Unable to build on SheevaPlug (ARM)

[blalor]

System config info: https://gist.github.com/509ed97da39c52fca1fe#file_0_sysinfo.txt

I'm building from master (cf2ee19).

Initial make after configure fails: https://gist.github.com/509ed97da39c52fca1fe#file_4_compile_output.txt

Per @bnoordhuis's comment on #1566 I ran:

perl -i -pe "s/'-m32'//g" $(find -name \*.gypi) 

The build now fails like this:

In file included from ../deps/v8/src/v8globals.h:31,
                 from ../deps/v8/src/v8.h:53,
                 from /home/blalor/nodejs/out/Release/obj/gen/libraries.cc:7:
../deps/v8/src/globals.h:113:2: error: #error Target architecture ia32 is only supported on ia32 host
make[1]: *** [/home/blalor/nodejs/out/Release/obj.host/v8_nosnapshot/gen/libraries.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/blalor/nodejs/out'
make: *** [all] Error 2

[blalor]

options.gypi modified by hand thusly. Now getting tons of undefined reference to … errors; check 'em here.

At this point, I'm stuck.

current build process

1. clean: git ls-files --other | xargs rm
2. configure: ./configure --prefix=/opt/local/nodejs --without-ssl
3. tweak options.gypi
4. invoke make with overrides (in bash shell):
   E="-march=armv5t -mfloat-abi=soft"; make CFLAGS="$E" CCFLAGS="$E" CXXFLAGS="$E"

[bnoordhuis]

Now getting tons of undefined reference to … errors

Can you try this patch? It seems v8 needs some guidance on what platform to build for.

diff --git a/common.gypi b/common.gypi
index 0a4183b..3db618b 100644
--- a/common.gypi
+++ b/common.gypi
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
     'library%': 'static_library',    # allow override to 'shared_library' for DLL/.so builds
     'component%': 'static_library',  # NB. these names match with what V8 expects
     'msvs_multi_core_compile': '0',  # we do enable multicore compiles, but not using the V8 way
+    'v8_target_arch%': '<(target_arch)',
   },

   'target_defaults': {

[blalor]

No change, I'm afraid.

[bnoordhuis]

Okay, you'll have to play around with it. v8_target_arch is the key here, deps/v8/tools/gyp/v8.gyp depends on it being set to "arm" to compile the right sources.

[blalor]

Should options.gypi be setting target_arch and host_arch to arm or armv5t? The only real logic I see in the v8 config related to arm specifies armv7. Does v8 even support this architecture?

[bnoordhuis]

Should options.gypi be setting target_arch and host_arch to arm or armv5t

arm

The only real logic I see in the v8 config related to arm specifies armv7. Does v8 even support this architecture?

armv5t? Yes.

[blalor]

I changed target_arch and host_arch in options.gypi to "arm"; options.gypi in its entirety:

{
  "variables": {
    "node_prefix": "/opt/local/nodejs", 
    "node_shared_cares": "false", 
    "node_shared_v8": "false", 
    "node_use_openssl": "false", 
    "target_arch": "arm", 
    "node_debug": "false", 
    "host_arch": "arm", 
    "v8_use_snapshot": "true", 
    "node_use_dtrace": "false"
  }, 
  "target_defaults": {
    "libraries": [
      "-lz"
    ], 
    "defines": [], 
    "cflags": [], 
    "include_dirs": []
  }
}

make now dies with:

[blalor@pepe ~/nodejs]> E="-march=armv5t -mfloat-abi=soft"; make CFLAGS="$E" CCFLAGS="$E" CXXFLAGS="$E"
tools/gyp_node -f make
['-f', 'make', '/home/blalor/nodejs/node.gyp', '-I', '/home/blalor/nodejs/common.gypi', '-I', '/home/blalor/nodejs/options.gypi', '--depth=.', '--generator-output', '/home/blalor/nodejs/out', '-Goutput_dir=/home/blalor/nodejs/out', '-Dtarget_arch=ia32', '-Dcomponent=static_library', '-Dlibrary=static_library']
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tools/gyp_node", line 60, in <module>
    run_gyp(gyp_args)
  File "tools/gyp_node", line 18, in run_gyp
    rc = gyp.main(args)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/__init__.py", line 465, in main
    options.circular_check)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/__init__.py", line 101, in Load
    depth, generator_input_info, check, circular_check)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 2265, in Load
    depth, check)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 435, in LoadTargetBuildFile
    includes, depth, check)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 389, in LoadTargetBuildFile
    build_file_path)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 986, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict
    ProcessConditionsInDict(the_dict, is_late, variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 863, in ProcessConditionsInDict
    variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 1012, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict
    build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 1027, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInList
    ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict(item, is_late, variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 1012, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict
    build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 1027, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInList
    ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict(item, is_late, variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 986, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict
    ProcessConditionsInDict(the_dict, is_late, variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 863, in ProcessConditionsInDict
    variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 986, in ProcessVariablesAndConditionsInDict
    ProcessConditionsInDict(the_dict, is_late, variables, build_file)
  File "./tools/gyp/pylib/gyp/input.py", line 844, in ProcessConditionsInDict
    if eval(ast_code, {'__builtins__': None}, variables):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'armv7' is not defined while evaluating condition 'armv7==1' in /home/blalor/nodejs/deps/v8/tools/gyp/v8-node.gyp while loading dependencies of /home/blalor/nodejs/node.gyp while trying to load /home/blalor/nodejs/node.gyp
make: *** [all] Error 1

