes.  I'm guessing 
graph-depends gives up when it reports that error message.

Thanks,
Adam.

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Adam Nielsen,

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:11:09 +1000, Adam Nielsen wrote:

> >> Getting targets
> >> Getting dependencies for ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox',
> >> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs',
> >> 'rootfs-squashfs']
> >> Error getting dependencies ['elf2flt', 'ncurses', 'zlib', 'nano', 'busybox',
> >> 'linux', 'rootfs-romfs', 'rootfs-tar', 'rootfs-cpio', 'rootfs-initramfs',
> >> 'rootfs-squashfs']
> >>
> >> So I'm not sure whether I need to do something differently?
> >
> > What does the output PDF looks like?
> 
> I can't generate the PDF, the dep.dot file is zero bytes.  I'm guessing 
> graph-depends gives up when it reports that error message.

Ah, right, elf2flt isn't a real package, so it fails.

Can you push your current Buildroot code on some Git repository so that
we can have a look? I looked at your configuration, and I really don't
see what could be pulling the target binutils into the build.

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

[Buildroot] binutils doesn't like -elf2flt option

[Adam Nielsen]

> Ah, right, elf2flt isn't a real package, so it fails.
>
> Can you push your current Buildroot code on some Git repository so that
> we can have a look? I looked at your configuration, and I really don't
> see what could be pulling the target binutils into the build.

Sure, you can get it from here:

https://github.com/Malvineous/buildroot-openipcam

Make sure to use the 'nuc700' branch.  Many thanks for taking a look!

Cheers,
Adam.