Package: crossroad
Crossroadis a command line tool to easily set up your shell
environment for cross-compilation, on a GNU/Linux
distribution.Be aware that this is essentially a developer tool. Its target audience
are developers working on UNIX systems (tested on GNU/Linux
systems: Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, and Mageia, and expected to work on
other distributions), and wishing to cross-compile projects from the
same platform. It is not for end-users, and is useless inrunningsoftware, onlybuildingthem.9 target environments are supported currently:Windows (x86) 32-bitWindows (x86) 64-bitAndroid (arm)Android (arm64)Android (x86)Android (x86-64)Android (mips)Android (mips64)NativeAnd 2 embedded ABI on ARM are barely tested and disabled.Note: no differences are made between Windows platforms other than
32/64-bit (in particular no software API versioning).
This is up to you to make your code portable or build with appropriate
flags.This is Free Software, under the licenseAGPL version 3.If you appreciate this software, you are free to contact theauthor, or
evensupporthim.Also you are more than welcome to propose patches: bugfixes, or new
features, like support of more target environments, other shells thanbashandzsh, etc.
See theContributingsection below.InstallationCrossroadis a typical python-style project, relying on Python 3.3 or
above. Seerequirements.txtfor additional Python 3 modules to
install. You will also need either7zorrpm2cpioinstalled.To install frompypi, just run:$ pip3 install crossroadOr download from the archive:$ ./setup.py installSetting-UpCrossroaddoes not need any particular cross-compilation tool to run
at first, but it will tell you what you are missing to go further, and
you won’t be able to enter a cross-compilation environment until this is
installed.List targets with:$ crossroad --list-targets
crossroad, version 0.8
Available targets:
- w64                  Windows 64-bit
- android-mips         Generic Android/Bionic on MIPS
- android-arm          Generic Android/Bionic on ARM
- native               Native platform (x86_64 GNU/Linux)
- android-mips64       Generic Android/Bionic on MIPS64
- android-x86          Generic Android/Bionic on x86
- android-x86-64       Generic Android/Bionic on x86-64
- android-arm64        Generic Android/Bionic on ARM64

Uninstalled targets:
w32                  Windows 32-bit

See details about any target with `crossroad --help <TARGET>`.In the above example, I can compile for Windows 64-bit, not 32-bit.To get details about a target’s missing dependencies, for instance
Windows 32-bit:$ crossroad -h w32
w32: Setups a cross-compilation environment for Microsoft Windows operating systems (32-bit).

Not available. Some requirements are missing:
- i686-w64-mingw32-gcc [package "gcc-mingw-w64-i686"] (missing)
- i686-w64-mingw32-ld [package "binutils-mingw-w64-i686"]It will return a list of required binaries that crossroad cannot find.
If you actually have them, the most likely reason is that you should
update your$PATHwith the right location. In the above example,crossroadcould find your MinGW linker, but not the compiler. It also
informs you of a possible package name (your distribution may use a
different name, but it would still give a useful hint for searching in
your package manager).Install the missing requirements and run crossroad again:$ crossroad --list-targets
crossroad, version 0.8
Available targets:
- w64                  Windows 64-bit
- w32                  Windows 32-bit
[… more output …]
$ crossroad -h w32
w32: Setups a cross-compilation environment for Microsoft Windows operating systems (32-bit).

Installed language list:
- C
Uninstalled language list:
- Ada                 Common package name providing the feature: gnat-mingw-w64-i686
- C++                 Common package name providing the feature: g++-mingw-w64-i686
- OCaml               Common package name providing the feature: mingw-ocaml
- Objective C         Common package name providing the feature: gobjc++-mingw-w64-i686
- fortran             Common package name providing the feature: gfortran-mingw-w64-i686You will notice that noww32is available in your list of target, but
also the specific help is more complete and will also tell you a list of
possible languages that MinGW can handle if you installed additional
packages.Note: crossroad has actually been tested only with C and C++ projects.
But I welcome any usage report with other languages.UsageThe full usage is available as a manual. Once installed, it is available
withman crossroad. The below preview presents the main usage examples.From a command line, run:$ crossroad w64 myprojectThis will set up aWindows 64-bitcross-compilation environment called
“myproject”.Your prompt will also be slightly modified (only adding information.
