Cross Compiling

When I set CROSS_COMPILE to "arm-linux-gnueabi-" (which libraries I DO have in my /usr/bin directory), it compiles decently until it gets to "CC fs/jbd/journal.o" and completely freezes my virtual machine.

A coworker got it compiling fine, but with an older version of the kernel. I'd like to just be able to follow the steps and do this nice and easy but it's proving to be very frustrating.

Any help would still be appreciated.

sorry for your trouble. if you follow the speedway instructions verbatim i think you avoid problems.
in the past i have deviated and run into similar problems accessing the tools.
perhaps the scope of your CROSS_COMPILE variable is getting lost in the invocations of the build shell.
have you tried putting the export into your /etc/profile file or bashrc file to make sure it is global in scope?
sorry for your trouble.
if you have time start from a new machine and follow the speedway verbatim.
linux is very flexible and non-generic if you want it your way, but sometimes you subtly break the intent of xilinx provided facilities?
good luck with this -- you have my sympathies.

Thank you for the reply.

With the CROSS_COMPILE variable I tried a few things. I originally did what the walk through (at http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Install+Xilinx+Tools) said and exported my CROSS_COMPILE variable. It could not find "arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi-". So I used the CD that came with the ZedBoard to install the "Xilinx Design Tools". This includes Vivado Design Suite which is the ISE, XPS, SDK, and 10 other acronyms... After 2 hours of installing and configuring... still no "Xilinx cross-compile toolchain" as desired. I ended up using the gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi cross compiler (using $sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi), which worked fine with the u-boot but froze my machine when I used it to compile the kernel. The download page on the wiki directs you to http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.htm, which has about everything except for the xilinx/arm cross-compiler. I don't know how many hours I spend downloading everything on that page looking for cross-compile tools... I finally tried the PetaLinux (which was not mentioned anywhere in the wiki) and while digging around in it, I found the toolchain. Then I read your post james t kennedy, and found the speedway tutorial that had a link to the Sourcery CodeBench cross compile tools right on it. Wow... it was there the whole time (and the link is http://www.xilinx.com/member/mentor_codebench/xilinx-2011.09-50-arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi.bin for anyone else who is as confused as I am)!

As for the scope of CROSS_COMPILE, instead of relying on the shell, I added to the make command to ensure it saw it:
$ make -j V=1 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi- UNIMAGE_LOADADDR=0x8000 uImage
(where V=1 makes it more verbose so I could see what's happening). I just had to make sure that the directory that contained the arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi- commands was included in my $PATH.

Now, when I try to compile the kernel, I get a lot of strange errors. I'll copy a portion of them below:

.
.
.
  CC      mm/page_alloc.o
  CC      kernel/capability.o
  CC      fs/open.o
  CC      kernel/sysctl_binary.o
.
.
<other normal compilation messages>
.
.
arch/arm/kernel/return_address.c:62:2: warning: #warning "TODO: return_address should use unwind tables" [-Wcpp]
.
.
<more normal stuff>
.
.
  CC      fs/proc/mmu.o
make[2]: vfork: Resource make[2]: vfork: Resource temporarily unavailable
/bin/sh: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
/bin/sh: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
.
.
<it says this 120 more times (I counted)>
.
.
/bin/sh: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[1]: *** [kernel/power] Error 2
make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
/bin/sh: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
.
.
<120 more times it says this...>
.
.
arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi-gcc: error: vfork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[2]: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[2]: *** [fs/exofs/built-in.o] Error 254
*** [fs/nfs_common/built-in.o] Error 254
*** [security/commoncap.o] Error 254
*** [fs/notify/dnotify/built-in.o] Error 254
*** [fs/sysfs/dir.o] Error 254
.
.
<and other 254 errors>
.
.


I did some looking around and found that the "-j" flag on the makefile will run multiple "jobs" or threads (I'm guessing) at one time (found this from the man page at $ man make). I found out from another site (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12079087/fork-retry-resource-temporarily-unavailable) that the "fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable" message is displayed when there are too many threads running or when there are no more available file descriptors. These limits can be changed, but rather than doing that, the kernel compiles fine without the "-j" flag, it's just slower because it's only doing 1 thing at a time. Perhaps you could put a limit on the number of threads (with a $ make -j 50 ...etc... or something) but whatever. I've finally gotten it to work (sort of) after a week of trying!

Now, It errors out with this:

.
.
.
  OBJCOPY arch/arm/boot/zImage
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready
  UIMAGE  arch/arm/boot/uImage
"mkimage" command not found - U-Boot images will not be built
make[1]: *** [arch/arm/boot/uImage] Error 1
make: *** [uImage] Error 2

But I think I know how to fix this. I'll post again when I've figured it out.

I think the fact remains that something is amiss or awry in your VM setup up to the build environment. I would say sompare what you have done to create it to:
The Speedway course on this website

Implementing Linux on the
Zynqu2122 Zynqu2122 Zynqu2122 -7000 7000 SoC
Lab 0.1 u2013 Pre-Lab
Creating a Cross Build Platform for Zynq

You should not have to "reinvent the wheel" to accomplish this cross build. In the end even with success, you are left with something not in the Avnet/Xilinx beaten path.

When you install the Codesourcery tools, let that installation set your $PATH. And follow the other instructions of the lab to set up your .bash_profile for the build.

BTW, the Xilinx Design Tools (ISE) are another story. I do that on my Windows 7 box or on a Linux installation non-VMWARE. Always ask for the codesourcery tools to be installed, but that is separate from this Linux build path. I think it is easier to reconcile the EDK tools that this build, but as I said, I do that under Windows not Linux, so for me, the Linux build is separate and in the VM.

This processs, the Linux build, was starightforward and did I did not encounte any of the problems of your unorthodox installation.

Good luck resolving them, but think about a correction a little further back (Speedway course), which leaves you in better stead.

The problem was that the directory that contained mkimage (from building u-boot) was not added properly. My mistake.

That's what solved my problem - going back and following the speedway course more closely. I'm behind a corporate firewall and CentOS was being annoying so I used Ubuntu instead (the first time) - apparently there are some subtle issues I couldn't figure out. This time around, I trudged through CentOS and got everything working. The only thing that didn't work for me was installing gtk-nodoka-engine.i686, but that didn't seem to affect anything.

What is the difference between uImage and zImage? They're both in the arch/arm/boot/ directory.

http://chaitutechbits.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-is-difference-between-zimage-bz.html

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