Compile Rockbox on Archlinux?

[Army]

Hi there

I'm on Archlinux, a rolling release Linux distribution, which is always very up to date. So the version of arm-elf-gcc is newer than recommended.
I do have an iPod Video, so I need arm-elf-gcc.

Code: [Select]

Using arm-elf-gcc 4.3.2 (403)
WARNING: Your cross-compiler arm-elf-gcc 4.3.2 is not of the recommended
WARNING: version 4.0.3!
WARNING: This may cause your build to fail since it may be a version
WARNING: that isn't functional or known to not be the best choice.
WARNING: If you suffer from build problems, you know that this is
WARNING: a likely source for them...
Using arm-elf-ld 2.18
Found and uses ccache (/usr/bin/ccache)
Created Makefile

It doesn't compile, as expected I tried to build the recommended version by myself, but it doesn't build. So my questions are:
- Are there any patches, which make Rockbox compile on an up to date distro? Was searching through the tracker, didn't find anything.
- Which distro has all the recommended versions of arm-elf-gcc and others? Is it Debian stable?! Because I thought about installing this in a virtual machine to build Rockbox in there.

Thanx

[AlexP]

By far the best thing to do is run the rockboxdev.sh script in the tools directory.  It will get the correct versions of the cross compilers, apply patches that are required, qnd then build them for you.

[Army]

Oh thanx! Seems to work quite well, compiling right at the moment, hope this thread will be closable then. But still, how do you devs look after compatibility with newer versions? For how long will it be 4.0.3?
Don't understand me wrong, this is no complaint, it's simply interest

Greetz

[GodEater]

We try out newer versions of compilers as they come along. We even submit bug reports back the gcc developers when we find them in the new versions. Unfortunately they're not very responsive - so we've stuck with versions we know that work.

[saratoga]

Oh thanx! Seems to work quite well, compiling right at the moment, hope this thread will be closable then. But still, how do you devs look after compatibility with newer versions? For how long will it be 4.0.3?
Don't understand me wrong, this is no complaint, it's simply interest

Greetz

Someone tested 4.2 or 4.3 a while back and noted no apparent improvement for ARM, so we'll probably stick with 4.03 until some future version improves performance, some critical bug turns up that forces an update, or a new ARM target requires a newer build.

[Army]

Someone tested 4.2 or 4.3 a while back and noted no apparent improvement for ARM, so we'll probably stick with 4.03 until some future version improves performance, some critical bug turns up that forces an update, or a new ARM target requires a newer build.

That's fine for me For the users it's way more important to have a stable build than a bleeding edge build. You guys know, what you are doing, you have my trust.

So I did my own build. It's a bit hard to find out, which patches work and which are outdated, but it was only bmp-resize for me, so that was not too hard, took it from tdtooke

Topic is solved for me

edit:
Almost forgot:
@ GodEater: Well ... Seems to be a real big argument for staying with one fix version. But with that script mentioned by BigBambi it's really not a big deal, except if you then have two different versions in your PATH, but I'm sure there is a solution for this as well, although I don't know, how to tell make, which version to take..

[GodEater]

@ GodEater: Well ... Seems to be a real big argument for staying with one fix version. But with that script mentioned by BigBambi it's really not a big deal, except if you then have two different versions in your PATH, but I'm sure there is a solution for this as well, although I don't know, how to tell make, which version to take..

Indeed - when (and if) we find a newer version of the cross compilers that we like and work well, then rockboxdev.sh will be updated to download and install that instead.

Is there something you specifically needed a later version of arm-elf-gcc for ?

[Army]

Will there also be an announcement, as soon as this happens? Because I think I won't look into that script every time I update my build, maybe from time to time or so.

[AlexP]

Yes, if this ever happens it will be announced.

[Army]

Great!

Me @ complete satisfaction