Peter Barada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Until package maintainers take cross-compilation *seriously*, I have no > choice but to do native compilation of a large hunk of the packages on > eval boards that can literally takes *DAYS* to build.
And package maintainers will never take cross-compilation seriously even if they really want to because they, for the most part, can't test it. Very few people who are not cross-compiling for specific reasons have any sort of cross-compilation setup available or even know how to start with one, and it's the sad fact in software development that anything that isn't regularly tested breaks. Most free software packages are doing well if they even have a basic test suite for core features, let alone something perceived as obscure like cross-compilation. To really make cross-compilation work on a widespread basis would require a huge amount of effort in setting up automated test environments where package maintainers could try it out, along with a lot of help in debugging problems and providing patches. It seems unlikely to me that it's going to happen outside the handful of packages that are regularly used in cross-build environments and receive active regular testing by people who are part of the development team (like gcc). -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
