On Sun, Nov 3, 2024, 16:29 Rob Landley <r...@landley.net> wrote: > On 11/3/24 13:24, Brian Mayer wrote: > > This time I sent it correctly to the list! > > And my first reply went just to you, because _I_ forgot to manually add > the list to my reply window. Sigh... > > And cutting and pasting the previous reply into a new reply so the > threading is right (copy outbox copy into drafts folder and double click > to open editor still works, but I did not find "add reply msgid" in the > menu pulldowns), thunderbird completely screwed up the wordwrapping. No > "disable wordwrap" in the pulldown without a plugin, and its "rewrap" > option does as much harm as good. Oh well, that's software "upgrades" > for you. I'd learned how/when to work around the old quirks, now they > force me to use a different UI where they've given the quirks a big stir... > > Oh well. > > On 10/31/24 20:28, Brian Mayer wrote: > > Hi Rob, thank you for taking the time to answer this. > > > > Sorry my previous email was a bit obtuse, let me give you more > > context. > > > > I am trying to create an ultra simple meta-distro. The idea is to > > provide the minimum working system that the user can use to build > > their things on. > > The phrase I've been using is "minimal native development environment": > > https://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html > > https://landley.net/toybox/about.html > > http://lists.landley.net/pipermail/toybox-landley.net/2020-July/011898.html > > 2013: > http://landley.net/talks/celf-2013.txt > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGmtP5Lg_t0 > > 2017: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9TatW9ino > > 2019: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJkyMuBm3g#t=1m18s > > > So I want toybox, a libc, a shell and a c compiler in it, make is a > > good addition because most software depends on it. The url for the > > project is: > > > > https://terminal.pink/lin0/tree/index.html > > Good luck. I've tried to do exactly this before and share the roadblocks > I hit if you'd like. Back in 2008 I made a presentation on it: > > https://landley.net/aboriginal/downloads/presentation.pdf > > Bit stale in places, but... > > > Sorry about the certificate, I'm working on it. > > > > In order to do this I started with musl. Compiled it, musl ships a > > musl-gcc wrapper that simply uses a spec file to tell gcc to use the > > musl libraries and all, which is basically doing what is described > > here: > > I've been very tangentially involved in musl-libc development since > before Rich even named it or made it public (he was on the busybox list > and #busybox irc channel back on Freenode back when I was maintaining > that). I'm the one who convinced him to switch it to a BSD license back > in 2012: > > https://landley.net/notes-2012.html#18-01-2012 > > Last I checked it works fine. It's the libc in Alpine Linux which is a > pretty full distro. > > >> Modulo glibc's dependencies (perl!) are sad enough that this time > >> around a musl-libc gcc toolchain was my first pass to establish a > >> baseline, but > >> > > http://lists.landley.net/pipermail/toybox-landley.net/2024-September/030526.html > >> strongly implies that it's working fine. Plus, you know, alpine > >> existing. :) > > > > So for the rest of the project I'm using this compiler, next I build > > tcc, linux, toybox and mksh. All are ok and work fine, I booted to > > this system after all this. > > So what you built _with_ and the resulting environment you provide > aren't the same thing. > > I have an "airlock step" where the first thing I did was built host > versions of the compiler and command line tools I intended to put in the > target, and built everything with them. > > I've explained this a number of times over the years, it's probably in > https://github.com/landley/aboriginal/blob/master/www/README > > >>> I tested the c compiler and it works, > >> > >> Define "works". It took years for people to build linux-kernel > >> with llvm, there was a whole PROJECT for it, which has mostly gone > >> the way of uclinux.org (declared victory and disbanded). And I > >> specifically mean "the kernel", > >> > > > https://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07/16/ellcc-multi-target-cross-compiler-based-on-clang-and-llvm-compiler-infrastructure/ > > >> was about trying to get userspace to work... > > > > Works means it is able to generate valid elf programs and shared > > libs that the musl's ld loader can run. > > I got tinycc to do that back in the day too. Building hello world and > building a bootable system have a bit of distance between them. > > > I didn't test compiling the kernel with it, but now I'm curious, I'm > > gonna use the compiled tcc to compile the rest of the system in my > > following versions. > > My old fork taught tinycc basic constant propagation (which I believe > Grischka merged into his version), but it didn't have dead code > elimination, was missing c99 vararrays, didn't even try c11 features > (These days toybox uses struct blah){x=y;} style complex inline > constants and __has_include(), the latter of which is really a > preprocessor feature not a language feature.) > > One thing I definitely wanted to do that I have yet to hear of tinycc > implementing is a multiplexer so you can symlink cc/ld/as/strip/cpp to > tinycc and it'll behave as the appropriate binary. Heck, just being able > to use tcc's (much faster) preprocessor in distcc would be a big win, > but alas there's a LOT of implicit architecture knowledge baked into > that. Try running: gcc -E -dM - </dev/null > > I remember trying to get just tinycc's linker to work circa > https://landley.net/notes-2008.html#09-04-2008 but it didn't have the > concept of --gc-sections. That day's blog entry also mentions trying to > get it to work on an arm host but it couldn't build a libtcc.a for that > target so I had to use libgcc... > > Grishka wasn't _interested_ in fixing any of these issues, because they > didn't affect Windows. > > >> Don't ask me why gnu/they don't gnu/emit the gnu/failures to > >> stderr. That would make too much sense, they need gnu/hazing > >> rituals to keep out the unwashed masses I