[RFC] toolchains for cross compiling and building environments

[robang74]

Hi to all,

I see there are at least three toolchains for cross compiling and
building environment projects

- buildroot: http://buildroot.uclibc.org
- scratchbox: http://www.scratchbox.org
- open embedded: http://wiki.openembedded.net

Someone is interested in comparing and/or have a discussion about
these three tools?
Who reports more tools like these is welcome too.

Cheers,
--
/roberto

[Wei Weng]

I would seriously recommend using OE, helping it to improve. I have been
playing around with OE for a few days. I like the fact that you only need one
command, bitbake imagename, to build the image for that specific machine
platform, provided that you have all the correct configuration in your config
file.

Only if it is a perfect world (bugless)...

Wei

[Michael Schnell]

> I see there are at least three toolchains for cross compiling and
> building environment projects
>
> - buildroot: http://buildroot.uclibc.org
> - scratchbox: http://www.scratchbox.org
> - open embedded: http://wiki.openembedded.net
>

What about

http://www.uclinux.org/pub/uClinux/dist/

?

-Michael

[Wei Weng]

Wei Weng wrote:

> robang74 wrote:
>
> I would seriously recommend using OE, helping it to improve. I have been
> playing around with OE for a few days. I like the fact that you only need one
> command, bitbake imagename, to build the image for that specific machine
> platform, provided that you have all the correct configuration in your config
> file.
>
> Only if it is a perfect world (bugless)...
>
>
> Wei

Here is a (far incomplete) list of features for OE.
http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Features

Functional

* cross-compile packages for various CPU architectures like x86,
x86_64/amd64, powerpc, arm (various generations), mips, avr32
* build complete bootable distributions that can be installed on flash or
SD/MMC media
* build compatible package for non-OpenEmbedded based distributions like
Maemo, OpenWRT or various 'vendor Linuxes'
* build thousands of software packages using all kinds of programming
languages and runtime environments like C/C++, Perl, Python, Java, Mono
* create binary packages in IPK, RPM, DEB or tar.gz format
* chose from a wide range of C libraries as the base of your distribution:
glibc, uclibc or eglibc
* optionally employ Debian-like naming on binary packages (e.g. libfoo)
* create complete toolchain packages for your target system which can be
deployed on application developer machines

Non-functional

* reproduceable builds (let two persons with two different machines but
same setup create the same binary)
* strongly self-hosting, requires only a minimum of tools to be installed
right away

Thanks
Wei

[robang74]

Hi,

here you are an update of the previous list (with a new entry):

 - buildroot:http://buildroot.uclibc.org
 - scratchbox:http://www.scratchbox.org
 - open embedded:http://wiki.openembedded.net

- uclinux: http://www.uclinux.org/pub/uClinux/dist
- gentoo embedded: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/index.xml

Thanks to who have answered and who will.

Cheers,
Roberto A. Foglietta
http://www.roberto.foglietta.name