[Pkg-pascal-devel] Castle Game Engine build tool

[Michalis Kamburelis]

2016-02-16 12:37 GMT+01:00 Abou Al Montacir <abou.almontacir at sfr.fr>:
> Using multi-arch you are probably able to compile for Debian for an other
> CPU.

As far as I understood, Debian multi-arch is about installing
libraries for multiple architectures on the same system (
https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch ). This is very useful for
cross-compiling of course. But does Debian multi-arch also deal with
distributing cross-compilers itself?

I mean, in an ideal future, I would like to install on my Debian Linux
(x86_64) an FPC binary that runs on x86_64 and can compile to arm
(e.g. running Android OS) or i386 (e.g. running 32-bit Linux or
Windows OS). That is, "ppcross386" or "ppcrossarm", running on x86_64.
I would like to install them of course using pure "apt-get install
..." calls (without the need to make cross-compiler myself from FPC
sources, like I do now). Is this within the scope of Debian
multi-arch?

If this is within the scope of Debian multi-arch, or just your TODO,
then it's great! I volunteer for testing, as cross-compiling with FPC
is very very useful for me:)

> However for Windows a Android, you will need to recompile RTL, but this
> could be done using fpc-source

Sure, you can use fpc-source for that. But that's a little cheating:)

I mean, using FPC sources, you can compile for yourself FPC RTL for
Windows, or FPC RTL for Android, or FPC cross-compiler from x86_64 to
arm. But doing this is more complicated than just installing package
like "fpc-windows-rtl" or "fpc-android-rtl" and
"fpc-android-arm-cross-compiler":) If you can (or want) to work with
FPC sources, then you can probably do all this with upstream sources
from freepascal.org, no need to really install Debian package
fpc-source.

BTW, I'm not sure whether FPC Makefile/fpmake system supports
out-of-tree build. So to use fpc-source like that, you may need to "cp
-R /usr/share/fpcsrc/XXX ..." them to your home.

> You cannot cross-compile to Android. For this, you're missing
>
> This will come soon or late. It is on my todo list to make it easy to build
> APK using FPC on a Debian box. I just need time, but maybe I should write
> some wiki page about it.
>

That's excellent news!:) Right now my instruction for setting up
environment for using Castle Game Engine + Android look quite long
(describe getting Android SDK, then Android NDK, then FPC
cross-compiler to Android+Arm). See here:

  https://github.com/castle-engine/castle-engine/wiki/Android

It would be absolutely fantastic if I could one day write there "If
you're on Debian, no need to read this, just apt-get instal
fpc-for-android"!

Regards,
Michalis