Re: Debian Jessie cross compiling via emdebian broken

>> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>>   crossbuild-essential-armhf : Depends: gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf (>=
>> 4.9.1-1) but it is not going to be installed
>>                                Depends: g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf (>=
>> 4.9.1-1) but it is not going to be installed
>> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
> Hi Kris,
>
> In the dependency chain for gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf and friends
> from the emdebian.org/tools/debian repo there are dependencies
> with strict version requirements on packages in the official
> Jessie repositories---e.g., libgcc-4.9-dev:armel (= 4.9.2-10).
> Eventually, some of those packages in Jessie were updated in
> point and security releases---e.g., to 4.9.2-10+deb8u2. The
> packages in emdebian.org/tools/debian didn't get updated,
> however, hence the error you're seeing.
>
> If you download the relevant source package, cross-gcc-4.9-armhf
> and perhaps a few others, from emdebian.org/tools/debian and
> rebuild against the latest point release of Jessie (perhaps
> with security updates too), you'll eventually get a set of
> packages that will work on the version of Jessie against which
> you build. Alternatively, I suppose, you could install an older
> point release of Jessie and use the packages from
> emdebian.org/tools/debian as-is.
>
> Good luck.
> -- Ryan

Ryan,

I'm guessing that reply means there is no chance of Emdebian updating 
the offending packages to match what is available in Debian Jessie so it 
will start working coherently again?

The issue is that we have a handful of products that are ARM based using 
Debian Jessie. Being able to cross compile on a host PC with Jessie 
means the available libraries will line up and we won't have customers 
in their own dependency hell if everything can come as a binary from 
Debian. Because of this, we document the process in our manuals to 
acquire a cross toolchain using the instructions from the original URL I 
linked. Another thing is that with Jessie based products, we have armel 
and armhf variants as well. So we would need to move forward with a 
solution for both.

If no chance of Emdebian updating packages, I would guess that below are 
our only options. Would you kindly let me know if you think I missed 
anything?

- Update our manuals to have a detailed step-by-step of the process you 
outlined.
- Create and distribute our own .deb packages for this purpose.
- Use Debian's cross-gcc-dev 
https://wiki.debian.org/BuildingCrossCompilers and either document that 
or distribute our own .deb package.
- Find a separate cross compiler and distribute that in some manner.