Cross-compiling mc
August 3rd, 2012 | Last modified: February 25th, 2014
You’ll need the cross-compiled version of libiconv, libgettext, glib, and slang.
Compiling libiconv
1 2 3 | #!/bin/bash CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --enable-static make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libiconv |
Compiling libgettext
1 2 3 | #!/bin/bash CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --disable-csharp --disable-java --disable-openmp --disable-c++ --disable-native-java --enable-static --with-libiconv-prefix=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libiconv/usr make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libgettext |
Compiling libffi (needed by glib)
1 2 3 | #!/bin/bash CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libffi |
Compiling glib
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | #!/bin/bash echo "glib_cv_stack_grows=no" >config.cache echo "glib_cv_uscore=no" >>config.cache echo "ac_cv_func_posix_getpwuid_r=yes" >>config.cache echo "ac_cv_func_posix_getgrgid_r=yes" >>config.cache CPPFLAGS="-I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libffi/usr/lib/libffi-3.0.11/include -I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libgettext/usr/include" \ LDFLAGS="-L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libiconv/usr/lib -L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libgettext/usr/lib" \ LIBFFI_CFLAGS="-I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libffi/usr/lib/libffi-3.0.11/include" \ LIBFFI_LIBS="-L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libffi/usr/lib -lffi" \ CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr -C --enable-static make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib |
Compiling slang
1 2 3 | #!/bin/bash CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/slang |
Compiling mc
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | #!/bin/bash CPPFLAGS="-I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libiconv/usr/include -I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libgettext/usr/include -I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include" \ LDFLAGS="-L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libiconv/usr/lib -L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/libgettext/usr/lib -L/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib/usr/lib -lintl -lglib-2.0" \ PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib/usr/lib/pkgconfig \ GLIB_LIBDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/glib/usr/lib \ CC=arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --with-slang-includes=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/slang/usr/include --with-slang-libs=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/slang/usr/lib make install DESTDIR=/home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/mc |
You will find the compiled mc in /home/nonoo/common-libs-compiled/arm/mc.
Archived version of this post
Here’s how to cross-compile mc for the BeagleBone. This tutorial is suitable for other target platforms as well, you just have to use a different cross-compiler.
glib
To cross-compile compile Midnight Commander, you’ll have to compile glib first, otherwise mc will start with this error:
1 | mc: error while loading shared libraries: libgmodule-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory |
libffi
For glib, you’ll need libffi from here. Extract it and compile:
1 2 3 | CC=arm-arago-linux-gnueabi-gcc ./configure --host=arm --prefix=~/libffi make make install |
glib again
Download and extract the glib source, and compile it:
1 | PKG_CONFIG_PATH=~/libffi/lib/pkgconfig CC=arm-arago-linux-gnueabi-gcc ./configure --host=arm --prefix=~/glib -C |
This of course throws an error:
1 | configure: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling |
To fix this, I opened the configure script and searched for the cache variable names of the failed tests. More info about them here. Finally I added these to the config.cache file:
1 2 3 4 | glib_cv_stack_grows=no glib_cv_uscore=yes ac_cv_func_posix_getpwuid_r=yes ac_cv_func_posix_getgrgid_r=yes |
After this, configure ran without errors. I compiled glib then with make and make install.
slang
mc needs slang, so download it’s source and compile it:
1 2 3 | CC=arm-arago-linux-gnueabi-gcc ./configure --host=arm --prefix=~/slang make make install |
mc
Download and compile mc:
1 2 3 | PKG_CONFIG_PATH=~/glib/lib/pkgconfig GLIB_LIBDIR=~/glib/lib CC=arm-arago-linux-gnueabi-gcc ./configure --host=arm --prefix=~/mc --with-slang-includes=~/slang/include --with-slang-libs=~/slang/lib --with-glib-static make make install |
There were some errors, so I inserted this to the beginning of the configure script:
1 | fu_cv_sys_stat_statfs2_bsize=yes |
I had to remove the # from the beginning of the following line in src/Makefile:
1 | am__append_4 = -DSAVERDIR=""$(pkglibexecdir)"" |
After this configure ran without errors and I could proceed with compiling. I then copied the whole ~/mc dir to the /usr folder of the SD card’s rootfs.
Fine tuning
To avoid the Unable to load ‘default’ skin error, I added this line to the end of /etc/profile:
1 | MC_SKIN=/usr/share/mc/skins/default.ini |
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Projects
this method run on android?
I don’t think so
Very helpful, thank you.
Although zlib must be cross compiled also because it is required by glib.
Hi,
beside zlib, it’s not working with a default duildroot toolchain for uClibc armv5t. Compile of MC stops at “diffviewer” creation …
What version glib did you use?
I use glib-2.32.4 and I have error:
gzlibcompressor.c:28: fatal error: zlib.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
[…] midnight commander (mc.zip) approximately following this reference (use mc -a in case of missing line drawing characters) libz (zlib-1.2.8) CHOST=arm-linux-gnueabihf […]