[Lazarus] easy cross-platform compiling??

[Andreas Schneider]

Am Sonntag 30 Mai 2010, 18:16:09 schrieb waldo kitty:
> why can't one locate easily installable, pre-packaged "add-ons" (not
> correct term) for cross-compiling capabilities?
> 
> for example, one might install the win32 flavor of Laz/FPC and then simply
> install the win32 flavor of the "linux cross-compile add-on"... the "linux
> cross-compile add-on" would have everything necessary for cross-compiling
> to linux... no rebuilding this or rebuilding that... simply tell the
> compiler that the target is linux, hit the build or compile button and the
> compiler spits out the proper binary...
> 
> so, your development workstation is a *nix flavor? install the *nix flavor
> of Laz/FPC followed by the *nix flavor of the "Win32 cross-compile add-on"
> that has the win32 code and libs for cross-compiling to the win32 platform
> from linux... same for OS/2 or OSX or any of the other OS' that Laz/FPC
> can compile for... each base install flavor would have packaged "add-ons"
> in that flavor for the other platforms that can be cross-compiled for...
> 
> does that make sense?? i don't think that these "add-on" packages would
> really be all that large, either... they're mostly source code and a
> binary or three, right?

Compiling for any *nix platform requires a set of libraries to link against, 
since LD works that way. First: you can't simply distribute them 
(licensing). Second: they are version dependant. If I would compile against 
a much newer glibc than on my target system (or just one which is compiled 
differently) it might "go wrong". I had such cases - it cross-compiled fine 
but always crashed on _some_ target systems.
Cross-compiling is not trivial at all.

The easiest you can currently get is probably the Lazarus distribution 
called CodeTyphon[1]. I haven't extensively tried cross compiling with it, 
though. But it offers it as feature, so you might want to give it a shot :-)

Best Regards,
Andreas.


[1]: 
http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=147