Pocket Computing @ WRL

Cross-Compilation Environment


 
 
 

This web page explains how to create a cross-compilation build environment that can be used to compile applications on an x86-based Linux workstation for execution on an ARM-based Linux computer. That is, using this environment, you can compile an application on a x86-based Linux workstation and run the application on an Itsy prototype.

Assumptions

We assume that you have the following things.

  • An x86-based machine running linux. Here's our version info:

    Red Hat Linux release 5.0 (Hurricane)
    Kernel 2.0.31 on an i586 
  • Enough disk space to complete the install. You will need about 100MB total.

All you need to do is run an installation script.

You should have a tar file containing the Itsy compiler distribution, typically called itsy-distribution.tgz. Run the unpack-itsy script: "unpack --extract". This will

  1. Backup any existing directories that are replaced by the new distribution
  2. Completely remove the previous distribution
  3. Install the new distribution

The distribution is installed into /usr/local/arm-unknown-linuxelf and related files. See the unpack script itself for a complete listing. The backups are sequentially numbered to ensure that you don't lose anything from your existing installation.

You must do the installation as "root".

Final notes

In order to use the cross complier, you will need to set up a cross-compiling makefile. Several examples come with our distribution, in the arm-unknown-linuxelf/src/apps directory. At the least, you will want to include the following line in your makefiles:

 CC = /usr/local/bin/arm-unknown-linuxelf-gcc 

For more information

If you have questions regarding this information, contact the itsy-support mailing list.

 

The Itsy Project is a joint effort of the Western Research Lab and the Systems Research Center

last updated: June 9 1998