Christopher C. Chimelis writes: > > On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, David Schleef wrote: > > > Given how easy it is to build a debian package, I don't see much > > need for the maintainer to build N cross-compiling packages -- it > > also means that you're only likely to build the popular cross > > binutils, not, e.g, powerpc->i386. > > I agree :-) What we eventually want is a way to build them using the same > source but using maybe a helper package to do so. Having cross-compilers > already-built in debian is the ultimate goal, but building all of them at > once is obviously not the way to accomplish this.
Using the same source is a must. We now have at least four gcc source packages for cross compilers in unstable (m68k, hms?, avr, mingw). Two solutions have been discussed in the past. - A policy compliant solution would be a binary source package for each package which needs to be cross compiled. Same as kernel-source. Then a package <arch>-toolchain could depend on those packages and build the toolchain (like make-kpkg). Pro: policy compliant; Contra: source duplication. - Another solution could be the introduction of source-depends in the control file. Then the <arch>-toolchain package can depend on these source packages and build the toolchain. The gcc-3.0 package can be used in this way by setting the envvar GCC_TARGET. To make this solution policy compliant download the needed sources before building (as proposed by someone(?) on the list). Anybody who finally wants to implement something like this for the toolchain? How good are the chances to change policy for providing an good way to build a cross env toolchain?