Building packages - qemu vs. CC etc.

[vom513 <vom513%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello all,

I know this topic has been covered from time to time here - but if you would indulge me I’d like to post my workflow and get critiques and tips.

I currently build all my packages on qemu (Apple M1 Macbook Pro).  My command line is:

qemu-system-sparc -M SS-20 -m 768 -smp 2 -drive file=sparc-10-1.qcow2,bus=0,unit=0,media=disk -drive file=NetBSD-10.1-sparc.iso,bus=0,unit=2,media=cdrom,readonly=on -nic user,hostfwd=tcp::8888-:22

This “generally” works.  I say generally because all too often a really large/long build will cause the machine to freeze.  This seems to me to be memory related.  On that note - qemu seems more apt to freeze the more memory I give the machine.  This is anecdotal - I don’t have hard data :(

The reason I have 768 up there now - is because I’m trying to build sysutils/btop (gcc12 is a dep :( ) and it killed the compiler running out with 512M (this was a healthy NetBSD kill - not a qemu issue).  Hence 768.  It’s running now (the current cpp file its working on is approaching a 3 hour run time ?)

Anyway - my bigger picture question is workflow.  The reason I am using qemu is that I set up a CC environment on a fast amd64 VM with plenty of RAM and had issues.  I remember that I CC’ed lynx and the CC’ed version didnt’ have ipv6 support.  Compiling in qemu did have ipv6 support and worked fine.  So that made me gunshy from using CC built packages.  FYI - I used the official NetBSD guide docs for setting up the CC environment.

(Possible dumb question - any advantage to CC’ing on a sparc64 (v240 / 4G ram) ?  sparc64 and sparc are at least cousins yeah ?  Like I said - possibly dumb question…)

Even if I do CC - some things (oh perl…) don’t support CC anyway.  So I guess I could “hopscotch” and build everything possible using CC and feed back to qemu and build perl etc there. and then put perl back on the CC machine...

So tl;dr - how are yall building packages ?  I’d love to hear I’m way off base with my workflow - and any CC tips.

Thanks.