Cross-compiling with clang for RISC-V

1

I’m trying to create a cross-compilation environment using clang for RISC-V. After reading Clang can't be used to cross-build packages. · Issue #40934 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub, I managed to get this to evaluate:

{ nixpkgs ? <nixpkgs>
, pkgs ? import nixpkgs { }}:

let
  lib = pkgs.lib;
in rec {

  # gccRiscvPkgs = pkgs.pkgsCross.riscv64;
  clangRiscvPkgs = import nixpkgs { crossSystem = lib.systems.examples.riscv64 // { useLLVM = true; }; };

  hello = clangRiscvPkgs.hello;
}

The problem is that this tries to build a toolchain with LLVM 8, which doesn’t yet have full RISC-V support. This was introduced in LLVM 9. I can see that LLVM 8 is hardcoded in nixpkgs/default.nix at a5661135f29f4b2603c41690a01c3168bc8760ae · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub for this usecase.

Is there a way to override the version of LLVM without patching nixpkgs?

3 Likes
2

There isn’t a way to do this currently. I think adding an option like llvmVersion or something to crossSystem would make sense though. We might also be able to just use LLVM 9 or 10 always for cross-compilation.

3

Updating to LLVM 9 seems like a sensible idea, but I’m not sure what the implications are for other architectures.

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Clang can't be used to cross-build packages. · Issue #40934 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub i just now fixed.

I would like the pkgs/build-support/alternatives from Add BLAS/LAPACK switching mechanism by matthewbauer · Pull Request #83888 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub to handle the LLVM version.

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5

The problem with using something like alternatives here is that you can’t just override the “clang” due to bootstrapping dependencies. You need it to be some kind of configuration option.

6

I was thinking more choosing stdenv.cc. Also I’d love all the choices outlined in Assembling a Complete Toolchain — Clang 13 documentation to be made independently all sorts of LLVM vs GNU mashups. Once GCC is broken up both should be bootstrapped the same way.

1 Like
7

Related: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/107594

1 Like