guess. > > > > And a ton of extensions to make things non compliant... > > So? Compliant with what, Turbo C's "near" and "far" keywords? Microsoft > Visual C? Half the posix-2008 features like openat() started as glibc > extensions, the C committee is just a bit slower on the uptake than > posix. (Which is sad because there was a SIXTEEN YEAR GAP between > posix-2008 and posix-2024, and we're arguing about "make -j" on the list > because of COURSE they didn't standardize "nproc". Linux 2.0 added SMP > support in 28 years ago, Intel shipped its first SMP laptop processor 18 > years ago, the first SMP smartphonephone came out 13 years ago... And > posix came out with a uniprocessor standard earlier this year. Of course.) > > Intel's icc was the second compiler to build Linux in something like > 2005, because they implemented all the gcc extensions Linux used. > Fabrice Bellard's tccboot work also involved either implementing or > stripping out stuff like "a ? : b" as a synonym for "a ? a : b" (which > does not recalculate A), which I think got picked up by one of the newer > C standards? (C11 was it? I forget, I only moved from C99 to C11
no, i just checked C23 6.5.15 in case i'd missed this (because a lot of common extensions _are_ newly standardized in C23), but this isn't there. because > I wanted __has_include() and the ability to typecast up an inline array > instance, I think there's at least one more C standard released since > but I glance at the change list when they come out and generally go "oh > hey, a different syntax for atomics, they're still ignoring LP64 I > see..." and continue with what I was doing.) > > >> Doing toybox _and_ tcc at the same time seems a bit extreme, in > >> general changing multiple variables at once makes experimental > >> results WAY >> > > harder to parse. Hence the invention of laboratory conditions. :) > > > > > nahh > > I got my project to work. Aboriginal Linux rebuilt itself under itself > and built Linux From Scratch under the result. Alpine Linux built on > that work to do a full distro. > > I only shut it down in 2017 because I was starting over with mkroot, > which is A) way simpler, C) uses toybox instead of busybox and musl-libc > instead of uClibc, D) outsources the toolchain build(s) to a separate > script, E) isn't finished yet. :) > > >> You might also want to coordinate with > >> > > http://lists.landley.net/pipermail/toybox-landley.net/2024-September/030526.html > >> (which is another reply window I have open but haven't managed to > >> scrape up the spoons for yet). > > Cool, thanks. > > > >> (I have "writing a new make" on my toybox todo list, > > > > That would be awesome, I also tried building bmake (BSD Make) but it > > also needs me to run ./configure, so I ended up in the same place. > > https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#hermetic > > https://github.com/landley/toybox/blob/master/scripts/prereq/build.sh > > >> but hit burnout this year. Sometime between moving from TX to MN > >> this spring, getting flooded here on the list by a well-meaning > >> developer who just took the fun out of everything, getting covid > >> YET AGAIN (still sucks), having yet to find a proper coffee shop > >> setup here in minneapolis (workspace is important), and the looming > >> return out outright fascism, I've spent the past few months kinda > >> spinning my wheels...) > > > > I am so sorry about this, hope you get back on track soon. > > Me too. :( > > >>> so it may be something related to how GNU autotools interact with > >>> toybox or the compiler. > >> > >> Do you mean you built gmake with tinycc, and the rest of the $PATH > >> being debian or similar? > > > > I'm trying to build make on the resulting system (toybox, mksh & > > tcc). > > You've changed multiple variables at once. > > >>> The errors are hard to follow, but it seems to be related with > >>> the confdefs.h and .c files, after a lot of sed and cat > >>> commands. The idea is to bootstrap the build tools, i.e. compile > >>> make without make or other tools that depend on make. > >> > >> Ok, I'll bite. How do you compile make without make? (Do they > >> provide a shell script, like toybox's > >> https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#hermetic or what?) > > > > Fortunately, the make tarball comes with a bootstrap script that, > > supposedly, builds make without make. > > Cool. Like mine, above. :) > > > I guess the gnu tools must start somewhere... But it runs ./configure > > as a first step, which is where I'm stuck. > > Yeah, that's silly. Mine does NOT run configure, it's a packaged up > single compiler invocation with known behavior and no dependencies > except libc and the compiler. (The point is your compiler should know > how to produce binaries for your system.) > > It wants a shell, but it's just doing simple variable assignment and > substitution, even lash could presumably handle that. > > >> That "can't create temporary file" looks like the first error. > >> Which is not a string that exists in toybox (where we'd almost > >> certainly say "temp" to save 5 bytes :) but presumably is configure > >> responding to a command failure? Again, check config.log. > > > > The contents of config.log: > > > > This file contains any messages produced by compilers while running > > configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.... > > configure:982: checking for cc > > configure:1065: checking whether the C compiler (cc ) works > > configure:1081: cc -o conftest conftest.c 1>&5 tcc: error: > > undefined symbol 'main' > > That could be a tcc bug, but I dunno what was in "conftest.c". (The test > didn't say -c to create a .o file so I assume there SHOULD be a main()...) > > > configure: failed program was: > > > > This tcc error I was able to reproduce by trying to compile an empty > > file. > > Yeah but why was it empty? That compiler invocation doesn't seem like it > expected an empty file. What generated that conftest.c? > > Rob > _______________________________________________ > Toybox mailing list > Toybox@lists.landley.net > http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net >
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