[syslinux] build for ARM (rpi)

[Dash Four]

Gene Cumm wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Dash Four <mr.dash.four at googlemail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Is there a way I could build this package for ARM (Raspberry Pi)?
>>
>> I am using Pidora (Fedora mix for rpi), but can't find the source for this
>> package in any of their repos
>> (http://pidora.ca/pidora/releases/18/packages/source/SRPMS/s/) and tried to
>> build this based on the spec file provided with the sources, but there is an
>> ExclusiveArch  statement in that file (ExclusiveArch: i386 i486 i586 i686
>> athlon pentium4 x86_64), prohibiting building on ARM-based arches. Thanks.
>>     
>
> Just the installer or the entire package?  For the boot loader,
> there's (historically) too much dependency on x86 BIOS.  With porting
> to EFI32/EFI64, it's becoming more of a possibility but not there.
>
> If you just want the installer on an RPi for booting x86, this should
> be closer to a possibility, perhaps with just a 'make clean; make
> installer' (adjusted for architecture if 6.00+)
>   
Well, I am preparing the image using livecd-creator to install all the 
packages. This never completes, however, because there is a dependency 
on the syslinux package, which is never satisfied since I can't build 
that package.

The actual boot loader is unlikely to be used at all, since RaspberryPi 
has its own way of booting up (it relies on its GPU): when powered up, 
*only* the GPU is active, which reads certain files on the first 
partition (config.txt, cmdline.txt to name just a few), parses the 
options specified in those boot up files, then it brings the CPU up, 
loads the kernel image from the same partition and transfers control over.

So, since my only purpose of using syslinux is to satisfy the 
dependencies when creating the actual image (I then extract the 
kernel/initramfs images and use the root system), I only need syslinux 
to "fool" livecd-creator that I have that package installed, but I am 
unable to do that at present since I can't build the actual package 
(rpm), hence my initial query.