Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] minios: minor buildsystem fixes

[Christoph Egger <Christoph.Egger@xxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday 15 July 2009 18:03:36 Ian Jackson wrote:
> Christoph Egger writes ("[Xen-devel] [PATCH] minios: minor buildsystem 
fixes"):
> > Attached patch changes MiniOS.mk and tools/Rules.mk
> > use the OS settings we build on.
>
> I don't think that's right.  The minios cross-build should use the Xen
> cross build machinery.  That machinery isn't very good but it is the
> same on every host.

It's not the same on every host due to lack of proper abstraction.


> Christoph Egger writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] minios: minor buildsystem 
fixes"):
> > The current approach works for Linux only.
>
> Really ?  What's wrong with it for NetBSD ?

Assumptions which don't apply to NetBSD.

> > NetBSD's base system is designed for cross-building.
>
> I don't think we should be trying to use the host operating system's
> cross-build support.

Please explain why not.
It's a question of having a proper abstraction.

> > The new infrastructure I have in mind will allow to choose if you use
> > newlib, libz, lwip and pciutils or use the native libs from the
> > base system.
>
> And certainly not the host operating system's libraries for our
> cross-build !

Please explain why not.
It's a question of having a proper abstraction.

> > Linux build will default to first, NetBSD build will default to latter
> > one.
>
> In particular I think this is quite wrong.

Please explain why.

> > NetBSD libc doesn't have linux integer types, that's why mini-os
> > has been moved to C99 integer types. The mini-os headers need
> > some re-structuring to not conflict with the native libc, namely
> > if you want a mini-os header you explicitely have to type
> > <mini-os/header.h>
>
> I agree that it would be good to replace the minios libc.  The current
> libc is horrid.  The BSD libc is very nice (and I have found it a joy
> to port to a new embedded target, in the past).
>
> But if we change to a new libc this should be done by always using the
> new libc (BSD-derived, but not necessarily NetBSD; FreeBSD is another
> choice) even on Linux hosts.

I think, let's first find a proper abstraction and then make the decision what
is best for which host.

Christoph

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