4.4. Build Variables

Setting Host and Target

During the building of the cross-compile tools you will need to set a few variables that will be dependent on your particular needs. You will need to set the target triplet for the target architecture, the MIPS level, and CPU endianess. If you do not know what triplet or level you want, you can use the table as a reference. Set the command using the method listed below:

export CLFS_HOST=$(echo ${MACHTYPE} | sed "s/-[^-]*/-cross/")
export CLFS_TARGET="[target triplet]"

Table 4.2. Processor Type and Target Triplets

Processor Target Triplet MIPS Level
MIPS 32 bits Little Endian mipsel-linux-musl 1
MIPS 32 bits Big Endian mips-linux-musl 1
MIPS 64 bits Little Endian mips64el-linux-musl 3
MIPS 64 bits Big Endian mips64-linux-musl 3

Now we will set the architecture and endianess of the CPU based on the target triplet provided above:

export CLFS_ARCH=mips
export CLFS_ENDIAN=$(echo ${CLFS_ARCH} | sed -e 's/mipsel/little/' -e 's/mips/big/')

Now you will need to set the MIPS LEVEL. This determines how your GCC and C library are built. There are currently 5 MIPS ISA Levels. To keep things simple we are only using two. For more information, see http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Instruction_Set_Architecture

export CLFS_MIPS_LEVEL="[mips level]"

We also need to select the floating point capability of the CPU. If the CPU has built-in hardware for performing floating point calculations, choose "hard", otherwise choose "soft":

export CLFS_FLOAT="[hard or soft]"

Now we will add this to ~/.bashrc, just in case you have to exit and restart building later:

echo export CLFS_HOST=\""${CLFS_HOST}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_TARGET=\""${CLFS_TARGET}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_ARCH=\""${CLFS_ARCH}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_ENDIAN=\""${CLFS_ENDIAN}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_MIPS_LEVEL=\""${CLFS_MIPS_LEVEL}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_FLOAT=\""${CLFS_FLOAT}\"" >> ~/.bashrc