Debian 9.1.0 with VirtualBox unable to "sudo apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf"

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1

I am attempting to install the Debian 9.1.0 system to support BeagleBoneBlack on my Windows 10 system.

I am following the Derek Molloy blog site and until I tried to load the “sudo apt-get install libicu-dev:armhf”, everything was moving smoothly (within limits of my Linux knowledge).

http://exploringbeaglebone.com/chapter7/

However, the step to install the libraries fails.

"Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

libicu-dev:armhf : Depends : libc6-dev:armhf but it is not going to be installed or libc-dev:armhf"

This message leads me to believe that the libicu-dev:armhf is not available with Debian 9.1.0 (Stretch).

Am I doing something wrong or is cross library linking not supported on Debian 9.1.0 yet?

Assuming that it is not yet supported, any expected date for availability?

Is my only viable solution to reload using Jessie?

TIA,

Pat

2

Were you able to do this?
The guide from Derek is a bit outdated.
You don’t have to use the source from embedian (as its deprecated). In debian 9 the cross compiling packages are in the standard repository.
Follow this steps instead - Installation for unstable - from CrossToolchains - Debian Wiki - :

You must enable the appropriate (HOST) foreign architecture before installing the cross-compiler.

dpkg --add-architecture armhf
apt-get update

It is recommended to install the cross environment like this as that pulls in all the necessary components:

apt-get install crossbuild-essential-<arch>

i.e

apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf

But you can install just the compiler with

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

Note that gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf is (like the native ‘gcc’) just a metapackage, which brings int he current version of the actual compiler gcc-4.9-arm-linux-gnueabihf (c.f. gcc-4.9)

Everything else form the guide should be ok to follow. You could even try to install a newer eclipse version if you want, it works fine.

PD. The step in which you get the error is optional. Derek uses it only to show how easy is to get the versions of the libraries you need for either architecture…

3

You should be aware that Stretch uses a newer gcc: gcc version 6.3.0
20170516 (Debian 6.3.0-18)

4

Thanks. My bad, didn’t read that last part.
Luckily the procedure brings the correct lastest version.

**Note: to the end of the video ( on http://exploringbeaglebone.com/chapter7/) Derek adds shared libraries for the debug configuration pointing to:
/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

instead use:

/usr/lib/gcc-cross/arm-linux-gnueabihf