[ELDK] ELDK with x86 target

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Dave,

in message <B7BC4CB64CA090478F283BA589292737175C87 at abtg-mail.ambientcorp.com> you wrote:
> 
> This seems like it might be a common question, but I couldn't find
> anything in the archives.

The mailing list is not that old yet. But you are right, this is a
reoccurring question.

> I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts or experience in trying to use
> the DENX RPM's on x86.   I realize that I could just go get the
> analogous Fedora 4 RPMs, compile them using the host compiler on a
> Fedora 4 distro, and effectively have the same thing, but I'd really
> prefer to do this in a way that's more similar to how we'll be building
> the PPC distro.  

Note that ELDK 4.2 is based on Fedora 8, so that could be your base
for such work (and actually this is what we would recommend in such a
situation).

But I am well aware that a controlled toolchain environment like  the
ELDK has it's advantages even for x86 host / x86 target combinations.
Like  in  so  many  other  cases it's the effort that stopped us from
providing such a version yet - respective customers who  needed  this
so  urgently  that  they  would  be  willing  to  cover at least some
significant part of this effort.

The alternative would  be  to  start  such  a  version  as  community
project; I'd be happy about such a thing.

> I guess I'd ideally like to build the x86 target with a cross complier,
> even though the target and the host are both x86-linux.  It just seems
> like cross-compiling will insulate the build process from the
> configuration of the host machin, but maybe I'm just being stodgy and
> "old-fasioned" on this issue...I'm still not terribly well versed in

I think you have perfectly good reasons for such an approach.

> Any thoughts on the best way to do DENX on both of these platforms would
> be appreciated.

The quick and easy way to get something that is pretty close to  ELDK
4.2 is to install Fedora 8, eventually under some emulation/virtuali-
zation layer like qemu or so.

Or we try and start an x86 port of ELDK as community project.



Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
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