Ok at home I have a Win2K box, a freeBSD box, and a computer being used as a router running Smoothwall. What I want to do is add some options to my smoothwall box, but to do that I need to compile a new kernel. Smoothwall does not have gcc installed on it, and installing it on a firewall would be sorta a bad idea. So what I want to know is can I compile a linux kernel on my FreeBSD box and then send it to the smoothwall box?
Thats like compiling IRIX on a Mac OSX essentially.
Yes they're both *nixes but the kernels are very different and GCC compiles for a specific kernel
I could be wrong, but gonna guess I'm right
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But if it is possible, how? I've compiled FreeBSD kernels many times but never the linux kernel. BTW IRIX and MacOSx run on differnet CPU architectures, but FreeBSD and Linux both run on the x86 architecture so it doesn't seem so impossible.
What is proposed in that thread is different than what you want to do.
The linux kernel will compile on FreeBSD. It will compile with no problems probably. Now when you try to transfer it over (You realize all the copies you have to make right?) it is VERY likely not going to work.
Just take a look at normal binary kernel files for linux.
1) There is no cross distro binary. You can find kernel binary packages for each specific distro, but no crosses. This is for systems running the same kernel! Let alone compiling it on on a FreeBSD system and running it on a linux system. Try this with any semi-complicated program and it is not going to work, let alone something as complicated as the kernel.
I have never tried it, and have never heard of anyone trying it. Everything I know tells me that you will not be able to get it to successfully work once you move it over.
Perhaps you should dig around smoothwall for how they suggest upgrading the kernel? They have to have some method right?
The biggest problem is that FreeBSD and Linux use different executable formats - Linux uses ELF and FreeBSD uses (something else)
It might be possible to get gcc on a FreeBSD box to compile ELF binaries (not sure), and at least the architectures are the same (btw compiling e.g. PowerPC binaries on an x86 system is not that difficult, it's called cross-compiling and is something that gcc is quite good at)
There are problems though. For one, the Linux kernel expects the GNU toolchain (make, sed, etc). Also you will have trouble with glibc headers etc.
Solutions - simplest: can you install gcc on the router and then remove it once the new kernel is done? Else, how about booting from a Knoppix CD or a Gentoo LiveCD (assuming that those contain all required headers, I'm not sure)
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