I’ve started a new project to build the core NetBSD userland programs for Linux using ELLCC. I have two motivations for doing this:

• To have a large set of programs to compile for testing ELLCC. I’ve been looking for something for a while, and my stackoverflow question didn’t come up with any responses.
• I’d like to eventually have a full set of userland commands for Linux that are not GPL licensed.

So far, the results have been promising. I have a nice subset of the NetBSD userland compiled so far:

ls x86_64-linux/bin x86_64-linux/usr/bin
x86_64-linux/bin:
[*      cp*    domainname*  expr*      ksh*  mkdir*  pwd*    sh*     tar*
cat*    cpio*  echo*        hostname*  ln*   mv*     rm*     sleep*  test*
chmod*  date*  ed*          kill*      ls*   pax*    rmdir*  sync*

x86_64-linux/usr/bin:
apply*     calendar*  crunchgen*  expand*  getconf*  lastcomm*  make*
asa*       checknr*   crunchide*  fgen*    getopt*   leave*     od*
at*        cmp*       csplit*     find*    groups*   locate*    tar@
atq*       col*       ctags*      flock*   head*     lock*      uncompress*
atrm*      colcrt*    cut*        fmt*     hexdump*  logname*   whoami*
banner*    colrm*     deroff*     fold*    id*       look*
basename*  column*    dirname*    fpr*     indent*   m4*
batch*     comm*      du*         from*    join*     mail*
biff*      compress*  env*        fsplit*  jot*      Mail*
cal*       cpio@      error*      ftp*     lam*      mailx*
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev%

The files in that listing represent the low hanging fruit: They are the files that required little or no editing to compile with ELLCC.

If you want to try to build the NetBSD userland using ELLCC, first install ELLCC itself. Then you can grab the current ellcc-bsd project files:

[~] dev% svn co http://ellcc.org/svn/ellcc-bsd/trunk ellcc-bsd

This will create the ellcc-bsd directory right next to the already existing ellcc directory.

The next step is to build the bmake program (the Berkeley make program, used by NetBSD):

[~] dev% cd ellcc-bsd/
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ./build

This will put the host bmake executable in the ~/ellcc/bin directory.

Now all you have to do is

[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ~/ellcc/bin/bmake
...
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ~/ellcc/bin/bmake install

This will create the populated directories list above.

For a little more fun try building ARM executables:

[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ~/ellcc/bin/bmake TARGET=arm
...
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ~/ellcc/bin/bmake TARGET=arm install
...
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% ls arm-linux/bin/ arm-linux/usr/bin/
arm-linux/bin/:
[*      cp*    domainname*  expr*      ksh*  mkdir*  pwd*    sh*     tar*
cat*    cpio*  echo*        hostname*  ln*   mv*     rm*     sleep*  test*
chmod*  date*  ed*          kill*      ls*   pax*    rmdir*  sync*

arm-linux/usr/bin/:
apply*      csplit*   hexdump*   mkstr*         sdiff*       uniq*
asa*        ctags*    id*        mktemp*        sed*         units*
at*         cut*      indent*    mkubootimage*  seq*         unvis*
atq*        deroff*   join*      msgc*          shlock*      users*
atrm*       dirname*  jot*       msgs*          shuffle*     uudecode*
banner*     du*       lam*       nbperf*        soelim*      uuencode*
basename*   env*      lastcomm*  newgrp*        sort*        uuidgen*
batch*      error*    leave*     newsyslog*     split*       vis*
biff*       expand*   locate*    nice*          stat*        wall*
cal*        fgen*     lock*      nl*            su*          wc*
calendar*   find*     logname*   nohup*         tabs*        what*
checknr*    flock*    look*      od*            tar@         whereis*
cmp*        fmt*      m4*        paste*         tee*         which*
col*        fold*     mail*      patch*         time*        who*
colcrt*     fpr*      Mail*      pathchk*       touch*       whoami*
colrm*      from*     mailx*     pr*            tr*          whois*
column*     fsplit*   make*      printenv*      tty*         window*
comm*       ftp*      man*       printf*        ul*          write*
compress*   getconf*  menuc*     progress*      uname*       xargs*
cpio@       getopt*   mesg*      readlink*      uncompress*  xstr*
crunchgen*  groups*   mkdep*     renice*        unexpand*    yes*
crunchide*  head*     mkfifo*    rs*            unifdef*
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev% file arm-linux/bin/sh
arm-linux/bin/sh: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1, statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=2a1b11acf02098cd6b77965f97d3e4031126951e, stripped
[~/ellcc-bsd] dev%

In a future post I’ll describe how to use chroot to play in the new tiny userland environment.