Openmoko build infrastructure questions

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

On Wednesday 16 April 2008 14:55:32 Andy Green wrote:
> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> |> ---2 "building with a cross-compiler is wrong, builds should be done
> |> natively in an emulated (qemu) arm environment"
> |> Can Openmoko switch to compiling arm binaries 'natively' in a qemu
> |> environment, like Ubuntu Mobile?
> |
> | Again, what's the exact problem description here? Cross-compilation is
> | not "wrong" at all, it works very well. By compiling in environments like
> | Scratchbox or Qemu we give away a lot of flexibility and scalability. It
> | will kill performance and the end result (as in the flashable image) does
> | not differ at all. So, where would be the potential benefit?
>
> The potential benefit is no more recipes or cross build workarounds.
> ./configure just does the right thing.

If ./configure bails out on cross-compiling, then it is broken -- period.
Autotools has been written to support multiple platforms, if it does not, we 
need to fix it. OpenEmbedded has already achieved a lot in teaching upstream 
authors about hardcoded assumptions, abusing autotools, etc. OE will continue 
its fight to improve the build quality.

> It has to be slower though, how
> much I dunno.  Personally I like cross alright, but qemu "native" is a
> valid solution too.

Sure, no one said that it's not a valid solution. It just has more drawbacks 
than benefits.

> I want to say about that "flexibility of OE".  I am haunted by a sense
> of failure and distress this last week or so.

Sounds like you really should have checked upstream documentation. Try
http://openembedded.org -> Getting Started Instructions

> Now one can say ha you clueless N00b any fule know you have to blah
> blah, but I say to myself, if this was RPM or .deb based I would have
> googled out an answer and gone on.

Uhm, so your argument boils down to just because more people are using it... I 
don't find that a particular convincing one.

So if it was you to decide, you would ditch OE and use Ubuntu Mobile or RedHat 
or Debian on the phone?

> The other things that bother me about OE are the lack of SRPM type
> source capture -- critical feature for license compliance -- and the
> epileptic-fit inducing problems with -devel type include / libs
> packaging, being able to pass around and host-install cross-devel
> packages to cross compile other packages against easily.  If I use RPM
> or .deb I get grown-up support for this.

Dunno about grown-up support, but OE can distribute sources and patches fine.

:M: