Compiling C on NEC mp900

Hi, i'm interested in compiling some old software (contemporary versions with JLime) but i get the error that the C compiler cannot create excecutables. Is there anyway to bypass this?

I'm trying to compile some basic cli/terminal stuff

P.S: I rebuilt both batteries for the MobilePro 900 with good quality Sanyo 18650 cells and i'm getting plenty of hours. This is my main device for off-the-grid article writing.

Best regards.

What exact error message are you getting, on which compiler, from compiling which source code?
The whole error message is useful for troubleshooting, and redundancy is far more preferable here than lacking.

(Well, I can't promise to be able to fix your issue as I'm not familiar with JLime, but at least, these pieces of information are necessary to troubleshoot issues in general.)

Edited by watamario15 2023-06-24 2:54 AM

If you can try compiling a very basic Hello World type and check if gcc etc. is working, I think it would be good to know what programs are missing or not working.

Something like this from https://www.programiz.com/c-programming/examples/print-sentence


If you're looking to cross compile instead of compile on the device, it seems:
arm-crosscompiler-gcc-3.4.1.tar.gz
arm-gcc-3.4.5-glibc-2.3.5.tar.gz

are what you need, according to this blog post:
https://duncanbowring.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/nec-mobilepro-900-900c/

This is the output. I never used a cross compiler, i could try, but i would like to be able to compile old code natively.

linux:~# cd octave-3.0.3
linux:~/octave-3.0.3# ./configure
checking build system type... armv5tel-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... armv5tel-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name...
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
linux:~/octave-3.0.3#

Octave is a math cli-software. You can try any old version, i tried 3.0.3 which was the same epoch as JLime --> https://mirror2.evolution-host.com/gnu/octave/

Edited by sroland81 2023-06-29 3:16 AM

I would like to compile some basic command line stuff, like a RSS reader, maybe a text editor like nano, any suggestions are welcome. I used newsbeuter rss reader years ago, but it seems that libcurl version is higher than shipped with jlime. There has to be something older than newsbeuter anyways.

I tried compile this and failed

linux:~# gcc prueba.c
gcc: error trying to exec 'as': execvp: No such file or directory

What is its config.log?

C:Amie is right.

Try doing



and tell us what you see.

This is the log, i pasted it here because it is long

https://paste.buzon.uy/?6287f846b2960c20#HdJyHsCUz2RnHgUEVZ89tKwnJVeqEUiKTVqVKcLyatf3

Cheers!

I've looked at the log, and I think there's lots of developer related files missing.

This is CentOS, but you'll get the idea.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37985352/whats-wrong-with-configure-fail-c-compiler-cannot-create-executablesconfigure

You probably need something like these:

cpp
glibc-devel
glibc-headers
kernel-headers
glibc
glibc-common
libgcc

I also see a lot of flags for something, maybe that is something you need to look into.

I see you're trying to compile version 3.0.3, AMD related flag so maybe it's pretty new? (I see circa 2009)
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/octave has a lot of older stuff, maybe older versions might compile easier?

-stingraze

Edited by stingraze 2023-06-30 8:00 AM

I'll try finding those packages, the thing is that there is no kernel-headers, only kernel-headers-dev i think. This is the list of the packages in the repository --> https://paste.buzon.uy/?d7d3b77cb7424065#4GJHoUN96WGBHoDUSPuMKmZFNbnTAPtWMapupFvhaSKs

What packages should i install?

Edited by sroland81 2023-07-01 2:49 AM

Hi, i'm back again. Been busy with work and stuff. I'm trying to crosscompile on linux and see if i can generate usable binaries for the NEC. I absolutely love it. I have rebuilt two batteries with new cells, it lasts for hours.

Other things i'm exploring how to configure:

- terminal tty font size
- systemwide character encoding, i'm getting some render issues with nano and pico in terminal mode, some spanish accents like ó, é, í and ñ screw up the flow of text when going back with the cursor, the letter disappears, reappears, etc. I think is the character encoding, i wish to set system wide to UTF-8
- Cross-compiling some terminal applications, like octave, or some terminal browser like lynx or elinks

Thanks for the help.

I wish I could offer some help and advice - I'm sorry I missed this thread earlier..

I'm not sure how much this could help but did some digging and found this github with installation scripts, but that's for the Jornada. Not sure how useful for the 900
https://github.com/timob0/jornada-config

I know the file isn't available (the sugar sync one)

but a complete "code" for config I found here too
https://github.com/timob0/jornada-config/blob/main/jornada-config

maybe some of the settings could assist?

Wow! i definetly will look at this and try to test it. I'm trying to understand crosscompiling to see if i can compile old software to run on JLime.