Qt Creator cross-platform development in Stretch: chroot automation

pdo debian eng qt-cross

I wrote a tool to automate the creation and maintenance of Qt cross-build environments built from packages in Debian Stretch.

It allows to:

Do cross-architecture development with Qt Creator, including remote debugging on the target architecture
Compile using native compilers and cross-compilers, to avoid running the compilers inside an emulator making the build slower
Leverage all of Debian as development environment, using existing Debian packages for cross-build-dependencies

Getting started

# Creates an armhf environment under the current directory
$ sudo cbqt ./armhf --create --verbose
2017-11-30 14:09:23,715 INFO armhf: Creating /home/enrico/lavori/truelite/system/cross/armhf
…
2017-11-30 14:14:49,887 INFO armhf: Configuring cross-build environment

# Get information about an existing chroot.
# Note: the output is machine-parsable yaml
$ cbqt ./armhf --info
name: armhf
path: ./armhf
arch: armhf
arch_triplet: arm-linux-gnueabihf
exists: true
configured: true
issues: []

# Create a qmake wrapper for this environment
$ sudo ./cbqt ./armhf --qmake -o /usr/local/bin/qmake-armhf

# Install the build-depends you need
# Note: :arch is added automatically to package names if no arch is explicitly
#       specified
$ sudo ./cbqt ./armhf --install libqt5svg5-dev libmosquittopp-dev qtwebengine5-dev

Building packages

To build a package, use the qmake wrapper generated with cbqt --qmake instead of the normal qmake:

$ qmake-armhf -makefile
$ make
arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ … -I../armhf/usr/include/arm-linux-gnueabihf/… -I../armhf/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/qt5/mkspecs/arm-linux-gnueabihf -o browser.o browser.cpp
…
/home/enrico/…/armhf/usr/bin/moc …
…
arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ … -Wl,-rpath-link,/home/enrico/…/armhf/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -Wl,-rpath-link,/home/enrico/…/armhf/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -Wl,-rpath-link,/home/enrico/…/armhf/usr/lib/ -o program browser.o … -L/home/enrico/…/armhf/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf …

Building in Qt Creator

Configure a new Kit in Qt Creator:

Tools/Options, then Build & Run, then Kits, then Add
Name: armhf (or anything you like)
Qt version: choose the one autodetected from /usr/local/bin/qmake-armhf
In Compilers, add a GCC C compiler with path arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc, and a GCC C++ compiler with path arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++
Choose the newly created compilers in the kit
Dismiss the dialog with "OK": the new kit is ready

Now you can choose the default kit to build and run locally, and the armhf kit for remote cross-development.

Where to get it

Here!

Credits

This has been done as part of my work with Truelite.