Problem crosscompiling GNUstep

[Fred Kiefer]

I am trying to cross compile GNUstep on my ix86 Linux machine for a ARM 
Linux PDA. There were a few obstacles to overcome, but I managed most of 
them, but now I am stuck and need some help.

I started of by building a gcc 2.95 for cross compilation. This rather 
old gcc release is the one everybody else on the Zaurus is using, so I 
did stick with it.

My first problem was that the documentation of GNUstep make deals with 
cross compilation in a rather light hearted way. Just using --target did 
not work for me, I had to use --host=arm-linux --build=ix86-linux.

I than needed to work around the problem that GNUstep.sh expects to be 
able to execute user_home, which of course was build for the wrong 
architecture.

After that I compiled libffcall, which did require a specific option to 
get the configure script to detect the existence of long long (
export cl_cv_c_longlong=yes). Next I compiled libobjc, there the 
definitions for the ARM processor are missing, I used the ones from 
unknow, which is also what the mframe component of base does.

Than I compiled or downloaded a few more libraries (zlib, libxml) and 
started with GNUstep base. Again the autoconfig process could not detect 
all the settings correctly, as it is running on the wrong machine. So 
all the AC_TRY_RUN scripts will end up using the provided default values 
and worse AC_FUNC_SETPGRP fails totally. Another setting works around 
this (export ac_cv_func_setpgrp_void=yes). Now base compiles and I am 
able to build the libgnustep-base.so, but the Tools wont compile.

My current problem is the usage of which_lib in the build process of base:
~/gnustep/System/Library/Makefiles/arm/linux-gnu/which_lib: cannot 
execute binary file

Of course this file cannot be executed on my ix86, it has been compiled 
for the Zaurus ARM processor! This results in the make process not 
knowing which base library to link with and so it wont use any at all.

My feeling is that somebody doing these make scripts either did never 
thing of cross compilation or mixed up the definitions of build, host 
and target. And that somebody may even be me. Even after reading the 
Canadian Cross chapter of my autoconf book twice I am still unsure, 
which to use.

Any help from somebody who already did successfully cross compile 
GNUstep will be apreciated. If you never tried yourself, better stay out 
of the discussion, my impression is that almost everything is different 
from what you would expect.

Fred