This is the third part of my article series about the Hackweek Project “cross-build in the OBS” and the current OBS development. The first part can be found here, the second here.

What happened in the meantime?

First of all, the generic code for cross-build went into the subversion repository. The specific patch for cross-build is currently in the flow, because Michael Schröder will incorporate Worker Resource Management into the OBS. This is also important for cross-build, and covers also some areas of the code where also cross-build is implemented. So the cross-build patch is currently kept separate, until Michael is finished. Also, we are working on a more elegant solution to install the qemu packages in the chroot before the worker / local build starts in the emulator. And the KIWI support inside OBS should also work with cross-build repositories.

Second, there are now completely prebuild cross-build OBS packages inside build.o.o. You can use cross-build with “osc build” local build and with OBS workers. Just install the packages from openSUSE:Tools:Devel/obs-all-cross (currently using OBS svn trunc -r 4948). Also, there is an updated qemu inside openSUSE:Tools:Devel/qemu-svn (currently using QEMU svn trunc -r 5181 with lots of patches), that you should install. In case of non cross-build, the codepath should behave exactly as before and exactly as the pure obs snapshot from subversion without the cross-build patches. The solution is good enough to compile complete packages and even projects for Debian:Etch/armv4l, and for Maemo:4.1/armv4l. I measured an average speed mix between IO bound jobs and CPU bound jobs of ca. 1:5-7, which is faster than expected, and also a lot faster than using system emulation. Should you be using native PowerPC workers, you have to deactivate cross-build for PowerPC at the moment inside the code (until Worker Resource Management is implemented).

There are plans to activate cross-build also on build.o.o, for everybodies use. But we are currently fighting with the qemu user mode issues, especially on non Arm architectures. QEMU on PowerPC specifically in user emulation is not generally usable for cross-build at the moment.

Dirk has in the meantime also provided a collection of the Maemo 4.1 packages, so at a later stage these can be used on Arm. This is currently work in progress, so don’t expect it to work yet. The project Name in build.o.o is Maemo:4.1. It provides an arm development enviroment for the Nokia N810 Linux Mobile Phone as well as exactly the same packages for i586, to develop and run the software also on a PC, and is based on Debian.

Next Steps?

Integration of the remaining cross-build code into the mainline OBS code when Michael has done some grounding work.

Installation of the emulators with the OBS preinstall facility. This will also allow to replace very slowly emulated packages by some cross-build packages instead. It allows a mixture of cross-build Type 3 and Type 4.

Integration of Marcus Hüwes work on remote repositories, allowing to get packages and projects from normal ftp/http installation/update trees.

Kiwi support for cross-built repositories.

Activation of cross-build on build.o.o.

If I forgot a cool feature to mention, I would be happy to get feedback on what you would like us to do.

Keep happy hacking with the cross-build OBS packages provided.

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