Can I use 'distcc' to compile ReactOS?

[Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood]

I just discovered distcc. For those who don't know, distcc is a 
distributed compiler utility that interfaces with gcc on Linux (and 
compatible platforms.) It comes as a daemon and a client - the daemon is 
run on each machine you wish to include in the "compiler farm" (so to 
speak), and the client is told which servers to use (via an environment 
variable.) When you run distcc it just acts like gcc/g++, and 
distributes the file to be compiled to each of the hosts.

It doesn't need the headers or libraries on the hosts - the output of 
the preprocessor is passed to each host.

Anyway...

As I have a second machine which usually runs Windows solely for when I 
wish to make music, it's ideal for running a small Linux installation, 
aimed at running distcc/gcc etc. and not much else.

All is well, except I cannot configure ReactOS to make use of distcc :(

The standard usage for distcc (according to the authors site) is:
make -j8 distcc

The only way I even got close to compiling ReactOS using distcc was to 
hack the main Makefile and replace "gcc" with "distcc", and "g++" with 
"distcc g++" (to specify the compiler to use on each host.)

This works perfectly... for the initial make tasks (building the build 
system?) but after this distcc is completely ignored.

Is there a way to allow distcc to work? Ideally the Makefile should take 
note of the CC variable, I guess?

As I have a laptop and 2 desktop machines at my disposal (plus - as I'm 
staying at a friends house at present - his experimental 3 GHz server 
box), I'd like to make use of distcc so I don't have to make so much 
coffee ;)

Any ideas?

[Casper Hornstrup]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Andrew "Silver
> Blade" Greenwood
> Sent: 7. november 2005 19:15
> To: ReactOS Development List
> Subject: [ros-dev] Can I use 'distcc' to compile ReactOS?
>
> I just discovered distcc. For those who don't know, distcc is a
> distributed compiler utility that interfaces with gcc on Linux (and
> compatible platforms.) It comes as a daemon and a client - the daemon is
> run on each machine you wish to include in the "compiler farm" (so to
> speak), and the client is told which servers to use (via an environment
> variable.) When you run distcc it just acts like gcc/g++, and
> distributes the file to be compiled to each of the hosts.
>
> It doesn't need the headers or libraries on the hosts - the output of
> the preprocessor is passed to each host.
>
> Anyway...
>
> As I have a second machine which usually runs Windows solely for when I
> wish to make music, it's ideal for running a small Linux installation,
> aimed at running distcc/gcc etc. and not much else.
>
> All is well, except I cannot configure ReactOS to make use of distcc :(
>
> The standard usage for distcc (according to the authors site) is:
> make -j8 distcc
>
> The only way I even got close to compiling ReactOS using distcc was to
> hack the main Makefile and replace "gcc" with "distcc", and "g++" with
> "distcc g++" (to specify the compiler to use on each host.)
>
> This works perfectly... for the initial make tasks (building the build
> system?) but after this distcc is completely ignored.
>
> Is there a way to allow distcc to work? Ideally the Makefile should take
> note of the CC variable, I guess?
>
> As I have a laptop and 2 desktop machines at my disposal (plus - as I'm
> staying at a friends house at present - his experimental 3 GHz server
> box), I'd like to make use of distcc so I don't have to make so much
> coffee ;)
>
> Any ideas?

You need to add a check for distcc to rbuild. Open mingw.cpp (IIRC) and
search for compilerCommand.

Casper

[Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood]

I added this:

*if* ( !detectedCompiler )
{
    compilerPrefix = "";
    compilerCommand = "distcc";
    detectedCompiler = TryToDetectThisCompiler ( compilerCommand );
}

It detects and displays:
Compiler detected ... (distcc)

Or something similar.

However, it doesn't seem to make a difference. It appears that g++ gets 
called a bunch of times, and distcc never shows up in the local process 
list (or the remote one, for that matter.)

Am I missing something? (Why is g++ being run for a c file anyway?!)
> You need to add a check for distcc to rbuild. Open mingw.cpp (IIRC) and
> search for compilerCommand.
>
> Casper
>
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