Hello,

In order for Guix to become an alternative to tools such as Yocto and
Buildroot, having most or all our packages cross-compiling is a
prerequisite.

Here is a status of cross-compilation in Guix. For cross-compilation to
work, the build-system needs to support cross-compilation.

The following build-systems explicitly refuse cross-compiling packages:

haskell, agda, waf, chicken, rakudo, julia, python, emacs, rebar, cargo, ruby, renpy, dub, android-ndk, scons, dune, ant, pyproject, maven, asdf, r, ocaml, node

while the rest of the build-systems do accept cross-compiling packages:

clojure, qt, copy, minetest-mod, tree-sitter, raw, linux-module, glib-or-gtk, asdf/source, go, cmake, minify, perl, trivial, guile, elm, font, gnu, asdf/ecl, asdf/sbcl, meson, mozilla, texlive

It does not mean that all the packages relying on those build-systems
will cross-compile OK. It just means that we will at least try to build
those.

In term of numbers, the attached script produces the following output:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Total packages: 28076

clojure: 13
qt: 317
copy: 134
minetest-mod: 22
tree-sitter: 35
raw: 2
linux-module: 17
glib-or-gtk: 139
asdf/source: 794
go: 632
cmake: 1278
minify: 12
perl: 839
trivial: 250
guile: 49
elm: 30
font: 101
gnu: 4178
asdf/ecl: 753
asdf/sbcl: 814
meson: 504
mozilla: 2
texlive: 4150
Cross-compilation OK: 15065

ocaml: 61
haskell: 812
maven: 2
chicken: 12
node: 57
emacs: 1370
dune: 289
android-ndk: 12
waf: 21
julia: 300
pyproject: 433
r: 2441
cargo: 3535
ruby: 597
rebar: 22
scons: 15
rakudo: 22
agda: 6
ant: 559
python: 2488
Cross-compilation KO: 13054
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Over the 28076 packages in Guix, 15065 are part of build-systems with
cross-compilation support and 13054 are part of build-systems without
cross-compilation support.

Overall 46.5% of our packages will refuse to cross-compile with errors
such as:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
mathieu@meije ~$ guix build --target=aarch64-linux-gnu librsvg
guix build: error: gnu/packages/gnome.scm:3500:2: librsvg@2.54.5: build system `cargo' does not support cross builds
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I'd like to help converge towards the situation where all build-systems
support cross-compilation.

I have CC'ed members of the python, java, ruby, rust, r, haskell and
emacs teams. Any plans adding cross-compilation support to your
build-system, barriers to overcome?

Thanks,

Mathieu