When I first started to build my own cross-compiler and my own toolchain, I didn’t think that it was so delicate. It took me almost two weeks to have it working, always fighting quite cryptical errors that could be solved with very unevident switches. Lots of thanks go to Simon Richter and Rob Landley for their help, among many others. I wouldn’t have done it without them.

What you need:

• A C compiler (gcc is a good idea)
• Source for gcc, binutils, uclibc (or any other standard C library, such as glibc, eglibc or dietlibc) and linux headers

Steps:

• Build binutils
• Build a first stage GCC (bootstrap compiler), without any dependency on the standard C library. You need the standard C library to build the compiler, but you cannot build the C library without it. It’s the new-age version of the tradictional chicken-and-egg problem.
• Obtain the operating system headers
• Build uclibc with the bootstrap compiler
• Build the final GCC

Links:

• EGLIBC mailing lists: Cross-Compiling EGLIBC, by Jim Blandy
• IBM developerWorks: 17-page tutorial on building a cross compiler for Linux
• GCC Wiki: Building Cross Toolchains with gcc
• Firmware Linux, by Rob Landley
• Buildroot: set of Makefiles and patches that makes it easy generate a cross-compilation toolchain and root filesystem
• OS Dev: GCC Cross-Compiler
• Building the AVR32 Linux Toolchain
• Linux from scratch

You can download my script for building the compiler if you want. Feedback is welcome.

You might also find my HOWTO for building Debian-packaged cross-compilers useful: http://wiki.debian.org/BuildingCrossCompilers .

Congratulations, I have not built a cross compiler in many years. I still recall the first time that I tried. It probably took me two weeks as well. Just out of curiosity what was the target CPU?

Me creo que tuvieras un montón de problemas… Yo estuve unos días instalándome una “Linux From Scratch” y siguiendo el libro más o menos al pie de la letra, cualquier tontería que hiciera mal o si me desviaba mínimamente del guíaburros lo echaba todo a perder y lo estropeaba todo.

Thanks!

Douglas, my first target architecture was simply a geode, that is more or less a i586. My second one will probably be a ARM processor, lets see how it goes.

I’ve been given a couple of links more:

http://kegel.com/crosstool/
http://linux.bytesex.org/cross-compiler.html

Thanks!

You could also join the emdebian subproject which has an already built cross toolchain and istructions about building your own.

[...] After this long preamble about opensource and NASes , let’s talk briefly about Linux and embedded development. There are many ways to start learning Linux for those who come from a MSWindows background such as installing a random distribution, maybe on a virtual machine, and so on… But what the DNS323 and similar devices give you the opportunity to get a taste of what embedded development is. The hardware platform reminds what you could find in your average pocket-pc and is good enough for this use:  a Marvell SoC with an ARM926Tj at 500Mhz and 64Mb of RAM. Don’t limit your experience to installing a different UPnP AV Server or the latest Transmission/mldonkey, try to compile some software yourself and experiment. Browse the WIKI to discover what a toolchain is, how you can cross-compile software for different CPUs (in this case an ARM926) on a x86 host and which are the main differences among glibc and libraries like uclibc, eglibc, etc… This post should contain enough pointers for you to start . Tags: ch3snas, conceptronic, dns-323, embedded, ffp, NAS, opensource [...]