crosstool-NG application aims at building toolchains. Toolchains are an essential component in a software development project. It will compile, assemble and link the code that is being developed. Some pieces of the toolchain will eventually end up in the resulting binary/ies: static libraries are but an example.
So, a toolchain is a very sensitive piece of software, as any bug in one of the components, or a poorly configured component, can lead to execution problems, ranging from poor performance, to applications ending unexpectedly, to mis-behaving software (which more than often is hard to detect), to hardware damage, or even to human risks (which is more than regretable).
Toolchains are made of different piece of software, each being quite complex and requiring specially crafted options to build and work seamlessly. This is usually not that easy, even in the not-so-trivial case of native toolchains. The work reaches a higher degree of complexity when it comes to cross-compilation, where it can become quite a nightmare...
Some cross-toolchains exist on the internet, and can be used for general development, but they have a number of limitations:
· they can be general purpose, in that they are configured for the majority: no optimisation for your specific target,
· they can be prepared for a specific target and thus are not easy to use, nor optimised for, or even supporting your target,
· they often are using ageing components (compiler, C library, etc...) not supporting special features of your shiny new processor;
On the other side, these toolchain offer some advantages:
· they are ready to use and quite easy to install and setup,
· they are proven if used by a wide community.
But once you want to get all the juice out of your specific hardware, you will want to build your own toolchain. This is where crosstool-NG comes into play.
Features:
- kernel-like menuconfig configuration interface
- widespread, well-known interface
- easy, yet powerfull configuration
- support for alternative components in the toolchain
- uClibc- or glibc-based toolchain supported right now!
- others easy to implement
- patch repository for those versions needing patching
- support many versions of the toolchain components
- support for custom (understand local) patch repository
- different threading models
- NPTL (glibc only, WIP)
- linuxthreads (uClibc only, WIP)
- support for both soft- and hard-float toolchains
- debug facilities
- native and cross gdb, gdbserver
- debuging libraries: dmalloc, more to come
- restart a build at any step
- sample configurations repository useable as starting point for your own toolchain
What is new in this release:
- Many changes since the last announced version.
- The Canadian Cross support has been entirely rewritten to no longer require a pre-existing cross-compiler for the target, and there are numerous enhancements and bugfixes.
What is new in version 1.13.2:
- Building the ncurses library has been fixed.
- Extracting the cloog library has been fixed.
- The 'prescott' CPU is now recognized as an i686.
What is new in version 1.12.2:
- The gdb versions strings have been fixed.
- Using a sysroot prefix directory has been fixed.
What is new in version 1.12.1:
- bug-fix
What is new in version 1.11.2:
- Companion libraries are now properly selected with GCC 4.4.6 (the default value).
What is new in version 1.11.1:
- This version fixes a blocking bug when stripping the toolchain.
What is new in version 1.11.0:
- architectures:
- new SPARC support
- components updated:
- gcc: up to 4.6.0, and latest Linaro versions 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6
- Linux: up to 2.6.38.4
- eglibc: 2_13
- gdb: add Linaro version
- companion librraies: some were updated
- docs: new in-depth explanations on how to build a toolchain
- glibc: Linuxthreads removed for latest versions
- samples: a couple new ones
What is new in version 1.10.1:
- Stripping of binaries has been fixed.
- The makeinfo wrapper has been fixed.
- GCC plugins are no longer built for static toolchains.
- LinuxThreads have been removed in latest versions of glibc/eglibc.
- The gold linker is now hidden for architectures that have no gold support.
What is new in version 1.9.3:
- This is a bug-fix-only release.
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