Qt5 For Mali Binaries

This page describes ways to build a Qt5 toolchain for Allwinner devices.

= Qt cross-compiler toolchain =

A cross-compiler toolchain is the most practical option for building Qt binaries. Native compiler performance on most Allwinner devices is relatively good but you can get better performance on a laptop. The configuration and build process of a cross-compiler toolchain is not too difficult. You may have a working Qt cross-compiler in a matter of minutes, provided you have a system root for your device on the host machine. The below solution should work for all Cortex-A8 devices with Mali-400 and can also apply to devices with other ARM processor cores after minor modifications.

Get ARM C and C++ cross-compilers
Install a C++ cross-compiler on your host, for example, from the Emdebian repository:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gcc-4.7-arm-linux-gnueabihf g++-4.7-arm-linux-gnueabihf

provided that your  has the following lines:

deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ testing main deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ unstable main

Install appropriate alternatives by hand since these are not created automatically:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc \ arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc-4.7 100 sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ \ arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++-4.7 100

Build the system root
Set up a Debian Testing system on your host. See Mainline_Debian_HowTo for exact commands. SD-card setup can be skipped if installing on the local disk. I will assume  to be the system root:

export SUNXI_SYSROOT=/var/sunxi-root

Install video drivers
Download  sources and   binaries as described in Mali_binary_driver to your disk. Copy the downloaded trees to  and install these libraries from within chroot.

Install XCB development packages
Install these to  from chroot:

apt-get install libxcb1 libxcb1-dev libx11-xcb1 libx11-xcb-dev \ libxcb-keysyms1 libxcb-keysyms1-dev libxcb-image0 libxcb-image0-dev \ libxcb-shm0 libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-icccm4 libxcb-icccm4-dev \ libxcb-sync0-dev libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-render-util0-dev \ libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxrender-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-randr0-dev \ libxcb-glx0-dev

Do not exit from the chroot prompt because you are going to use it below.

Download Qt
Download Qt to your host (not to ):

git clone git://gitorious.org/qt/qt5.git qt5 cd qt5 git checkout 5.4 perl init-repository --no-webkit

Create Qt device config
mkdir qtbase/mkspecs/devices/linux-sunxi-g++

cat < qtbase/mkspecs/devices/linux-sunxi-g++/qplatformdefs.h #include "../../linux-g++/qplatformdefs.h"  EOF

cat < qtbase/mkspecs/devices/linux-sunxi-g++/qmake.conf
 * 1) Qt system configuration for Sunxi Cortex-A8 devices
 * 2) Mali library and include files should be found in the standard locations in
 * 3) /usr in sysroot.
 * 1) Mali library and include files should be found in the standard locations in
 * 2) /usr in sysroot.

include(../common/linux_device_pre.conf)

QT_QPA_DEFAULT_PLATFORM = xcb

DISTRO_OPTS += deb-multi-arch DISTRO_OPTS += hard-float

SYSROOT_INC = $$[QT_SYSROOT]/usr/include SYSROOT_LIB = $$[QT_SYSROOT]/usr/lib

COMPILER_FLAGS = -marm -march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a8

QMAKE_CFLAGS  += -I $${SYSROOT_INC} \ -I $${SYSROOT_INC}/$${GCC_MACHINE_DUMP}

QMAKE_CXXFLAGS += -I $${SYSROOT_INC} \ -I $${SYSROOT_INC}/$${GCC_MACHINE_DUMP}

QMAKE_CXXFLAGS_RELEASE += -O3

QMAKE_LFLAGS  += -Wl,-rpath-link,$$[QT_SYSROOT]/usr/lib \ -Wl,-rpath-link,$$[QT_SYSROOT]/lib

QMAKE_LIBS += -lrt -lpthread -ldl

QMAKE_INCDIR_EGL       = $$[SYSROOT_INC] QMAKE_LIBDIR_EGL       = $$[SYSROOT_LIB] QMAKE_INCDIR_OPENGL_ES2 = $${QMAKE_INCDIR_EGL} QMAKE_LIBDIR_OPENGL_ES2 = $${QMAKE_LIBDIR_EGL}
 * 1) Mali EGL and GLES2 are in fact located in the same .so file.

