On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:41:58 -0700, Jesse Peterson
<jpeterson275@comcast.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:33:39 +0200
> Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org> wrote:
> 
> > > Also if 
> > > that's not an option, then could you please tell me if it is possible to 
> > > compile these packages from source on another system running the same 
> > > kernel and version of NetBSD and then somehow taking the binaries and 
> > > installing them on the embedded system? Any help will be very appreciated.
> > > Thanks.
> > 
> > Sure, you can run 'make package' on another NetBSD system and pkg_add the
> > resulting .tgz files. 
> 
> Assuming that doesn't work, and you have some type of network (indirectly even via a USB-Ethernet adapter) you could NFS mount the pkgsrc collection.
> 
> I would be curious to know myself if pkgsrc cross-compilation was an option.


If you're using the same architecture, yes, it works and works well.

Here's a suggestion based on a mistake I made.  When you build your
embedded system, keep the distribution files that you used lying around.
You can then use those with pkg_comp to build whatever packages you need.
My home gateway is running some -current snapshot, to which I've long
since lost the .tgz files.  (I'm tempted to just create tarballs from
what's on the flash disk...)

The key is to get pkg binaries not just for the immediate packages, but
for all of their dependencies.  With pkg_comp, you're starting with a
clean slate, so everything you need will be there.  Create a directory
full of packages, then use a flash disk or the network to make the entire
directory accessible.  Then do pkg_add of just the packages you want --
that will bring in the run-time dependencies but ignore the build-time
ones.

Btw, this discussion should probably be taking place on tech-embed, which
I've cc'd in my response, or maybe pkgsrc-users (which I haven't added).


		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb