pkg repository for ARM?

[Douglas Beattie]

Speaking of a package repository …

On Aug 15, 2013, at 8:21 PM, Tim Kientzle wrote:
>> 
>> On a related note: is there a pkg repository where one can just get compiled packages for ARM?
> 
> A few folks have partial ones but there's nothing official.

Well, that's what I'd like to see;  a set of directly-installable binary packages, based on release,
 with a couple variants based on hardware core/code capability.

I kept wondering where or how that was going to happen, now that ARM is in the main kernel,
and maybe eventually we'd come up with strategy and proposal for ease of use and maintenance,
moving forward.  Also, you know ARM 64-bit is ramping up, so there's what, maybe 3 or 4 variants
at most to start with.

Like, I wouldn't expect binaries built on BeagleBone Black to run on my Atmel ARM9 board.
But it would be nice to see a set of maintained, pre-built binaries with reasonable assurance
that any ARM system could do something like ( pkg_add -r openssl nginx ) and it would install
as expected, from a URL such as ...

  http://freebsd-arm-repository.net/pub/FreeBSD/ports/arm9/packages-10-stable/Latest/
  http://freebsd-arm-repository.net/pub/FreeBSD/ports/armv7/packages-10-stable/Latest/
  http://freebsd-arm-repository.net/pub/FreeBSD/ports/arm64/packages-10-stable/Latest/

(these are bogus, example only -- don't click)

So, the only other trick might be either native compilation (farm), or perhaps emulated ARM cores
using QEMU ( a la qemu-system-arm ) -- I used to install and run Debian-ARM that way.

With a 1U dual-socket ProLiant server and 16GB of RAM, I wonder just how many qemu-arm
could run in parallel, batching the package builds, with a common PKGDIR.

Ah, well, the underlying issue may be a streamlined automated means to build and publish
the packages for ARM. But, am I correct in my assumption that ports in particular really can't
be 'cross-compiled' effectively?

--
Douglas Beattie
http://www.linkedin.com/in/beattidp