[Clfs-support] Desire for updated ARM book-contribution

[Andrew Bradford]

Hi Tom,

On Sun, Dec 22, 2019 at 2:55 AM Tom Willhite <trw2006 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all.   I'm a long time (5 years)  builder-tester of LFS/BLFS books on x86_64.   I currently build full KDE Plasma and Gnome BLFS DE's for daily personal use.    That being old hat I'm now focusing that experience on aarch64 platform.
> I'm the new owner of a Pine Rock64 1GB armv8 board $20.00 kit off ebay.   So far I've installed and prefer Arch based arm images from Arch Arm and Manjaro.   My immediate goal has been accomplished of getting a full KDE Plasma Wayland running Wayland EGL instead of Xorg using the latest mainline kernel 5.4.x and Lima drivers for the rock64 mali-450 gpu.  It runs/looks ok but its early in the way of driver functionality so it crashes quite easily.
>
> Now that background is given I'm ready and eager to get and give anything I can for inclusion into a CLFS ARM book that's specific to armv8 aarch64.   I only have time atm for that platform but i'm sure whatever I can get done on this board is transferable to others like armv7 and older book steps wise.
>
> 1)    I first need an up to date BLFS based x86 cross compiler toolchain so I can build my packages for a complete bootable LFS build like I get on x86 now.
>
> 2)    Nothing else matters until that gets done in my hobby atm.
>
> As you would expect I get errors using a combo of the lfs systemd v9 embedded and pure 64 systemd v3.0 books in glibc so i'm halted there.  Done a ton of googling on this.  There's demand but few up to date guides on building a baremetal x86-64 to armv8 cross-compiler.  Guys at Arch want it because they the devs use a slow qemu VM to build on or a farm of arm boards.
>
> I know Berzerkula has a tools image for rpi3  but I really want a fresh start of this and dont want to debate/mix rpi and other previous work with this idea.  Just want an updated way to get an LFS build for aarch64 from the cross lfs book(s).
>
> I'm available quite often to help on this time wise.    Suggestions,  comments ideas?    Thanks to Berzerkula and the others for keeping CLFS alive.

I don't know that a lot of armv8 work has been done yet for CLFS, but
if you'd like to contribute then I think it would be welcomed!

I don't personally have much experience with armv8, but if you want
any changes pulled into the embedded CLFS book, please feel free to
fork the embedded book github repo and send a pull request and I'll
have a look at it.  The OE/Yocto Project recipes as well as Buildroot
scripts should give some good direction on what's needed for a 32/64
bit armv8 toolchain which may be helpful.

CLFS development has definitely slowed in recent times, but it still
moves forward when people have time and energy.
Thanks,
Andrew