kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> In a half hour last night, I was able to cross compile python for windows, on linux,
using mingw32.
> Just get source to tag v2.7.1 python using hg, then apply David's cmake patch. Build a
simple CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE for your linux mingw toolset, and it built just fine.



I spent some time on the python developer's mailing list last night, measuring their pain,
following their struggles, while I was waiting for a Ubuntu LTS distro (lucid->precise)
upgrade to complete.


In my view they are having a miserable time with a number of items.


*) distutils is not convenient for cross compiling.  It seems a portion of it needs to get
built before you can build
  python modules even in a non-cross environment.


  http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-December/123061.html


*) autoconf versions and version dependent artifacts creating repo churn.

  http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-October/122166.html


*) binary final product installers.



CMake should be like manna from heaven for them.  We should feel like a chain saw salesman
right after a hurricane, grinning ear to ear.


SoftPLC uses CMake for building runtime extensions to our control engine software.  From
one source directory, you can generate ARMV4T, x86, or ARMV7 binaries using a
multi-processor toolchain tree.

But the magic is CMake and its support for CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE.  Could almost say it is easy.