(same result with and without the extra flags on the make commandline).

Current patch is here. I've tried a few different variations of arm and armv5t with the various *_arch flags in the v8 source without luck, and occasionally reproducing the above stack trace.

[philcali]

I was able to build the latest stable (v0.6.6) on Debian squeeze running in an ARM emulator.

I passed -march=armv5t into the CCFLAGS, and forced -mfloat-abi=soft when building v8. Changing the SConstruct file in deps/v8 was all that required for this build.

Afterwards, I copied the example http server located here http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.2.5/api.html, and tested it:

> ./node example.js &
[1] 4344
Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8124
> curl http://127.0.0.1:8124
Hello Word
> kill -9 4344
[1]+ Killed        ./node example.js

I'm not sure if that will help with your build, but I thought I would share my experience.

[blalor]

@philcali can you post the exact steps you took to get it v0.6.6 to build on ARM?

[philcali]

Absolutely.

• Upon successful debian installation, you need to install pkg-config so node can pick up the openssl libs (if you want ssl, otherwise disregard this step):

> su
> apt-get install pkg-config
> exit

• Download the latest node source:

> mkdir tmp; cd tmp
> wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.6/node-v0.6.6.tar.gz
> tar -xvf node-v0.6.6.tar.gz
> rm node-v0.6.6.tar.gz
> cd node-v0.6.6

• I had to edit deps/v8/SConstruct to get v8 to compile properly. Once this worked for me, I did not investigate other ways to pass these options along. Anyway, on line 82, add -march=armv5t or:

80 'gcc': {
81      'all': {
82        'CCFLAGS': ['$DIALECTFLAGS', '$WARNINGFLAGS', '-march=armv5t'],
83        'CXXFLAGS': ['-fno-rtti', '-fno-exceptions'],
84      },

• I had to force -mfloat-abi=soft in the v8 build, by changing the default on line 1083 to soft, or:

1081  'armeabi': {
1082    'values': ['hard', 'softfp', 'soft'],
1083    'default': 'soft',
1084    'help': 'generate calling conventiont according to selected ARM EABI variant'

• You're ready to run ./configure now. If the compile fails at snapshot.cc, then compile without it by passing --without-snapshot. I'm pretty sure I did without snapshot because startup times wasn't important to what I'm experimenting with.

> ./configure --without-snapshot

• Everything should pass. If everything passes, then it's vanilla building time:

> make

• Run your tests
• Profit!

[paulisimo]

@philcali I get this error on make

make -C out BUILDTYPE=Release make[1]: Entering directory /home/app/src/node/out'
CC(target) /home/app/src/node/out/Release/obj.target/http_parser/deps/http_parser/http_parser.o
cc1: error: unrecognized command line option "-m32"
make[1]: *** [/home/app/src/node/out/Release/obj.target/http_parser/deps/http_parser/http_parser.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory /home/app/src/node/out' make: *** [node] Error 2

Which version of debian are you running?

[philcali]

I'm running debian squeeze (running in ARM versatile mode, I should mention). When I run a uname -a in the emulator, I get:

Linux debian 2.6.32-5-versatile #1 Tue Oct 4 01:32:59 UTC 2011 armv5etj1 GNU/Linux

On a slightly different note, I used this exact emulator with similar build instructions to build a working node executable (v0.6.6) for my android tablet (2.6.36 armv7a device). The steps I used for that is a little bit more complicated and hackish, though.

[blalor]

I followed @philcali's instructions and was able to build v0.6.6 on a Sheevaplug. Great progress!