Compile Tcl on ARM Linux

A quick step guide that works on Scaleway root servers

2016-09-14: Most relevant steps fr remembers:

After user & credit card registration -3€/month-

  • choose C1 server for ARMv7 cpu
    • your first login will be via ssh root@<ipv4 address>
    • in the registration form your public key is required.
    • if you don't have one, create one -supposed you are on a *nix system- with ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521
      • after some Return key presse open /root/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub in a gui editor and copypaste all into the forms input field
  • select an image, the steps as listed below refer to debian-jessie
  • boot the image by click on button "On", this worked on the third attempt and takes some seconds.
  • connect to host ssh root@<your public ipv4 address>
    • to be able to use the console in the webpage ad non-priviliged user with adduser dummy
    • ev. create a safe root password
  • prepare the build environment due to detailed instructions
    • apt-get install build-essential gawk m4, this will install gcc4.9 and more
  • add this to file .bashrc and do source .bashrc
set +h
umask 022
LC_ALL=POSIX
PATH=$PATH:./
CFLAGS="-pipe -march=native -mfloat-abi=hard -Wa,-mimplicit-it=thumb"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEFLAGS="-j 4"
export LC_ALL PATH CFLAGS CXXFLAGS MAKEFLAGS
  • get and unpack the source distribution, actually Tcl8.6.6
    • in directory unix of your tcl-sources do
      • ./configure
        • if compilation fails: check if command ld exists
        • symbolic link /usr/bin/ld -> ld.bfd
    • make
    • make test
      • takes about 9 minutes, succeeds except the odbc stuff, probably this has to be built separately?