QMAKE_LIBS_EGL         = -lEGL QMAKE_LIBS_OPENGL_ES2  = -lGLESv2

include(../common/linux_arm_device_post.conf)

load(qt_config) EOF

Configure Qt
The below will configure Qt for installation into  on both the host and the target: ./configure -v -debug -opensource -confirm-license -no-use-gold-linker \ -nomake examples -nomake tests -nomake tools -no-cups -no-pch -no-linuxfb \ -skip qtquick1 -skip declarative -skip multimedia -opengl es2 -no-eglfs \ -system-xcb -system-zlib -sysroot $SUNXI_SYSROOT -device linux-sunxi-g++ \ -device-option CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- -prefix /opt/qt/sunxi

If configuration is successfull, you will see stats like these: Build options: Configuration .......... accessibility accessibility-atspi-bridge audio-backend c++11 clock-gettime clock-monotonic compile_examples concurrent cross_compile dbus debug egl evdev eventfd freetype full-config getaddrinfo getifaddrs harfbuzz iconv inotify ipv6ifname large-config largefile medium-config minimal-config mremap nis opengl opengles2 pcre png posix_fallocate qpa qpa reduce_exports rpath shared small-config system-zlib xcb xcb-glx xcb-plugin xcb-render xcb-xlib xkbcommon-qt Build parts ............ libs Mode ................... debug Using C++11 ............ yes Using gold linker....... no Using PCH .............. no Target compiler supports: Neon ................. no

Qt modules and options: Qt D-Bus ............... yes (loading dbus-1 at runtime) Qt Concurrent .......... yes Qt GUI ................. yes Qt Widgets ............. yes Large File ............. yes QML debugging .......... yes Use system proxies ..... no

Support enabled for: Accessibility .......... yes ALSA ................... no CUPS ................... no Evdev .................. yes FontConfig ............. no FreeType ............... yes (bundled copy) Glib ................... no GTK theme .............. no HarfBuzz ............... yes (bundled copy) Iconv .................. yes ICU .................... no Image formats: GIF .................. yes (plugin, using bundled copy) JPEG ................. yes (plugin, using bundled copy) PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using bundled copy) journald ............... no mtdev .................. no Networking: getaddrinfo .......... yes getifaddrs ........... yes IPv6 ifname .......... yes OpenSSL .............. no NIS .................... yes OpenGL / OpenVG: EGL .................. yes OpenGL ............... yes (OpenGL ES 2.0+) OpenVG ............... no PCRE ................... yes (bundled copy) pkg-config ............. yes PulseAudio ............. no QPA backends: DirectFB ............. no   EGLFS ................ no   KMS .................. no   LinuxFB .............. no   XCB .................. yes (system library) EGL on X ........... no     GLX ................ yes MIT-SHM ............ yes Xcb-Xlib ........... yes Xcursor ............ yes (loaded at runtime) Xfixes ............. yes (loaded at runtime) Xi ................. yes (loaded at runtime) Xi2 ................ no     Xinerama ........... yes (loaded at runtime) Xrandr ............. yes (loaded at runtime) Xrender ............ no     XKB ................ no     XShape ............. yes XSync .............. yes XVideo ............. yes Session management ..... yes SQL drivers: DB2 .................. no   InterBase ............ no   MySQL ................ no   OCI .................. no   ODBC ................. no   PostgreSQL ........... no   SQLite 2 ............. no   SQLite ............... yes (plugin, using bundled copy) TDS .................. no udev ................... no xkbcommon .............. yes (bundled copy, XKB config root: /usr/share/X11/xkb) zlib ................... yes (system library)

NOTE: Qt is using double for qreal on this system. This is binary incompatible against Qt 5.1. Configure with '-qreal float' to create a build that is binary compatible with 5.1.

Qt is now configured for building. Just run 'make'. Once everything is built, you must run 'make install'. Qt will be installed into /opt/qt/sunxi

Prior to reconfiguration, make sure you remove any leftovers from the previous build.

Make and install
This will make and install the cross-compiler as well as the Qt environment for the Sunxi device:

make -j4 sudo make install

This installs the host cross-compiler into and the target shared libraries and utilities to. You should then be able to copy the target Qt tree from  onto your Sunxi device root file system.

You may also want to add Qt binaries such as  to the path on the host:

export PATH=/opt/qt/sunxi/bin:$PATH

Test
cd qtbase/examples/qtestlib/tutorial1/ qmake make

The above should produce a working ARM binary. Run it from chroot with the option.

= Native compilation = Another way to get Qt on a Sunxi device is to compile Qt from source in-place.

