prebuilt tool binaries question

[Joel Sherrill]

Dario Alcocer wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Joel" == Joel Sherrill <joel.sherrill at oarcorp.com> writes:
> 
>     Joel> Hi,
> 
>     Joel> We are trying to figure out what host OSes it make sense to
>     Joel> prebuilt tool binaries for.  The list of targets will be as
>     Joel> complete as possible like with the RPMs (i386, i960, m68k,
>     Joel> mips, powerpc, sh, and sparc).  I think this list covers
>     Joel> most RTEMS users:
> 
>     Joel> + FreeBSD x86 - don't know packaging yet.  Could something
>     Joel> be derived via RPM specs? Could x86 Linux binaries be
>     Joel> converted?
> 
> FreeBSD can run Linux binaries. 

Do you have to load an optional package or is this support enabled
by default?

What Linux packaging format can you load?

Instructions for using the Linux binaries on FreeBSD would be 
better from a maintenance viewpoint.  Plus short term, it is
all that is going to happen.  Could you provide a few paragraphs
for the Getting Started manual detailing this?
 
> Regarding packaging, I think the
> standard for FreeBSD is 'pkg' format (not the same format as the Sun
> package format of the same name.)

<sigh>  YAPF - Yet another packaging format <sigh>.  The 1st cut
at Sun binaries are RPMs and .tgz's produced by Alien.  Rewriting
package descriptions in a lot of odd packaging languages is time
consuming.

>     Joel> I do know of a couple of odd issues that impact the
>     Joel> usefulness of the configurations being built.  For example,
>     Joel> the m68k gdb does not include Eric Norum's bdm kit.
> 
> What would it take to fold in the BDM patches into GDB binaries?  I
> would guess that a BDM-capable m68k/coldfire gdb would be a very
> common case, one that would be nice to support "out of the box."

I think BDM is important to support.  If Eric Norum can't
use the gdb RPM, then who can? :)

We started to add the BDM patch but had to stop and
back it out because there were problems that were too
complicated to address this close to a release.

The problem is that the BDM patches are Linux specific, 
not enabled for m68k-rtems, and do not turn themselves 
off when configuring on a non-Linux host.
As it is, this causes problems building for non-Linux hosts.
Moreover, you have to have the bdm device installed to use it.

Mostly I think it is a matter of tinkering with configure 
scripts in gdb so:

  + disable automatically on Linux
  + m68k-rtems on Linux includes this bdm support
  + m68k-rtems on other hosts does not include it
  + address the device installation issue
  + address including bdm documentation in the RPM.

Overall, it probably isn't very much but it needs to be
addressed.  The first few are improvements to the 
BDM patch, the latter ones are RPM spec issues.

>     Joel> I would like to thank Ralf Corsepius and David Fiddes for
>     Joel> all the help they have given in getting this far.  If there
>     Joel> is a FreeBSD tool packaging expert out there, volunteer. It
>     Joel> will speed things up considerably. :)
> 
> Well, I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I can help out with the
> FreeBSD packaging effort.  Besides, it gives me a convenient excuse to
> get back into the RTEMS fold.

Starting out with the "Linux binaries on FreeBSD" insrtuctions will
help out some if they really can be used.

After that, I suppose real pkg descriptions need to be generated.  If
you can figure that out, it would be appreciated.  This is similar to
how David Fiddes figured out the Cygwin situation and OAR is trying to
take over the procedure and generate them regularly.

> --
> Dario Alcocer // dalcocer at home.com

-- 
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
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