Re: Problem cross compiling modular X

* Ryan Baldwin <ryan.baldwin-sbTHJKYIWfFYAqn04ObX1A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb:

<snip>

> This then leads onto the next problem emerge'ing 'libX11'.
> 
>       'checking whether malloc(0) returns NULL... configure: error: cannot
> run test program while cross compiling'.

Not an Gentoo issue. The upstream packages are *broken*.

I'm fighting against those things for several years now. Because
upstream of many packages isn't quite interested in getting my 
patches in (or too slow), I've founded my own QM project:

* http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce

You'll find many patches (ie. for Xorg packages) here:

* http://patches.metux.de/

I'd love to see you in on our side @ oss-qm. Please join our
Mailinglist. 

<snip>

> I'm quite new to cross compiling. I can see what the problem is 
> - configure cant run any programs in the target environment to 
> fill out config.guess - because its running on the host.

Autoconf is dumb. And some people writing autoconf input files
are even more dumb. Sorry if it sounds offending, but its true.

Although, the autotools collection claims to be suited for 
cross-compiling, it actually isn't. At least not cleanly. 
Clean crosscompiling (aka in an sysroot-environment) does not 
work without deeper changes. So, for example, I had to write 
my own libtool implementation, because the original one is not 
capable of doing sysroot'ed builds. Also many other standard 
macros are broken. The assumption, host root and build root 
already is broken design, as well as the assumption, the 
toolchains for host and target system were equal. 
(ie. that's why mysql can't be crosscompiled: it brings some
code generator, which is built with the target toolchain, 
and of course this can never work when crosscompiling).

> Is there any well known way of working around this other then 
> trying to manually write a config.guess for the packages that 
> can't configure themselves for the target environment?

Fix configure.in. As I did. 
See my patch repository.

Please join the oss-qm mailing list, and I'll tell you more.


cu
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 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
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 Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce:
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 Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions:
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