Cross compiling (non-Qtopia) tips

From OESF

Just a couple of points should you be starting out cross-compiling console (or even X apps) which come as source tarballs (i.e. they have configure scripts, etc. already provided).

Note that first of all you need to follow the same instructions for setting up the cross-compiler and sourcing the scripts, etc., as for a normal Qtopia app build.

Then....

What do I tell configure?

Try something like:

 $ ./configure --build=i686-mandrake-linux --host=arm-linux

(Change i686-mandrake-linux for your own Linux flavour, actually just using i686-linux may be a generic solution? I don't know)

This works with about half of the configure scripts I've encoutered, i.e. configure runs fine and it can then be compiled by doing:

 $ make

That said, there's the other half where the configure script either hasn't been written to allow cross-compiling, or it just plain doesn't work. This is a pain but it happens. The complaint which the configure script normally produces is that it can't run a binary which it has created (unsurprisingly as it has tried to use the cross-compiler). Although painful, it's possible to edit the configure script by hand to eliminate the need for these various programs (whether by just knowing what it's trying to find out, or by compiling it your self and supplying the asnwer in the script).