Question regarding compiling a toolchain for a Broadcom SB1

[David Daney]

Andrew Haley wrote:
> Ian Lance Taylor writes:
>  > Jonathan Day <imipak@yahoo.com> writes:
>  > 
>  > > My question is simple enough - has anyone built a
>  > > toolchain for a MIPS64-Linux-GNU target?
>  > 
>  > Yes, I did, last year.
>  > 
>  > But I did it through a tedious iterative process--build the binutils,
>  > build the compiler until it fails building libgcc, install parts of
>  > it, build glibc enough to install the header files (with the kernel
>  > header files there too), build the rest of the compiler, build the
>  > rest of glibc.  Various things broke along the way and needed
>  > patching.  I think it took me about a week, interspersed with other
>  > things.
>  > 
>  > It's an interesting exercise for people who want to really learn how
>  > all these tools work together.  If your main interest is in actually
>  > getting something done, it's bound to be rather frustrating.
>  > 
>  > Sorry I can't be more helpful, except to say that it is indeed
>  > possible.
> 
> I wonder if Angela et al.'s magic script that automates all this stuff
> is still around somewhere.  Maybe it'll still work, or maybe someone
> has an up-to-date copy.

Dan Kegel's crosstool does it for many different platform/tool version 
combinations (or so I have herd).  I think the problem is that it (and 
other solutions like it) have ad hoc hacks/patches for each combination 
to make it work and perhaps that mips64-linux-gnu is not well supported.

I did similar with mipsel-linux-gnu using headers lifted (and hacked) 
from glibc on i686-pc-linux-gnu as a starting point.

There is a definite chicken-and-egg problem here.  But once you have a 
working toolchain you never suffer from the problem again.  The result 
is that there is no motivation to solve it once you know enough to fix it.

David Daney