> There is... pkgsrc is only wrapping the packages' own build systems, not
> replacing them. 

So if something doesn't build properly, I ought to go to the software's developers directly, not the pkg team?

> Some of them may even support a cross-build, others don't
> or even compile and run intermediate binaries during the build that have to
> be treated differently on a cross-building machine.

I am starting to understand the problem...
 
> Since we don't and cannot control that zoo of programs (unlike the NetBSD
> distribution), cross-building the whole lot is extremely hard. On a fast
> machine, emulating the target cpu may offer a way out, at least for
> critical builds - Krister Walfridsson presented a paper on that at
> EuroBSDCon 2004. Don't know if anything came of his proposal.

Quite a bit of stuff builds just fine for me, but I have no idea if these use the "complex" build cycle you describe.  If I knew how to make a "package" out of it, I'd offer up my own "unofficial binaries" on my site (because I know NetBSD doesn't accept user-contributed builds) so others don't have to waste their time.

As it stands right now, I've spent about a week (off and on) building SDL, SDL_image, and SDL_net, only to have the last library I needed, boost, fail after 18 hours.  I made one patch that allowed it to get past the 30 minute mark so I thought it was going to work when it went past 3 hours.  :(  Big bummer when it died after that long.

Tim

-- 
Tim & Alethea