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by amszmidt
410 days ago
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> A good way to make sure your project won't cross compile is to use Autoconf. Rampant use of Autoconf is the main reason distros gave up on cross compiling and started using QEMU. Developers who use Autoconf and who don't know what cross-compiling is will not end up with a cleanly cross-compiling project that downstream packagers don't have to patch into submission. Cross compilation for distributions is a mess, but it is because of a wide proliferation of build systems, not because of the GNU autotools -- which have probably the most sane way of doing cross compilation out there. E.g., distribution have to figure out why ./configure is not supporting --host cause someone decided on writing their own thing ... > The main idea behind Autoconf is political. Autoconf based programs are deliberately intended to hinder those who are able to build a program on a non-GNU system and then want to make contributions while just staying on that system, not getting a whole GNU environment. Nothing could be further from the truth, GNU autoconf started as a bunch of shared ./configure scripts so that programs COULD build on non-GNU system. It is also why GNU autoconf and GNU automake go such far lengths in supporting cross compilation to the point where you can build a compiler that targets one system, runs on another, and was build on a third (Canadian cross compile). |
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1. Most of the time ./configure won't properly support --host isn't because someone wrote their own thing, but because it's Autoconf.
2. --host is only for compilers and compiler-like tools, or programs which build their own compiler or code generation tools for their own build purposes, which have to run on the build machine rather than the target (or in some cases both). Most programs don't need any indications related to cross compiling because their build systems only build for the target. If a program that needs to build for the build machine has its own conventions for specifying the build machine and target machine toolchains, and those conventions work, that is laudable. Deviating from the conventions dictated by a pile of crap that we should stop using isn't the same thing as "does not work".