building Kobo development environment

[NiLuJe]

Sidebar: set --prefix properly, you won't need to pass a DESTDIR to make install.

Don't set --build, that's generally not needed, and actively harmful in some circumstances.

Still: works on my end, so, PEBCAK it is .

[BloodRagg]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Why do you want to compile the glibc? It's a *very* hairy process, best left to dedicated tools (f.g., buildroot), that no-one not actually building a distro should ever need to go through.

I am trying to build from scratch , i dont want glibc if there is a proper alternative that makes it boot properly. I need:kernel, busybox glibc dropbear and koreader, without glibc it wont boot.

But then again I did not see glibc in kobo's repo either so im wondering what they used

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Sidebar: set --prefix properly, you won't need to pass a DESTDIR to make install.

Don't set --build, that's generally not needed, and actively harmful in some circumstances.

Still: works on my end, so, PEBCAK it is .

It is highly likely almost always pebcak, otherwise its a bug

[NiLuJe]

It was *probably* eglibc 2_15, before eglibc was merged back into glibc.

I'd highly recommend doing that with a real rootfs-building tool, like buildroot or something else, because, err, it'll make your life much, much, much easier. Plus, *you* will be dictating the TC, and the usual rootbuilding tools obviously do roll a TC as part of the process.

Things will get hairy if you want to match the Kobo's vanilla env for compatibility, because building older glibcs can be just plain hellish.

EDIT: I have no personal stake in the choice of tools, as I've never used one myself, I stick to x-compiling userland stuff with ct-ng TCs [But since that *does* involve x-compiling older glibcs, I have a long and varied history with that ^^]. I do know people have used buildroot in the past for Kindle stuff, but that's it .

[BloodRagg]

Im not into the automation tools, i might start using them when i know how it works by hand.

Their libraries are small, and it "looks" like Kobo isnt compliant with GPL as the package is missing from their repo.
They havent used files from the toolchain either, those are way too big.

Its booting with their files, that presumably looking at their names are from glibc 2.11: ./ld-2.11.1.so, ./libc-2.11.1.so ..etc.

Slimmed down its about 4MB, KOReader adds another 65MB.

[NiLuJe]

Libraries update are handled in a fairly arcane way by Kobo (for some reason): the UI historically used Qt4, but now uses Qt5, yet the Qt4 paths are somehow still half in use.

The glibc used to be ebligc_2.11, but was updated to eglibc_2.15 at one point, yet the filenames weren't changed.

[BloodRagg]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Libraries update are handled in a fairly arcane way by Kobo (for some reason): the UI historically used Qt4, but now uses Qt5, yet the Qt4 paths are somehow still half in use.

The glibc used to be ebligc_2.11, but was updated to eglibc_2.15 at one point, yet the filenames weren't changed.

That is caused by their update process, just dumps files in, but does not delete obsolete ones. .
I did not see eglibc either, so i filed an issue on GH.
They are 9 years overdue already so ill give m some slack

Hope they wont take forever

[BloodRagg]

Well seems, they used sysroot from the toolchain:

Hello BloodRagg,

We're using the glibc from the toolchains here:
https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Reader/tree/master/toolchain.
In particular, latest firmware would be using glibc from the
Linaro gcc 4.8 toolchain.

The source for the toolchain can be found around here
https://releases.linaro.org/archive/13.04/components/toolchain/gcc-linaro/4.8/

No modifications were made, except for stripping the binaries
of debug symbols to save space.

https://github.com/kobolabs/Kobo-Reader/issues/80

They were fast