
                            =================
                            Genode tool chain
                            =================

The Genode OS framework depends on the GNU C++ compiler and tool chain. As
most GNU compilers shipped with standard Linux distributions include
distro-specific patches and configurations, these tools do not meet Genode's
special requirements (e.g., thread-local storage configuration). Therefore,
there exists a special tool chain adapted to the specific requirements of
Genode.


Recommended development platform
################################

We use recent [https://www.ubuntu.com/ - Ubuntu] LTS releases on our
development hosts. Hence, Genode should always build without trouble on these
platforms.


Unified tool chain
##################

Starting with Genode version 11.11, there is a unified tool chain for all base
platforms and supported CPU architectures (x86_32, x86_64, ARM, AARCH64, and
RISC-V).
For Genode development, we highly recommend the use of the official Genode
tool chain. It can be obtained in two ways: as pre-compiled binaries or
manually compiled:

:Pre-compiled:
  [https://github.com/genodelabs/genode/releases/download/23.05/genode-toolchain-23.05.tar.xz - Download the tool chain]
  pre-compiled for Linux x86_64.

  ! SHA256 880886efba0f592a3d3c5ffb9fa63e692cb6bd643e13c5c468d0da027c22716e

  To extract the archive, use the following command:

  ! sudo tar xPf genode-toolchain-<version>-<arch>.tar.xz

  The use of the 'P' option ensures that the tool chain will be installed at
  _/usr/local/genode/tool/<version>_, which is the location expected by
  Genode's build system.

:Compile from source:
  For those of you who prefer compiling the tool chain from source, we provide
  a tool for downloading, building, and installing the Genode tool chain. You
  find the tool in Genode's source tree at 'tool/tool_chain'. For usage
  instructions, just start the tool without arguments.

In both cases, the tool chain is installed to _/usr/local/genode/tool/<version>_.
This install location is expected by the build system by default.
The tools are prefixed with 'genode-x86-', 'genode-arm-', 'genode-riscv-', or
'genode-aarch64-' respectively so that it is safe to add the
_/usr/local/genode/tool/<version>/bin/_ path to our 'PATH' environment
variable (optional).

Should you desire to use a different tool chain, create a file called
_tools.conf_ in the _etc/_ subdirectory of your build directory where you can
define the tool-chain prefix to be used:

! CROSS_DEV_PREFIX = /path/to/your/custom/tool_chain/your-x86-

