Setting up a cross compiler with Nix

"Cross compilation" means compiling a program on one machine for another
type of machine. A typical use of cross compilation is to compile programs
for embedded devices. These devices often don't have the computing power
and memory to compile programs natively.

For a fully working cross compiler the following are needed:

* cross binutils: assembler, archiver, linker, etcetera that understand
the format of the target system

* cross compiler: a compiler that can generate binary code and object files
for the target platform

* cross C library: a library to link object files with to create fully
functional programs

Cross compilers are difficult to set up. A lot of people report that they
cannot succeed in building a cross toolchain successfully. The answers
usually consist of "download this pre-built toolchain", which is equally
unhelpful.

A toolchain is set up in five steps:

1. build binutils to that can run on the host platform, but generate code
for the target platform

2. build Linux kernel headers for the target platform

3. build a minimal C only version of GCC, that can run on the host platform
and generate code for the target platform

4. build a C library for the target platform. This includes the dynamic
linker, C library, etc.

5. build a full GCC

****
NB:

Keep in mind that many programs are not very well suited for cross
compilation. Either they are not intended to run on other platforms,
because the code is highly platform specific, or the configuration process
is not written with cross compilation in mind.

Nix will not solve these problems for you!
***

This document describes to set up a cross compiler to generate code for
arm-linux with uClibc and runs on i686-linux. The "stdenv" used is the
default from the standard Nix packages collection.

Step 1: build binutils for arm-linux in the stdenv for i686-linux

---
{stdenv, fetchurl, noSysDirs}:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "binutils-2.16.1-arm";
  builder = ./builder.sh;
  src = fetchurl {
    url = http://ftp.nluug.nl/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.16.1.tar.bz2;
    sha256 = "1ian3kwh2vg6hr3ymrv48s04gijs539vzrq62xr76bxbhbwnz2np";
  };
  inherit noSysDirs;
  configureFlags = [ "--target=arm-linux" ];
}
---

This will compile binutils that will run on i686-linux, but knows the
format used by arm-linux.

Step 2: build kernel headers for the target architecture

  default.nix for kernel-headers-arm:

---
{stdenv, fetchurl}:

assert stdenv.buildPlatform.system == "i686-linux";

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "linux-headers-2.6.13.1-arm";
  builder = ./builder.sh;
  src = fetchurl {
    url = http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.13.1.tar.bz2;
    sha256 = "12qxmc827fjhaz53kjy7vyrzsaqcg78amiqsb3qm20z26w705lma";
  };
}
---

  builder.sh for kernel-headers-arm:

---
source $stdenv/setup


buildPhase() {
    make include/linux/version.h
}

buildPhase=buildPhase


installPhase() {
    mkdir $out
    mkdir $out/include
    #cd $out/include
    #ln -s asm-arm asm
    make include/asm ARCH=arm
    cp -prvd include/linux include/asm include/asm-arm include/asm-generic $out/include
    echo -n > $out/include/linux/autoconf.h
}

installPhase=installPhase


genericBuild
---

Step 3: build a minimal GCC

Extra/different parameters include the target platform and the kernel
headers argument (this needs a major cleanup, as well as the name, it
needs to be different!). Profiled compilers are disabled. The tarball
used here is just gcc-core. For some reason it doesn't install nicely
if the whole tarball is used (or is this some braino on my side? -- AH).

Only C is used, because for other languages (such as C++) extra libraries
need to be compiled, for which libraries compiled for the target system
are needed.

There is a bit of evilness going on. The cross compiled utilities need
to be either copied to or be linked from the output tree of the compiler.
(Is this really true? Back this up with arguments! -- AH)

Symbolic links are not something we want inside the Nix store.

---
{ stdenv, fetchurl, noSysDirs
, langC ? true, langCC ? true, langF77 ? false
, profiledCompiler ? false
, binutilsArm
, kernelHeadersArm
}:

assert langC;

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "gcc-4.0.2-arm";
  builder = ./builder.sh;
  src = fetchurl {
    url = ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/gnu/gcc/gcc-4.0.2/gcc-core-4.0.2.tar.bz2;
    sha256 = "02fxh0asflm8825w23l2jq1wvs7hbnam0jayrivg7zdv2ifnc0rc";
  };
  # !!! apply only if noSysDirs is set
  patches = [./no-sys-dirs.patch ./gcc-inhibit.patch];
  inherit noSysDirs langC langCC langF77 profiledCompiler;
  buildInputs = [binutilsArm];
  inherit kernelHeadersArm binutilsArm;
  platform = "arm-linux";
}
---

The builder.sh for a cross-compiler. Note that the binutils are prefixed
with the architecture name, so arm-linux-ld instead of ld, etc. This is
necessary because when we cross-compile a lot of programs look for these
tools with these specific names. The standard gcc-wrapper does not take this
into account yet.