Whatever custom prompt hack you may have — for instance displaying
information on a code repository — will be untouched) to show you are
in your working cross-compilation environment.Note: only `bash` and`zsh` are supported right now.All necessary environment variables for successful builds, likePATH,LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc., are set for you.
Moreover the crossroad command is modified once in a cross-compilation
environment. You cancrossroad -horcrossroad helpto see the new
list of commands.You are now ready to configure and compile any project for your target
platform.Note that several projects, even for a same target, won’t share any data.
For instance if you have a GIMP and Blender both using libpng, you would
have to install it in both environments. This is because you usually
don’t want to mix data from various projects and keep a clean slate.
Nevertheless if you wish a holdall project for a given target, you can
also do so.Example: autotoolsLet’s imagine you want to compile any software with a typical GNU
compilation system, for Windows 64-bit.First enter crossroad:$ crossroad w64 myprojectNormally your shell prompt will be modified at this point.Enter your source code:$ cd /some/path/to/your/source/In a typical autotools project, you will have here access to a
`configure` script, or with ways to build one, for instance by
running an `autogen.sh` first.Configure your build:$ crossroad configureThere is no need to add a–prefix, a–host, or a–build.
These are automatically and appropriately set up for you.Of course you should add any other option as you would normally do
to your `configure` step.For instance if your project had a libjpeg dependency that you want
to deactivate:$ crossroad configure –without-libjpegSee the./configure –helpof a project for listing of its
available options.Note: VPATH builds are also supported. You can run a configure from
another directory this way:$ crossroad ../some/other/path/configure --without-libjpegHere the configure may fail if you miss anydependency. You may
install many dependencies easily through crossroad. Crossroad
supports pre-built Windows packages from Fedora, openSUSE and msys2
projects.See the manual for more details on this feature as you can also
search packages, get info, uninstall them and so on.Let’s say for instance that your project depends on
glib. You could just run:$ crossroad install glib2Do this step as many times as necessary, until the configure step3.succeeds. Then go to the next step.Buildand install in the most common way possible:$ make
$ make installTest:$ make checkThis one may seem weird, but actually if you have Wine installed and
registered inbinfmt_miscto execute win32 binaries,crossroadset up properly the Wine environment so that it can find the
executables and DLLs you installed withmake install. As a
consequence, amake checkmight just work, even though there is no
certainty, since this is not exactly the same as running on the native
win32 platform. For the records, I have been able to run successfulmake checkon projects as complicated asGIMP.
Of course, a failedmake checkof Windows binaries in a GNU/Linux
environment does not mean necessarily your build is a failure, because
running win32 bin throughwinewill never be as ideal as running through
an actual Windows OS (as you surely know).All done! Just exit your cross-compilation environment withctrl-dorexit.
To test your binaries on an actual Windows machine,crossroadprovides 2 tools.Make a zip of your whole cross-compiled tree with the following:$ crossroad --compress=mysoftware.zip w64 myprojectThis will create a zip filemysoftware.zipthat you can just
move over to your test Windows OS. Then uncompress it, and set or
update your PATH environment variable with thebin/directory
of this uncompressed prefix.Note: only zip format supported for the moment, since it is the
most common compression format for Windows.If you are running Windows in a VM for instance, or are sharing
partitions, you can just add a link in a shared directory.
Just cd to the shared directory and run:$ crossroad --symlink w64 myprojectThis will create a symlink namedcrossroad-w64-myproject/to the
“myproject” project for the “w64” target.
Since the directory is shared, it should be visible in Windows as
a normal directory.Then run your app, and enjoy!Note: this has been tested with success on many projects,
cross-compiled for Windows: cairo, babl, GEGL, glib, GTK+, libpng,
pango, freetype2, gdk-pixbuf, GIMP, Siril and many more.Example: CMakeCMake uses toolchain files. Crossroad prepared one for you, so you don’t
have to worry about it.
Simply replace the step (3) of the autotools example with this command:$ crossroad cmake .A common cmake usage is to create a build/ directory and build there.
You can do so with crossroad, of course:$ mkdir build; cd build
$ crossroad cmake ..Alternatively crossroad allows to use the curses interface ofcmake:$ crossroad ccmake .The rest should be the same, withmake && make install, and you can
add any options to your build the usual way.This has been tested with success on allegro 5, and Exiv2 libraries,
cross-compiled for Windows.Example: MesonMeson uses toolchain files as well. Here again, Crossroad prepared them
for you.
