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Long time embedded Linux developer here.

This article exaggerates the undesirability of cross-compiling from x86 to ARM. It requires a bit of a conceptual shift, but once your toolchain is set up workflow is practically the same. Debugging is a bit trickier, but most issues can be sorted out on x86 before cross-compiling. It's definitely not like developing for Windows on a Mac.

There may be a compelling case for a PC that consumes less energy​ by using an ARM CPU, though peripherals like DDR RAM, SSD and video card will use the same energy regardless of CPU architecture.




Embedded Linux developer here as well.

As much as I grind my teeth with Yocto, it does make the process of generating a usable toolchain much easier than it used to be. Which makes the rest of it easier.

Up until a couple of years ago it was pretty much "grab what you can from CodeSourcery and cross your fingers".


i've found that:

* if all you need is a toolchain, go with crosstool-ng.

* if you want a toolchain and a bootable kernel with busybox and dropbear for a popular chipset, go with buildroot.

* if you want buildroot plus flexibility in every direction (at the cost of configuration pain), go with yocto.

* if you've outgrown even yocto, you're back to crosstool-ng and rolling your own build/bundle system.


For my current project I'm pulling the cross compiler from Debian and the libraries from Debian:armel. This doesn't work for every project, but it sure is easy when it does. I sure don't miss the days of building my own compiler and carefully crafting my root filesystem, but I know I can always fall back on that if I have to.




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