x32_64 cross compiler

[Kai Ruottu]

Andrew Haley wrote:
>  > The guy is building a cross compiler, not a native compiler.
>
> And you believe that building system libraries from scratch is going
> to be easier?
>   
Probably the case is about a big misunderstanding like :

1. the target binutils will be made for the cross host
2. the target GCC  will be made for the cross host
3. the target glibc will be made for the cross host (NOT only for the 
$target as some dummies
    could think :)

If the target glibc was produced with some other GCC version, this maybe 
could cause some
compatability problems  when  linking those objects produced with the 
cross GCC with the
ones in the glibc... One possible misunderstanding more. Nightstrike 
could explain what kind
of misunderstandings he has and why the previous step 3 is seen being 
necessary.

With native GCC builds I haven't seen many thinking that after updating 
the GCC, also the
installed glibc and other target libraries should be updated or 
recompiled with the newer GCC-
version (the results must be better!).  Nightstrike could try this when 
next time updating the
native GCC :)

Or behind all this there is some political idea like :

 o  all Linuces should be 100% binary compatible so generic Linux 
headers and generic Linux
     libraries can be used when producing apps for some Linux/CPU system

That there are those generic Firefoxes, Thunderbirds, OpenOffices 
distributed in binary format
(but are there for the Linux/x86_64's?)  quite easily hints this being 
true...  So nowadays Linux
should be "just like Windows", all apps distributed as binaries made by 
generic "crosstool"-based
toolchains....

People will easily forget that there are also the X11 libraries, the 
Gnome, the KDE, the ncurses,
the termcap and all kind of other target libraries. That glibc doesn't 
cater that much...  Producing
also all these would be a big job, copying and unpacking the originals 
for the target  is much
easier!   With multi-targets the task can be more complicated, so 
producing a separate cross-
toolchain for each distro can be the most easy way...