Trying to build and run Ceres-solver on Petalinux

[Larry Colen]

We have an embedded linux system running on ARM under  Petalinux. It would be really nice to be able to use Ceres for it.  

I was thrilled at how easily we were able to get Ceres installed and running on the Linux desktop. I haven't, however, been able to find any good instructions on how to get it to cross-compile and run on the other environment.

Fortunately, eigen3 is available as a package, and we can build and run programs that use it.  

Is there a document someplace on the steps that we need to go through to get it to build in the cross-compiler (x86 to ARM) environment?

Thanks

[Kip Warner]

On Tue, 2025-11-25 at 10:47 -0800, Larry Colen wrote:
> Is there a document someplace on the steps that we need to go through
> to get it to build in the cross-compiler (x86 to ARM) environment?

Hey Larry,

I don't know much about the distro you're using, but you may want to
look at anything Debian or Debian-based (assuming that's even an
option). Debian runs natively on ARM[0] and the Ceres Solver binary
packages have been available on it for a long time.[1]

[0] https://www.debian.org/ports/arm/
[1] https://packages.debian.org/trixie/libceres-dev

--
Kip Warner
OpenPGP signed/encrypted mail preferred
https://www.thevertigo.com

[Larry Colen]

Thanks Kip,

I had thought it was Debian based, since all of the dev tools run on Ubuntu, but looking into it, it uses RPM packaging. 

[Kip Warner]

On Tue, 2025-11-25 at 11:34 -0800, Larry Colen wrote:
> I had thought it was Debian based, since all of the dev tools run on
> Ubuntu, but looking into it, it uses RPM packaging. 

I'm not as familiar with Red Hat based systems, but if I had to guess I
would suspect it's probably already packaged there too. 

Unless you need custom build flags, the distro downstream package
maintainers typically are pretty good at preparing packages (at least I
can speak for Debian). You also have the benefit when you use them of
knowing their packages were probably built correctly in passing all
DEP-8 tests, etc.

Good luck!