mt7688-cross

The tool to create an environment on a Host for cross-compiling node.js native modules/add-ons for MT7688 mips platform. Once the environment is created, just use ./npm_install.sh to install the cross-compiled version of node modules, it's easy.

[Note]

• Please do not use mt7688-cross v1.0 release, since Google has removed the gyp from svn to git repo. You will get an error of svn: E160013: Unable to connect to... when running ./create_env.sh. mt7688-cross v1.1 already fixes this dependencies broken issue.

1. Information about the Host and Target

• Host: Ubuntu/Debian x86_64 (Mine is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS running on a virtual machine)
• Target: MT7688, MIPS24KEc (little endian)
  • node.js: 0.12.7
  • npm: 2.11.3
  • v8 engine: 3.28.71 (patch 19)

2. Preacquisition

step 1: Install the following packages on your Host PC

$ sudo apt-get install subversion build-essential gcc-multilib g++-multilib

mt7688-cross requires wget to download the mt7688 SDK and node.js source, make sure you have wget on your Ubuntu.

$ sudo apt-get install wget

step 2: Make sure you are equipped with node@0.12.7 and npm@2.11.3 on your Host PC

If you don't, try to install them: (I am using n as my node version manager. You can use nvm if you like.)

$ sudo n 0.12.7
$ sudo npm install -g npm@2.11.3

step 3: Clone mt7688-cross to the Host PC

~$ git clone https://github.com/simenkid/mt7688-cross.git
~$ cd mt7688-cross
~/mt7688-cross$

mt7688-cross/ is the working directory for cross-compiling native node modules/add-ons.

step 4: Build the environment

Shoot create_env.sh to start the building process. This may take around 20 minutes depends on your PC performance.

~/mt7688-cross$ ./create_env.sh

As building accomplished, inlinkit/opt/, there is the cross-compiled node.js that can run on MT7688 MIPS platform. In addition, v8/, node-v0.12.7-mips/, and mt7688sdk/ are the sources of v8, node, and mt7688 SDK, respectively.

Once this step is successfully done, the environment is ready for your later use. Every time you want to cross-compile a node native module, just come into the working directory mt7688-cross/ and install a module with script npm_install.sh, there is no need to rebuild the environment again.

3. Install the cross-compiled node native module/add-on

Assume that you like to install the serialport module on your MT7688. First install it with npm_install.sh on the Host:

~/mt7688-cross$ ./npm_install.sh serialport

You will get a compressed tarball in node_modules_mips/, in this example, it is serialport-2.0.6_mips.tar.gz. If you like to install other version, just specify the version with @:

~/mt7688-cross$ ./npm_install.sh serialport@2.0.4

Next step is push it to MT7688 via scp and decompress it to any place you want. In this example, I will put it to ~/app with the root account and extract it to ~/app/node_modules/.

At Host:

~/mt7688-cross$ scp node_modules_mips/serialport-2.0.6_mips.tar.gz root@192.168.0.109:/root/app

At Target:

root@mylinkit:~/app# tar xvf serialport-2.0.6_mips.tar.gz -C node_modules/

Now, you are ready to write a script in ~/app on your target.

Note

1. Module cross-build may fail if the module is highly platform-dependent, e.g. module that operates SoC gpio/uart and other peripherals.
2. Module cross-build may fail if the module requires some libraries that SDK doesn't provide.
3. You are welcome to modify this script to fit your needs, e.g. automation of file transmission from Host to Target.
4. If you only like to have the environment variable settings for cross tools, it is in env.sh.

This tool is inspired by Build your own Node.js package with the linino toolchain. Thanks to linino!