Hi,
Most of the open source packages one get in a tar ball, one compiles with the following:
./configure make make install.
Now If I have a cross compiler on a Linux box. Say RH9 (x86) and my target is an ARM7 based board with Linux. How does one tell configure that it should use the cross compiler for the build ? The specific package I am interested in at the moment is CDK (Curses Development Kit).
Regards Anton Erasmus
./configure --prefix=/tmp/embedded-target-root/usr --host=arm-linux make make install
Sometimes you need more "stuff" on the configure line, like setting environment variables CC=arm-linux-gcc, RANLIB=arm-linux-ranlib, or CXX=arm-linux-g++. In recent versions of autoconf, the --host=arm-linux is supposed to take care of all this for you.
It's also generally recommended to build in a separate directory from pristine sources, e.g.,
tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz mkdir foo-arm cd foo-arm CC=arm-linux-gcc ../foo/configure --prefix=/tmp/embedded-target-root/usr make make install
There is also sometimes trickery to distinguish between the path of the actual install directory (/tmp/embedded-target-root/usr) and the directory that will show up as on the target system (/usr). When building glibc, for instance, you really configure with --prefix="", then make install_root=/tmp/embedded-target install
These are general guidelines only. Many open source packages are put out by people who have never cross-compiled in their life, and there's no end of troubles that can crop up. It takes practice. The more complex the package, the more issues you may have to dig through.
- Larry
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