Cross compiling for Raspberry Pi with distcc
Typically it can be a bit hard to compile for one architecture of CPU while using another. One way around that is to use distcc to take advantage of distributed complication. Thus using other machines you have handy to do the compiling for you natively. Use your x86 machine to do the coding, but your armhf device to do the compilation.
Setup
My post here is based off the following guide: https://www.openframeworks.cc/setup/raspberrypi/Raspberry-Pi-DISTCC-guide.html
Update 2024: the above link is no longer valid. The remainder of the doc should be reasonably valid.
This guide assumes you are familiar with compiling and have all required build tools installed.
Setup your Ubuntu PC
Install the following:
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sudo apt-get install distcc
Grab the Raspberry Pi compiler for Linux and remember where you’ve placed it:
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git clone <https://github.com/raspberrypi/tools.git> --depth=1 rpi-tools
I’ll refer to this path as $RPI_TOOLS from now on.
Edit distcc’s config file to have it start on boot with appropriate options.
Edit /etc/default/distcc and change the following:
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STARTDISTCC=”true”
ALLOWNETS=”127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0/24” # Change this based on your network config.
ZEROCONF=”true”
LISTNER=”” # Listen on all interfaces
Now edit the PATH variable for distcc so it can find the Raspberry Pi compiler. Replace $RPI_TOOLS with the path to where you cloned the compiler.
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PATH=$RPI_TOOLS/arm-bcm2708/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-raspbian/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
Start the distcc daemon.
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sudo service distcc start
To see the log output of distccd while you’re calling compile at the last step below you can:
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tail -f /var/log/distccd.log
On the Raspberry Pi
Install distcc:
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sudo apt-get install distcc
Set your distcc hosts on your RPi and add your Ubuntu PC’s ip to the hosts file.
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mkdir $HOME/.distcc/
## Add ip to this file
vim $HOME/.distcc/hosts
Now set your make flags to compile with distcc Replace the number 8 below with the number of CPU cores on your distcc server for multiple simultaneous compiling threads.
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export MAKEFLAGS=”-j 8 CXX=/usr/lib/distcc/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ CC=/usr/lib/distcc/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc”
Now it’s as simple as going to the directory of your projects Makefile and calling:
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make