---
source $stdenv/setup


export NIX_FIXINC_DUMMY=$NIX_BUILD_TOP/dummy
mkdir $NIX_FIXINC_DUMMY


if test "$noSysDirs" = "1"; then

    if test "$noSysDirs" = "1"; then
        # Figure out what extra flags to pass to the gcc compilers
        # being generated to make sure that they use our glibc.
        if test -e $NIX_CC/nix-support/orig-glibc; then
            glibc=$(cat $NIX_CC/nix-support/orig-glibc)
            # Ugh.  Copied from gcc-wrapper/builder.sh.  We can't just
            # source in $NIX_CC/nix-support/add-flags, since that
            # would cause *this* GCC to be linked against the
            # *previous* GCC.  Need some more modularity there.
            extraCFlags="-B$glibc/lib -isystem $glibc/include"
            extraLDFlags="-B$glibc/lib -L$glibc/lib -Wl,-s \
              -Wl,-dynamic-linker,$glibc/lib/ld-linux.so.2"

            # Oh, what a hack.  I should be shot for this.
            # In stage 1, we should link against the previous GCC, but
            # not afterwards.  Otherwise we retain a dependency.
            # However, ld-wrapper, which adds the linker flags for the
            # previous GCC, is also used in stage 2/3.  We can prevent
            # it from adding them by NIX_GLIBC_FLAGS_SET, but then
            # gcc-wrapper will also not add them, thereby causing
            # stage 1 to fail.  So we use a trick to only set the
            # flags in gcc-wrapper.
            hook=$(pwd)/ld-wrapper-hook
            echo "NIX_GLIBC_FLAGS_SET=1" > $hook
            export NIX_LD_WRAPPER_START_HOOK=$hook
        fi

        export NIX_EXTRA_CFLAGS=$extraCFlags
        export NIX_EXTRA_LDFLAGS=$extraLDFlags
        export CFLAGS=$extraCFlags
        export CXXFLAGS=$extraCFlags
        export LDFLAGS=$extraLDFlags
    fi

else
    patches=""
fi


preConfigure=preConfigure
preConfigure() {
    
    # Determine the frontends to build.
    langs="c"
    if test -n "$langCC"; then
        langs="$langs,c++"
    fi
    if test -n "$langF77"; then
        langs="$langs,f77"
    fi

    # Cross compiler evilness
    mkdir -p $out
    mkdir -p $out/arm-linux
    mkdir -p $out/arm-linux/bin
    ln -s $binutilsArm/arm-linux/bin/as $out/arm-linux/bin/as
    ln -s $binutilsArm/arm-linux/bin/ld $out/arm-linux/bin/ld
    ln -s $binutilsArm/arm-linux/bin/ar $out/arm-linux/bin/ar
    ln -s $binutilsArm/arm-linux/bin/ranlib $out/arm-linux/bin/ranlib

    # Perform the build in a different directory.
    mkdir ../build
    cd ../build

    configureScript=../$sourceRoot/configure
    configureFlags="--enable-languages=$langs --target=$platform --disable-threads --disable-libmudflap --disable-shared --with-headers=$kernelHeadersArm/include --disable-multilib"
}


postInstall=postInstall
postInstall() {
    # Remove precompiled headers for now.  They are very big and
    # probably not very useful yet.
    find $out/include -name "*.gch" -exec rm -rf {} \; -prune

    # Remove `fixincl' to prevent a retained dependency on the
    # previous gcc.
    rm -rf $out/libexec/gcc/*/*/install-tools
}


#if test -z "$profiledCompiler"; then
    #makeFlags="bootstrap"
#else    
    #makeFlags="profiledbootstrap"
#fi

genericBuild
---

Step 4: build a C library for the target platform.

The previous steps are enough to compile a C library. In our case we take
uClibc. It's intended to be a small sized replacement for glibc. It is widely
used in embedded environments.

...

Step 5: Build a compiler to link with the newly built C library.

...

If we restrict the compiler to just C programs it is relatively easy,
since we only need to wrap the GCC we built in the previous step with all
the right tools and the right C library. Successfully compiled programs with
this compiler and verified to be working on a HP Jornada 820 running Linux
are "patch", "make" and "wget".

If we want to build C++ programs it gets a lot more difficult. GCC has a
three step compilation process. In the first step a simple compiler, called
xgcc, that can compile only C programs is built. With that compiler it
compiles itself two more times: one time to build a full compiler, and another
time to build a full compiler once again with the freshly built compiler from
step 2. In the second and third step support for C++ is compiled, if this
is configured.

One of the libraries that has to be built for C++ support step is libstdc++.
This library uses xgcc, even when cross compiling, since libstdc++ has to be
compiled for arm-linux.

One of the compiler flags that GCC uses for this compiler is called X_CFLAGS.
This is used by the Nix build process to set the dynamic linker, glibc
in the case of i686-linux using the default Nix packages collection.

Obiously, since we need to compile libstc++ for arm-linux with uClibc linking
will not be done correctly: you can't link object files built for arm-linux
with a glibc built for i686-linux.

Setting X_CFLAGS to use the uClibc libraries and dynamic linker will fail
too. Earlier on in the build process these flags are used to compile important
files like libgcc.a by the host system gcc, which does need to be linked
to glibc. To make this work correctly you will need to carefully juggle
with compilation flags. This is still work in progress for Nix.


---

After successfully completing the whole toolchain you can start building
packages with the newly built tools. To make everything build correctly
you will need a stdenv for your target platform. Setting up this platform
will take some effort. Right now there is a very experimental setup for
arm-linux, which needs to be cleaned up before it is production ready.

Please note that many packages are not well suited for cross-compilation.
Even though the package itself might be very well portable often the
buildscripts are not. One thing that we have seen that causes frequent
build failures is the use of the LD variable. This is often set to 'ld'
and not $(CROSS)-ld.
