Cross-GCC

Purpose

Guide agents through setting up and using cross-compilation GCC toolchains: triplets, sysroots, pkg-config, QEMU-based testing, and common failure modes.

Triggers

• "How do I compile for ARM on my x86 machine?"
• "I'm getting 'wrong ELF class' or 'cannot execute binary file'"
• "How do I set up a sysroot for cross-compilation?"
• "pkg-config returns host libraries in my cross build"
• "How do I debug a cross-compiled binary with QEMU + GDB?"

Workflow

1. Understand the triplet

A GNU triplet has the form <arch>-<vendor>-<os>-<abi> (often 3 or 4 parts):