Compiling AROS

Abstract

This document will explain how to compile AROS. Development of AROS is currently not self-hosted, which means that you cannot compile AROS from inside AROS. To compile and develop for AROS, you will need a Linux or FreeBSD system.

Contents

Requirements
Sources
Building
- Configuring
  - Hosted AROS/i386-linux or AROS/i386-freebsd
  - Native AROS/i386-pc
- Compiling
  - Hosted AROS/i386-linux or AROS/i386-freebsd
  - Native AROS/i386-pc
Appendix
- Building several targets from the same source
- Compiling HowTos

Requirements

The following software is required for compiling AROS:

GCC 3.2.2+
GNU Binutils
GNU Make
GNU AWK (GAWK) - other awks may also be suitable
Python 2.2.1+
Bison
Flex
pngtopnm and ppmtoilbm (part of the netpbm package)
Autoconf
Automake
Common utilities like cp, mv, sort, uniq, head, ...

If you want to compile the hosted i386-linux or i386-freebsd ports, the following is also required:

X11 development headers and libraries

Sources

You can download the AROS sources either from the download page or by using SVN (which requires that you apply for access though). In the former case, getting the source package is enough (unless you also want to compile the contrib programs). In the latter case, see subversion documentation.

Building

Configuring

First of all, you need to run configure in the root of the AROS sources:

> cd AROS
> ./configure

You can specify several options to configure. The following options are available for all targets:

--enable-debug=LIST [default: none]

Enable different types of debug. Commas or whitespaces can be used to separate the items in the list. If no list is provided then all is assumed. If --enable-debug is not specified at all, none is the default. Available types:

none: Disables all debug types, and debugging in general.
all: Enables all debug types below.
stack: Enables stack debug.
mungwall: Enables mungwall debug.
modules: Enables modules debug.

Hosted AROS/i386-linux or AROS/i386-freebsd

You do not have to specify the --target option to build these targets. The following options are available for hosted builds:

--with-resolution=WIDTHxHEIGHTxDEPTH [default: 800x600x8]: Set the default resolution and depth AROS will use.
--enable-xshm-extension [default: enabled]: Enable usage of the X11 MIT-SHM extension. Enabling it gives a significant performance gain, but it might not work very well if you are using a remote display.

You cannot crosscompile these ports.

Native AROS/i386-pc

To build the i386-pc port, you need to pass --target=pc-i386 to configure. Additionally, the following i386-pc specific options are available:

--with-serial-debug=N [default: disabled]: Enable serial debug, sending the output to port N.

Compiling

To start the compilation, simply run:

> make

IF this doesn't work after a SVN update, you can try:

> make clean
> rm -rf bin/
> ./configure {options}
> make

If you use FreeBSD or some other system that does not use GNU Make as the system make, then you should substitute the GNU Make command for the above. For example, under FreeBSD you must install the GNU Make port, then run:

> gmake

Hosted AROS/i386-linux or AROS/i386-freebsd

If you are building a hosted i386-linux or i386-freebsd build, you should additionally also run the following to properly setup the keyboard support:

> make default-x11keymaptable

Native AROS/i386-pc

If you are building the native i386-pc port, you will find a bootable floppy image at bin/pc-i386/gen/rom/boot/aros.bin after the compilation has finished. Additionally, you can create a bootable ISO image by running:

> make bootiso-pc-i386

The ISO image can be found at bin/pc-i386/gen/rom/boot/aros.iso.

Appendix

Building several targets from the same source

If you intend to compile several different targets from one source tree, then you first have to go through the configuration step for each of your targets. You can add targets at any time you want. The last target specified to configure is the default target.

To select a specific target when building, simply run make like this:

> AROS_TARGET_ARCH=$ARCH AROS_TARGET_CPU=$CPU make

Where $ARCH is the architecture of the wanted build, and $CPU is the CPU. Eg., to build AROS/i386-pc you would run:

> AROS_TARGET_ARCH=pc AROS_TARGET_CPU=i386 make

If you are building several ports that use the same CPU, you only have to specify AROS_TARGET_ARCH as the CPU will stay the same.

After you`ve made "make" once, and some changes were made to the files, you can use quick compilation of changes using make <target-name>-quick command.

Compiling HowTos

This step-by-step guide will describe how to prepare the development environment and compile AROS on Ubuntu Linux 6.10 "Edgy Eft". Let's assume you have a CD image (iso) from ubuntu sites and have installed the system from it. Also you should tune it to make it acessing the Internet.

Getting the needed packages

Because the Live CD misses needed packages we have to get them from internet:

> sudo apt-get install subversion gcc-3.4 gawk bison flex netpbm autoconf automake1.4 libx11-dev libc6-dev

You will need to enter your user password at the prompt.

Setting the locale to ISO8859

This step is not strictly necessary. However, file names with accented characters will not be reproduced properly if it is not done. Just find the en_US iso 8859-1 string in the list provided by the following applications and choose it:

> sudo apt-get install localeconf
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure localeconf

Then we will set the console's locale:

> sudo locale-gen "en_US"
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
> export LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-1"

Get the sources

To find out more instruction on how to use our SVN Repository, please refer to Working with Subversion

In brief, the commands you must use are the following:

> svn checkout https://svn.aros.org/svn/aros/trunk/AROS
> cd AROS
> svn checkout https://svn.aros.org/svn/aros/trunk/contrib

Configure and compile AROS sources

First we will set parameters and configure:

> export CC="gcc-3.4"
> ./configure

Finally, type:

> make

This shall take a while (up to some hours on slow machines) :) After that you will get AROS-hosted compiled. Please also note that you might need internet access during the progress, used to download latest EUAE sources.