212 lines
15 KiB
XML
212 lines
15 KiB
XML
<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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xml:id="chap-cross">
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<title>Cross-compilation</title>
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<section xml:id="sec-cross-intro">
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<para>
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"Cross-compilation" means compiling a program on one machine for another type of machine.
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For example, a typical use of cross compilation is to compile programs for embedded devices.
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These devices often don't have the computing power and memory to compile their own programs.
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One might think that cross-compilation is a fairly niche concern, but there are advantages to being rigorous about distinguishing build-time vs run-time environments even when one is developing and deploying on the same machine.
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Nixpkgs is increasingly adopting this opinion in that packages should be written with cross-compilation in mind, and nixpkgs should evaluate in a similar way (by minimizing cross-compilation-specific special cases) whether or not one is cross-compiling.
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</para>
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<para>
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This chapter will be organized in three parts.
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First, it will describe the basics of how to package software in a way that supports cross-compilation.
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Second, it will describe how to use Nixpkgs when cross-compiling.
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Third, it will describe the internal infrastructure supporting cross-compilation.
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</para>
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</section>
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<!--============================================================-->
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<section xml:id="sec-cross-packaging">
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<title>Packaging in a cross-friendly manner</title>
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<section>
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<title>Platform parameters</title>
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<para>
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The three GNU Autoconf platforms, <wordasword>build</wordasword>, <wordasword>host</wordasword>, and <wordasword>cross</wordasword>, are historically the result of much confusion.
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<link xlink:href="https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Configure-Terms.html" /> clears this up somewhat but there is more to be said.
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An important advice to get out the way is, unless you are packaging a compiler or other build tool, just worry about the build and host platforms.
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Dealing with just two platforms usually better matches people's preconceptions, and in this case is completely correct.
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</para>
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<para>
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In Nixpkgs, these three platforms are defined as attribute sets under the names <literal>buildPlatform</literal>, <literal>hostPlatform</literal>, and <literal>targetPlatform</literal>.
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All three are always defined at the top level, so one can get at them just like a dependency in a function that is imported with <literal>callPackage</literal>:
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<programlisting>{ stdenv, buildPlatform, hostPlatform, fooDep, barDep, .. }: ...</programlisting>
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>buildPlatform</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>
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The "build platform" is the platform on which a package is built.
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Once someone has a built package, or pre-built binary package, the build platform should not matter and be safe to ignore.
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</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>hostPlatform</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>
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The "host platform" is the platform on which a package is run.
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This is the simplest platform to understand, but also the one with the worst name.
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</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>targetPlatform</varname></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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The "target platform" is black sheep.
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The other two intrinsically apply to all compiled software—or any build process with a notion of "build-time" followed by "run-time".
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The target platform only applies to programming tools, and even then only is a good for for some of them.
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Briefly, GCC, Binutils, GHC, and certain other tools are written in such a way such that a single build can only compiler code for a single platform.
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Thus, when building them, one must think ahead about what platforms they wish to use the tool to produce machine code for, and build binaries for each.
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</para>
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<para>
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There is no fundamental need to think about the target ahead of time like this.
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LLVM, for example, was designed from the beginning with cross-compilation in mind, and so a normal LLVM binary will support every architecture that LLVM supports.
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If the tool supports modular or pluggable backends, one might imagine specifying a <emphasis>set</emphasis> of target platforms / backends one wishes to support, rather than a single one.
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</para>
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<para>
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The biggest reason for mess, if there is one, is that many compilers have the bad habit a build process that builds the compiler and standard library/runtime together.
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Then the specifying target platform is essential, because it determines the host platform of the standard library/runtime.
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Nixpkgs tries to avoid this where possible too, but still, because the concept of a target platform is so ingrained now in Autoconf and other tools, it is best to support it as is.
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Tools like LLVM that don't need up-front target platforms can safely ignore it like normal packages, and it will do no harm.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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<note><para>
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If you dig around nixpkgs, you may notice there is also <varname>stdenv.cross</varname>.
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This field defined as <varname>hostPlatform</varname> when the host and build platforms differ, but otherwise not defined at all.
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This field is obsolete and will soon disappear—please do not use it.
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</para></note>
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<para>
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The exact scheme these fields is a bit ill-defined due to a long and convoluted evolution, but this is slowly being cleaned up.
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For now, here are few fields can count on them containing:
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>system</varname></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is a two-component shorthand for the platform.
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Examples of this would be "x86_64-darwin" and "i686-linux"; see <literal>lib.systems.doubles</literal> for more.
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This format isn't very standard, but has built-in support in Nix, such as the <varname>builtins.currentSystem</varname> impure string.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>config</varname></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is a 3- or 4- component shorthand for the platform.
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Examples of this would be "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu" and "aarch64-apple-darwin14".
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This is a standard format called the "LLVM target triple", as they are pioneered by LLVM and traditionally just used for the <varname>targetPlatform</varname>.
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This format is strictly more informative than the "Nix host double", as the previous format could analogously be termed.
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This needs a better name than <varname>config</varname>!
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>parsed</varname></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is a nix representation of a parsed LLVM target triple with white-listed components.
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This can be specified directly, or actually parsed from the <varname>config</varname>.
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[Technically, only one need be specified and the others can be inferred, though the precision of inference may not be very good.]
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See <literal>lib.systems.parse</literal> for the exact representation, along with some <literal>is*</literal>predicates.
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These predicates are superior to the ones in <varname>stdenv</varname> as they aren't tied to the build platform (host, as previously discussed, would be a saner default).
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>platform</varname></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is, quite frankly, a dumping ground of ad-hoc settings (it's an attribute set).
