Linux Chromium Arm Recipes

Recipe1: Building for an ARM CrOS device

This recipe uses ninja (instead of make) so its startup time is much lower (sub-1s, instead of tens of seconds), is integrated with goma (for google-internal users) for very high parallelism, and uses sshfs instead of scp to significantly speed up the compile-run cycle. It has moved to https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/how-tos/-quickly-building-for-cros-arm-x64 (mostly b/c of the ease of attaching files to sites).

Recipe2: Explicit Cross compiling

Due to the lack of ARM hardware with the grunt to build Chromium native, cross compiling is currently the recommended method of building for ARM.

These instruction are designed to run on Ubuntu Precise.

Installing the toolchain

The install-build-deps script can be used to install all the compiler and library dependencies directly from Ubuntu:

$ ./build/install-build-deps.sh --arm

Installing the rootfs

A prebuilt rootfs image is kept up-to-date on Cloud Storage. It will automatically be installed by gclient runhooks installed if you have target_arch=arm in your GYP_DEFINES.

To install the sysroot manually you can run:

./chrome/installer/linux/sysroot_scripts/install-debian.wheezy.sysroot.py \
    --arch=arm

Building

To build for ARM, using the clang binary in the chrome tree, use the following settings:

export GYP_CROSSCOMPILE=1
export GYP_DEFINES="target_arch=arm"

There variables need to be set at gyp-time (when you run gyp_chromium), but are not needed at build-time (when you run make/ninja).

Testing

Automated Build and Testing

Chromium's testing infrastructure for ARM/Linux is (to say the least) in its infancy. There are currently two builders setup, one on the FYI waterfall and one the the trybot waterfall:

• Linux ARM Cross-Compile
• linux_arm

These builders cross compile on x86-64 and then trigger testing on real ARM hard bots:

• Linux ARM Tests (Panda)
• linux_arm_tester

Unfortunately, even those the builders are usually green, the testers are not yet well maintained or monitored.

There is compile-only trybot and fyi bot also:

• Linux ARM
• linux_arm_compile

Testing with QEMU

If you don't have a real ARM machine, you can test with QEMU. For instance, there are some prebuilt QEMU Debian images here: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/. Another option is to use the rootfs generated by rootstock, as mentioned above.

Here's a minimal xorg.conf if needed:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver          "kbd"
        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc105"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Driver  "fbdev"
        Option          "UseFBDev"              "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
        Device          "Configured Video Device"
        DefaultDepth 8
        SubSection "Display"
            Depth 8
            Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Notes

• To building for thumb reduces the stripped release binary by around 9MB, equating to ~33% of the binary size. To enable thumb, set 'arm_thumb': 1
• TCmalloc does not have an ARM port, so it is disabled.