Here are instructions to be executed on the device, assuming X11, UMP and Mali drivers (see Mali_binary_driver):

wget http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.1/5.1.0/single/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.1.0.tar.gz  tar -xzf qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.1.0.tar.gz   cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.1.0 ./configure -release -opensource -confirm-license -opengl es2 -no-eglfs -no-linuxfb -no-pch make make install

This will take hours to compile on Allwiner A10 device! You may want to run it overnight.

It may make sense to check the configure output before starting compilation. It may look like this (be sure that OpenGL ES 2.x is detected): Configure summary

Build type:   linux-g++ (arm, CPU features: neon) Platform notes:

- Also available for Linux: linux-kcc linux-icc linux-cxx Build options: Configuration .......... accessibility accessibility-atspi-bridge alsa audio-backend c++11 clock-gettime clock-monotonic concurrent cups dbus egl evdev eventfd fontconfig full-config getaddrinfo getifaddrs glib gstreamer gtk2 gtkstyle iconv icu inotify ipv6ifname large-config largefile libudev medium-config minimal-config mremap neon nis opengl opengles2 openssl pcre png pulseaudio qpa qpa reduce_exports reduce_relocations release rpath shared small-config system-freetype system-jpeg system-png system-zlib v8 v8snapshot xcb xcb-glx xcb-render xcb-xlib xinput2 xkbcommon-qt xlib xrender Build parts ............ libs tools examples Mode ................... release Using C++11 ............ yes Using PCH .............. no Target compiler supports: iWMMXt/Neon .......... no/yes

Qt modules and options: Qt D-Bus ............... yes (loading dbus-1 at runtime) Qt Concurrent .......... yes Qt GUI ................. yes Qt Widgets ............. yes JavaScriptCore JIT ..... yes (To be decided by JavaScriptCore) QML debugging .......... yes Use system proxies ..... no

Support enabled for: Accessibility .......... yes ALSA ................... yes CUPS ................... yes FontConfig ............. yes Iconv .................. yes ICU .................... yes Image formats: GIF .................. yes (plugin, using system library) JPEG ................. yes (plugin, using system library) PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using system library) Glib ................... yes GStreamer .............. yes GTK theme .............. yes Large File ............. yes libudev ................ yes Networking: getaddrinfo .......... yes getifaddrs ........... yes IPv6 ifname .......... yes OpenSSL .............. yes (loading libraries at run-time) NIS .................... yes OpenGL ................. yes (OpenGL ES 2.x) OpenVG ................. no PCRE ................... yes (bundled copy) pkg-config ............. yes PulseAudio ............. yes QPA backends: DirectFB ............. no   EGLFS ................ no   KMS .................. no   LinuxFB .............. no   XCB .................. yes (system library) MIT-SHM ............ yes Xcursor ............ yes (loaded at runtime) Xfixes ............. yes (loaded at runtime) Xi ................. no     Xi2 ................ yes Xinerama ........... yes (loaded at runtime) Xrandr ............. yes (loaded at runtime) Xrender ............ yes XKB ................ no     XShape ............. yes XSync .............. yes XVideo ............. yes Session management ..... yes SQL drivers: DB2 .................. no   InterBase ............ no   MySQL ................ no   OCI .................. no   ODBC ................. yes (plugin) PostgreSQL ........... no   SQLite 2 ............. no   SQLite ............... yes (plugin, using bundled copy) TDS .................. no udev ................... yes xkbcommon .............. yes (bundled copy) zlib ................... yes (system library)

NOTE: libxkbcommon 0.2.0 (or higher) not found on the system, will use the bundled version from 3rd party directory.

Qt is now configured for building. Just run 'gmake'. Once everything is built, you must run 'gmake install'. Qt will be installed into /usr/local/Qt-5.1.0

Prior to reconfiguration, make sure you remove any leftovers from the previous build.

Now in order to test it, we can download and compile the Qt5 Cinematic Experience demo:

wget http://quitcoding.com/download/Qt5_CinematicExperience_rpi_1.0.tgz tar -xzf Qt5_CinematicExperience_rpi_1.0.tgz cd Qt5_CinematicExperience_rpi_1.0 export PATH=/usr/local/Qt-5.1.0/bin:$PATH qmake make DISPLAY=:0 ./Qt5_CinematicExperience --fullscreen

There are also many other Qt5 demos.