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See <literal>lib.systems.platforms</literal> for examples—there's hopefully one in there that will work verbatim for each platform one is working.
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Please help us triage these flags and give them better homes!
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Specifying Dependencies</title>
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<para>
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As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, one can think about a build time vs run time distinction whether cross-compiling or not.
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In the case of cross-compilation, this corresponds with whether a derivation running on the native or foreign platform is produced.
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An interesting thing to think about is how this corresponds with the three Autoconf platforms.
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In the run-time case, the depending and depended-on package simply have matching build, host, and target platforms.
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But in the build-time case, one can imagine "sliding" the platforms one over.
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The depended-on package's host and target platforms (respectively) become the depending package's build and host platforms.
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This is the most important guiding principle behind cross-compilation with Nixpkgs, and will be called the <wordasword>sliding window principle</wordasword>.
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In this manner, given the 3 platforms for one package, we can determine the three platforms for all its transitive dependencies.
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</para>
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<para>
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Some examples will probably make this clearer.
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If a package is being built with a <literal>(build, host, target)</literal> platform triple of <literal>(foo, bar, bar)</literal>, then its build-time dependencies would have a triple of <literal>(foo, foo, bar)</literal>, and <emphasis>those packages'</emphasis> build-time dependencies would have triple of <literal>(foo, foo, foo)</literal>.
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In other words, it should take two "rounds" of following build-time dependency edges before one reaches a fixed point where, by the sliding window principle, the platform triple no longer changes.
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Indeed, this happens with cross compilation, where only rounds of native dependencies starting with the second necessarily coincide with native packages.
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</para>
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<note><para>
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The depending package's target platform is unconstrained by the sliding window principle, which makes sense in that one can in principle build cross compilers targeting arbitrary platforms.
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</para></note>
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<para>
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How does this work in practice? Nixpkgs is now structured so that build-time dependencies are taken from from <varname>buildPackages</varname>, whereas run-time dependencies are taken from the top level attribute set.
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For example, <varname>buildPackages.gcc</varname> should be used at build time, while <varname>gcc</varname> should be used at run time.
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Now, for most of Nixpkgs's history, there was no <varname>buildPackages</varname>, and most packages have not been refactored to use it explicitly.
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Instead, one can use the four attributes used for specifying dependencies as documented in <link linkend="ssec-stdenv-attributes" />.
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We "splice" together the run-time and build-time package sets with <varname>callPackage</varname>, and then <varname>mkDerivation</varname> for each of four attributes pulls the right derivation out.
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This splicing can be skipped when not cross compiling as the package sets are the same, but is a bit slow for cross compiling.
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Because of this, a best-of-both-worlds solution is in the works with no splicing or explicit access of <varname>buildPackages</varname> needed.
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For now, feel free to use either method.
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</para>
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</section>
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</section>
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<!--============================================================-->
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<section xml:id="sec-cross-usage">
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<title>Cross-building packages</title>
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<note><para>
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More information needs to moved from the old wiki, especially <link xlink:href="https://nixos.org/wiki/CrossCompiling" />, for this section.
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</para></note>
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<para>
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Many sources (manual, wiki, etc) probably mention passing <varname>system</varname>, <varname>platform</varname>, and, optionally, <varname>crossSystem</varname> to nixpkgs:
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<literal>import <nixpkgs> { system = ..; platform = ..; crossSystem = ..; }</literal>.
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<varname>system</varname> and <varname>platform</varname> together determine the system on which packages are built, and <varname>crossSystem</varname> specifies the platform on which packages are ultimately intended to run, if it is different.
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This still works, but with more recent changes, one can alternatively pass <varname>localSystem</varname>, containing <varname>system</varname> and <varname>platform</varname>, for symmetry.
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</para>
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<para>
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One would think that <varname>localSystem</varname> and <varname>crossSystem</varname> overlap horribly with the three <varname>*Platforms</varname> (<varname>buildPlatform</varname>, <varname>hostPlatform,</varname> and <varname>targetPlatform</varname>; see <varname>stage.nix</varname> or the manual).
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Actually, those identifiers are purposefully not used here to draw a subtle but important distinction:
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While the granularity of having 3 platforms is necessary to properly *build* packages, it is overkill for specifying the user's *intent* when making a build plan or package set.
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A simple "build vs deploy" dichotomy is adequate: the sliding window principle described in the previous section shows how to interpolate between the these two "end points" to get the 3 platform triple for each bootstrapping stage.
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That means for any package a given package set, even those not bound on the top level but only reachable via dependencies or <varname>buildPackages</varname>, the three platforms will be defined as one of <varname>localSystem</varname> or <varname>crossSystem</varname>, with the former replacing the latter as one traverses build-time dependencies.
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A last simple difference then is <varname>crossSystem</varname> should be null when one doesn't want to cross-compile, while the <varname>*Platform</varname>s are always non-null.
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<varname>localSystem</varname> is always non-null.
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</para>
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</section>
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<!--============================================================-->
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<section xml:id="sec-cross-infra">
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<title>Cross-compilation infrastructure</title>
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<para>To be written.</para>
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<note><para>
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If one explores nixpkgs, they will see derivations with names like <literal>gccCross</literal>.
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Such <literal>*Cross</literal> derivations is a holdover from before we properly distinguished between the host and target platforms
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—the derivation with "Cross" in the name covered the <literal>build = host != target</literal> case, while the other covered the <literal>host = target</literal>, with build platform the same or not based on whether one was using its <literal>.nativeDrv</literal> or <literal>.crossDrv</literal>.
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This ugliness will disappear soon.
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</para></note>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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