Shrinking the kernel with an axe

Posted Feb 9, 2018 22:56 UTC (Fri) by rbrito (guest, #66188)
In reply to: Shrinking the kernel with an axe by vadim
Parent article: Shrinking the kernel with an axe

Thanks for the reply.

The idea here would be to build on a machine that has more RAM and, then, use the packages on that NAS...

I don't know how easy Gentoo makes building and then transferring the packages/programs to another machine, though (or, perhaps, cross-compiling).

I would appreciate any comments on that.

to post comments

Shrinking the kernel with an axe

Posted Feb 10, 2018 8:17 UTC (Sat) by dirtyepic (guest, #30178) [Link]

Gentoo has built-in support for cross compiling using crossdev. It's all integrated into the package manager so building binaries for another architecture is no different than building for the native system. There are also profiles for things like uClibc/musl if you want to go that direction.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Embedded_Handbook
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Cross_build_environment

If you're just looking to offload compiling to a machine of the same architecture that has more resources, then Portage can be set up to use distcc as easily as setting a couple config options.

I have to disagree with the parent comment. Gentoo's main selling point is its flexibility. It lets you build a system that has exactly what you need and nothing more. In other words, it's shrinking the distro with an axe. If anything performance is just a side effect of the method it uses to accomplish this.

Of course, Gentoo's main downfall is also its flexibility. It turns out that building a system that has exactly what you need requires you to know exactly what you need first.