Debian toolchain for out of Flexbuild builds¶
Introduction¶
Installing a toolchain is a fundamental step when cross-compiling Linux and U-Boot from source. The toolchain provides the necessary compilers, linkers, and utilities required to build software for a target architecture different from the host system.
Prerequisites¶
Please ensure your host PC is running a 64-bit Debian-based distribution (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04). Other recent Debian-based systems may also work, but Ubuntu is the recommended and tested environment.
Install the toolchain¶
Install GCC and the GCC cross compiler for the ARMv8 architecture with:
Depending on the build targets further packages may be needed:
$ sudo apt-get install -y bc bison build-essential coccinelle \
device-tree-compiler dfu-util efitools flex gdisk graphviz imagemagick \
libgnutls28-dev libguestfs-tools libncurses-dev \
libpython3-dev libsdl2-dev libssl-dev lz4 lzma lzma-alone openssl \
pkg-config python3 python3-asteval python3-coverage python3-filelock \
python3-pkg-resources python3-pycryptodome python3-pyelftools \
python3-pytest python3-pytest-xdist python3-sphinxcontrib.apidoc \
python3-sphinx-rtd-theme python3-subunit python3-testtools \
python3-venv swig uuid-dev u-boot-tools
Set environment variables before starting any cross-compilation¶
Right before starting to compile U-Boot or Linux, you should first run the following commands:
This is needed to tell the compiler which toolchain should be used.