Situation of armel cross compiler in Ubuntu

[Marcin Juszkiewicz]

Hi

During Ubuntu 'natty' cycle I am working on backporting armel cross compiler 
to 10.04 'lucid' and 10.10 'maverick' releases. I have a spec [1] for it and 
go though steps.

Cross compiler is built from two source packages: armel-cross-toolchain-base 
and gcc-4.5-armel-cross. There are two additional ones: gcc-4.4-armel-cross 
(may be dropped when gcc 4.6 get released) and gcc-defaults-armel-cross. For 
now 'natty' is using same versions as maverick but I am working [2][3][4] on 
updates.

Next step is to get rid of update-alternatives use from packages as this is 
what gcc-defaults-armel-cross has to do. I have new version of this package 
ready [5] but it has to wait until I will drop u-a from toolchain packages 
(this can be tracked in bug 676454).

Then next step will be providing backports for lucid and maverick releases. 
For now I have unsigned manually created repository for lucid [6]. Maverick 
has small update (in proposed) which fixes few bugs.

To make backports I need first to patch all components (binutils, eglibc, 
gcc-4.5, linux) to have a way to build just *-source package from them (who 
wants libc6 upgrade in LTS?). I have patches [7][8][9][10] for it.

I also need advice how to provide backported cross compiler packages. For now 
there are two ways:

- Linaro maintainers PPA
- ubuntu-backports repository

First one requires less work as there is no cooperation required with Ubuntu 
backports team [11]. And there will be usually monthly updates as Linaro has 
montly releases which are taken by Ubuntu packaging (during development cycle)

This week I will test lucid/maverick/natty builds of recent cross compiler and 
can provide packages for testing (no warranty that it works).

Where do I need help:

- review my gcc-4.[45]-armel-cross branches
- review my patches in [7][8][9][10]
- test my packages

1. https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/other-linaro-n-cross-
compilers
2. https://code.launchpad.net/~hrw/ubuntu/natty/gcc-4.4-armel-cross/1.37-for-
review/+merge/41582
3. https://code.launchpad.net/~hrw/ubuntu/natty/gcc-4.5-armel-cross/1.41-for-
review/+merge/41583
4. https://code.launchpad.net/~hrw/ubuntu/natty/armel-cross-toolchain-
base/1.53-fixed/+merge/41577
5. https://code.launchpad.net/~hrw/ubuntu/natty/gcc-defaults-armel-cross/use-
proper-symlinks/+merge/41040
676454. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-4.4-armel-
cross/+bug/676454
6. https://wiki.linaro.org/WorkingGroups/ToolChain/CrossCompilerOnLucid
7. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-4.4/+bug/682650
8. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eglibc/+bug/682648
9. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/binutils/+bug/682646
10. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/682681
11. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports


Regards, 
-- 
JID:      hrw at jabber.org
Website:  http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcinjuszkiewicz