Putting cross compilers into Fedora

[David Howells]

Chris Tyler <chris at tylers.info> wrote:

> What are the use cases for the cross-compilers?
> 
> If these are to compliment the Fedora secondary archs, then compiling
> kernels is probably the main use of cross-compilers

I've talked to a number of kernel developers, all of whom would like this.

> Once you're up on the device, you can build there, or you can use koji.
> It's a principle of secondary archs that packages are built natively,
> either on hardware or in emulation.

Even NOMMU arches can build their own packages, provided they don't require
too much in the way of RAM.

> On the other hand, if you're trying to cross-compile userspace, that's a
> whole different thing -- a lot more work, and perhaps much less needed.

And much more prone to multiplication.

Take MIPS, for example.  We only need one cross-compiler to build MIPS kernels,
since you can switch the compiler between variants of BE/LE, 32/64 and
suchlike.  Take FRV as another example: you only need the one compiler to build
both MMU and NOMMU kernels.

However, each combination of variants (eg: MIPS-32BE) requires a separate
userspace libraries, headers, etc.

David