mirror of
https://github.com/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng.git
synced 2024-12-30 17:46:57 +00:00
75b3e0f6a2
s/I\ /Yann\ /g Also add a little blurb about me taking over as maintainer. Signed-off-by: Bryan Hundven <bryanhundven@gmail.com>
112 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
File.........: 1 - Introduction.txt
|
|
Copyright....: (C) 2010 Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
|
|
License......: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (CC-by-sa), v2.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
Introduction /
|
|
_____________/
|
|
|
|
|
|
crosstool-NG 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 regrettable).
|
|
|
|
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 aging 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.
|
|
|
|
There are also a number of tools that build toolchains for specific needs,
|
|
which are not really scalable. Examples are:
|
|
- buildroot (buildroot.uclibc.org) whose main purpose is to build root file
|
|
systems, hence the name. But once you have your toolchain with buildroot,
|
|
part of it is installed in the root-to-be, so if you want to build a whole
|
|
new root, you either have to save the existing one as a template and
|
|
restore it later, or restart again from scratch. This is not convenient,
|
|
- ptxdist (www.pengutronix.de/software/ptxdist), whose purpose is very
|
|
similar to buildroot,
|
|
- other projects (openembedded.org for example), which are again used to
|
|
build root file systems.
|
|
|
|
crosstool-NG is really targeted at building toolchains, and only toolchains.
|
|
It is then up to you to use it the way you want.
|
|
|
|
|
|
History |
|
|
--------+
|
|
|
|
crosstool was first 'conceived' by Dan Kegel, who offered it to the community
|
|
as a set of scripts, a repository of patches, and some pre-configured, general
|
|
purpose setup files to be used to configure crosstool. This is available at
|
|
http://www.kegel.com/crosstool, and the subversion repository is hosted on
|
|
google at http://code.google.com/p/crosstool/.
|
|
|
|
Yann E. MORIN once managed to add support for uClibc-based toolchains, but it
|
|
did not make into mainline, mostly because Yann didn't have time to port the
|
|
patch forward to the new versions, due in part to the big effort it was taking.
|
|
|
|
So Yann decided to clean up crosstool in the state it was, re-order the things
|
|
in place, add appropriate support for what Yann needed, that is uClibc support
|
|
and a menu-driven configuration, named the new implementation crosstool-NG,
|
|
(standing for crosstool Next Generation, as many other community projects do,
|
|
and as a wink at the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ;-) ) and
|
|
made it available to the community, in case it was of interest to any one.
|
|
|
|
In late 2014, Yann became very busy with buildroot and other projects, and so
|
|
Bryan Hundven opted to become the new maintainer for crosstool-NG.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Referring to crosstool-NG |
|
|
--------------------------+
|
|
|
|
The long name of the project is crosstool-NG:
|
|
* no leading uppercase (except as first word in a sentence)
|
|
* crosstool and NG separated with a hyphen (dash)
|
|
* NG in uppercase
|
|
|
|
Crosstool-NG can also be referred to by its short name CT-NG:
|
|
* all in uppercase
|
|
* CT and NG separated with a hyphen (dash)
|
|
|
|
The long name is preferred over the short name, except in mail subjects, where
|
|
the short name is a better fit.
|
|
|
|
When referring to a specific version of crosstool-NG, append the version number
|
|
either as:
|
|
* crosstool-NG X.Y.Z
|
|
- the long name, a space, and the version string
|
|
* crosstool-ng-X.Y.Z
|
|
- the long name in lowercase, a hyphen (dash), and the version string
|
|
- this is used to name the release tarballs
|
|
* crosstool-ng-X.Y.Z+hg_id
|
|
- the long name in lowercase, a hyphen, the version string, and the Hg id
|
|
(as returned by: ct-ng version)
|
|
- this is used to differentiate between releases and snapshots
|
|
|
|
The frontend to crosstool-NG is the command ct-ng:
|
|
* all in lowercase
|
|
* ct and ng separated by a hyphen (dash)
|