Simply replace the step (3) of the autotools example with this command:$ crossroad meson /path/to/source/ /path/to/build/Now you can simply build and install:$ ninja
$ ninja installThis has also been used with success on many programs, since Meson-using
programs are increasing rapidly these days.Example: SConsA very basic support of scons build system has been added to crossroad,
though there seems to be no actual standard there for cross-compilation.
As a consequence, the support in crossroad is only following some common
usage I saw in a few projects, but it may not work in your case.Another issue is that scons does not even have standard for basic
features like prefix path. So you have to use the environment variable$CROSSROAD_PREFIXand use it were appropriate yourself.For instance, assuming your scons scripts use–prefixoption, running
scons through crossroad could be done this way:$ crossroad scons install –prefix=$CROSSROAD_PREFIXIn any cases, scons is really not a recommended build system if you wish
to have an easy cross-buildable project. If you don’t manage to
cross-compile your project, rather than tweaking your SConscript files
indefinitely, consider taking the time to port your project to autotools
or meson.Note that crossroad has been used on some scons-using projects back in
the days, but I have not seen any more of them for a few years now. I am
not sure of the current level of support.Example: otherIt has not been tested with any other compilation system up to now. So
it all depends what they require for a cross-compilation.
But since acrossroadenvironment prepares a bunch of environment
variables for you, and helps you download dependencies, no doubt it will
already make your life easier.Theconfigure,cmake,ccmakeandmesonsubcommands are simple
wrappers around respectively any./configurescript,cmake,ccmakeandmesoncommands, adding some default options (which crossroad
prepared) for successful cross-compilation.For instancecrossroad configureis the equivalent of running:$ ./configure --prefix=$CROSSROAD_PREFIX --host=$CROSSROAD_HOST --build=$CROSSROAD_BUILDAndcrossroad cmake /some/pathis nothing more than:$ cmake /some/path -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$CROSSROAD_PREFIX -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$CROSSROAD_CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILEHere is the list of useful, easy-to-remember and ready-to-use,
environment variables, prepared by crossroad:$CROSSROAD_PREFIX$CROSSROAD_HOME$CROSSROAD_HOST$CROSSROAD_BUILD$CROSSROAD_CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE$CROSSROAD_MESON_TOOLCHAIN_FILE$CROSSROAD_PLATFORM$CROSSROAD_PLATFORM_NICENAME$CROSSROAD_PROJECT$CROSSROAD_WORD_SIZEDonotmodify these environment variables. They have been set-up
for your builds to work successfully. If you modify these, you will get
into trouble.What it means though is that you can use these for other compilation
systems. You can also use yourcrossroadprefix, even for systems
which do not require any compilation. Let’s say for instance you wish
to include a pure python project in your build. No per-platform
compilation is needed, but you still want to carry all the files in the
same prefix. So just run:$ ./setup.py install –prefix=$CROSSROAD_PREFIXand so on.Note: as you may have guessed, `$CROSSROAD_PREFIX` encapsulates your
new cross-built project and all its dependencies.
Though in most cases, you should not need to manually go there do
anything, you still can (for instance to change software settings, etc.)
with `cd $CROSSROAD_PREFIX`.Special case: WineSome software have proved extremely hard to cross-compile, mostly because
of weird custom build systems or strange designs. I had this case for
Python, which even went as far as forbidding cross-builds for hosts they
didn’t approve with specific configure tests.
I have been therefore unable to crossbuild it. One solution could be to
fix the build system (which I started to do for Python until I discovered
bug reports with patches for specifically this, and opened for eons), or
to install in Windows, and import the data (but then you lose the
flexibility or building all on the same machine).My other workaround has been to install with Wine. In my Python example, I
have indeed been able to run the 32-bit installer (not the 64-bit one).
When doing so in a crossroad environment, the data will be automatically
installed under$CROSSROAD_PREFIX/wine/.
