How to Cross Compile for Cell Linux on the PS3 from Windows?

Question

How can a cross compilation setup be achieved to allow compiling Cell Linux programs on a Windows PC using the cygwin toolchain? The cygwin tools provide a GNU compiler to use in building the cross compiler, and associated tools for the build process e.g. rpm, cpio, make, flex, bison and so on.

I am moderately confident this is possible, but unaware of anyone who has actually done this. It has already been done for x86 Linux, but I wish to use Windows, without requiring the use and overhead of a virtual machine running an entire 2nd operating system.

The Cell Linux toolchain is a patched GNU toolchain, with C and C++ compilers for the PPU and SPU processors, and associated binutils. The sources for the Cell Linux SDK for Cell Linux can be found here. The source RPMS here have build scripts for use with the rpmbuild tool on Linux.

The specific question is: how can a set of Cell Linux GNU compilers for the PPU and SPU processors be built, on Windows, using Cygwin.

Answer 1

I've never done it, so I can't give you step by step instructions, but I can give you a general idea.

The instructions you linked will serve as a pretty good outline, but there will be definite changes.

For the host PC, you can install gcc and other build tools from MinGW or cygwin. That will give you the windows native parts of your toolchain.

Then you'll need to download the sources for the cell portions of the toolchain and compile them (with the appropriate options, --target, etc.) using the build environment you just installed.

Then you download and compile the sources for libspe2, and you're done.

But I'll warn you - it sounds easier than it is. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on it.

Answer 2

Since you can already do this on Linux x86, why don't you just install Linux a virtual machine? Also, what might be even easier, is to install Portable Ubuntu for Windows. It runs Linux alongside Windows using coLinux. Although this may not be optimal, it is probably much easier than trying to compile everything on Windows.