Re: Cross compiling texinfo-4.7

[Mark Fortescue]

Hi Karl,

The reasons for cross compiling are some what dubious.

I have some old systems (sparc sun4c, intel i486). The sparc does not
curently have a linux system on it so I have to cross compile everything
to get a linux system up and running on it (or by a pre-build system but 
where would the fun be if I did that).

In addition:

1) These old systems are very slow when compared to a modern system, so it
pays to build up software using a faster modern machine.

2) It tests out the configuration system. All GNU software should cross
compile as this will promote its use on any new hardware that comes along.

3) I have not been able to get a correctly working canadian cross compiler
running (using gcc-3.4.2) so I have no native compiler to compile anything
with.

The canadian cross compiler problems are mostly me not configuring the
compiler properly. I have made working C compilers but their search paths
are all messed up. For ADA, there are bugs in the canadian cross build
including trying to use the wrong library during compilation.

Regards
        Makr Fortescue

 On Wed, 6 Oct 2004, Karl Berry wrote:

>     1) I think that the configure script could be switched to a ``tools only
>     mode'' by an external variable, say TEXINFO_CONFIGURE_TOOLS.
> 
> Sorry, I'm lost at step one.  What does "tools only" mean?
> 
> By the way, I'm not clear why it is ever useful to cross compile
> Texinfo.  It's not part of the compiler toolchain and it's certainly not
> useful on embedded systems :).  On real systems, why not just compile it
> natively?  Sorry for my ignorance ...
>