linux cross-development (was: Re: /dev/null: No such file or directory)

[Alexander Leidinger]

Quoting "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy at freebsd.org> (from Wed, 20 Sep  
2006 18:45:09 -0300 (ADT)):

> On Wed, 20 Sep 2006, Alexander Leidinger wrote:
>
>> Quoting Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org> (from Tue, 19 Sep 2006   
>> 21:41:27 -0400):
>>
>>> What happened to the linux_devtools port (which is supposed to take
>>> care of this) - was it never updated to parity with linux_base?
>>
>> No. There are several reasons.
>>
>> The current devtools port is a mess and interfered with the old   
>> linux_base port in undesirable ways (can't remember exactly how, I   
>> would have to have a look at it again). Bringing it into shape   
>> would be a lot of work (nobody stepped up so far, but I didn't   
>> asked for help for this because of the next reason).
>>
>> To cross-develop you need a full system, the linux_base port is a   
>> lean and mean system. The current linux_base port is designed to   
>> extend the FreeBSD system and to provide a good user experience for  
>>  those ports which are available in the ports collection (and most   
>> probably for a lot of other applications). We rely on the   
>> fallthrough to the native stuff in various places (e.g. we have   
>> symlinks to the corresponding FreeBSD configs where it applies).   
>> Doing a chroot into /compat/linux may work for some use cases, but   
>> not for all (and you need to do a chroot for cross-compiling, else   
>> you may pickup FreeBSD native stuff and get a lot of trouble) and   
>> it is not advised to to a chroot into it (I should add a note about  
>>  this to the port...).
>>
>> The linux_dist ports are full linux systems. You can chroot into   
>> them and you already have all you need (and you can use the gentoo   
>> package-stuff to add additional stuff).
>
> Just curious, but why are the linux_dist ports trying to create devices
> in the dev directory?  shouldn't one be using devfs to mount devices?

Good question. I agree with the devfs part. Let's as the maintainer (CCed).

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
(1)	If it's green or it wiggles, it's biology.
(2)	If it stinks, it's chemistry.
(3)	If it doesn't work, it's physics.

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