Then you just have to update any necessary environment variable in order
for your builds to discover any library/header if necessary (I don’t see
how to do so automatically with a Windows tree being so “random”).EnvironmentsWindowsThis tool has been originally created to cross-build GIMP (and its
dependencies when needed) for Windows and this is still one my main
usage. It has proven to be able to generically cross-build many dozens
of projects and I am confident it should work pretty well for any
Autotools, CMake or Meson project out there, unless they really use
non-standard tricks (in which case, the most relevant course of action
is often to send a patch to the upstream project in order to improve
their build system).
If you encounter standard cases which crossroad does not properly
support, please send me a patch!NativeThis target environment may look very weird since this tool was
originally made for cross-compilation, but it has become my main usage
of crossroad these days (I mean a daily usage for all my development).Developers have all sort of tricks to build, install and test their
software in non-standard prefixes by tweaking environment variables.Sometimes you may have a unique place (set up in your.bashrcfor
instance), but then when you want to clean a single program without
touching the rest, it can be a problem. Worse, you can’t install several
versions of the same program. And last, but not least, installing low
level libraries (glib, GTK, etc.) may end up breaking your user system
as these variables are picked up by your desktop.Other times, you make unique scripts to have these changes only in the
current shell. This is very inconvenient and bug-prone as it requires
one script per project with specific paths which you have to manage. You
are bound to mess up at some point.With the native environment,crossroadjust take care of everything
for me, sets up my environment variable, and manage my prefix. Say I
want to build GIMP. I’d run:$ crossroad native gimpNow I am in a specifically generated environment for my GIMP build.
Let’s build GIMP:$ ccd -y gimp
$ crossroad meson /path/to/gimp && ninja && ninja installI can now run GIMP from command line:gimp-2.99Note that this binary is only visible when inside the crossroad
environment. I could also install any dependency in the same
environment, say an experimental version of GTK+ for instance, without
fearing it to be picked up by my desktop, and potentially breaking it.
As soon as I get out of this shell, GIMP or any custom code is not
visible by the rest of the system.Say now I want to create another GIMP build in another shell (with some
patchs applied), I could create a new crossroad project:$ crossroad native gimp-testsBoth environment live next to each other without interfering and I can
now call one or another without messing up with files.Now if I want to get rid of mygimp-testsproject, I could just run:$ crossroad --reset native gimp-testsAnd the whole project and all its files would be just gone. Cleaning as
simple as ever.AndroidA few years back, I started to use crossroad to cross-compile C
libraries for Android. It did pretty well and I could successfully run
some test programs in Java using these C libraries. I have not worked
much on this platform since then. It may just be broken now, I don’t
know.Still I leave this here in case it is helpful to someone. If you need
Android support and some of the support incrossroadis not really
optimal, I will gladly accept patches.ARMI had an early attempt to add arm-linux-gnu and arm-none-eabi (bare
metal if not mistaken) but in the end didn’t include them because I
never actually tested these for real projects (never had the occasion!)
so this support is deactivated in releasedcrossroad.If anyone wants to play with it, please feel free to try the development
version (edit thedeactivated_platformsvariable insetup.pybefore
installing).ConfigurationCrossroadrelies on XDG standards.
Right now it does not need any configuration file, but it will soon probably.
And these will be in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/crossroad/ (defaults to $HOME/.config/crossroad/).Cache is saved in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/crossroad/ and data in $XDG_DATA_HOME/crossroad/.The only configuration right now is that in case you use a
self-installed MinGW-w64 prefix of Windows libraries, if they are not in
the same prefix as the MinGW-64 executables you run, you can set
$CROSSROAD_CUSTOM_MINGW_W32_PREFIX and $CROSSROAD_CUSTOM_MINGW_W64_PREFIX
respectively for your 32-bit and 64-bit installation of MinGW-w64.Note: I have not used these 2 environment variables for years now and
wonder if they are really useful. They may become deprecated in a close
future.HelpCrossroadprovides inline help withcrossroad -hbut also by
installing a man page in section 1:$ man crossroadContributingYou can view the git branch on the web at:http://git.tuxfamily.org/crossroad/crossroadAnd clone it with:$ git clone git://git.tuxfamily.org/gitroot/crossroad/crossroad.gitThen send yourgit-format-ed patches by email to crossroad <at> girinstud.io.About the nameThe name is a hommage to “cross road blues” by Robert Johnson, which
spawned dozens, if not hundreds, of other versions by so many artists.
I myself always play this song (or rather a version with modified lyrics
adapted to my experience) in concerts.