[GUIDE][LINUX] Switching to a custom toolchain [ARM][AARCH64][SM/Linaro/UBER] - Android

Introduction
Since the only guide I could find for switching toolchains in Android is one on linaro from a few years ago in the Galaxy nexus forum, I decided to make one and post it here. Custom toolchains can provide an overall better android experience to the end user by increasing speed, buttery smoothness, and even fixing bugs! Note: They can also produce bugs on some devices/ROMs.
Preface:
There are two mainstream custom toolchains, SaberMod and Linaro, which provide different improvements. In short, SaberMod is built for max speed, while Linaro is built for some subtle speed increases with much more smoothness.
Click for ARM info
For ARM devices, there are also 2 different toolchains used in Android; arm-linux-androideabi, which compiles the ROM, and arm-linux-eabi, which compiles the kernel. The recommended version for androideabi is 4.9, but higher should be used once the bugs are worked out/if it works for your device.
Click for AARCH64 (ARM64) info
For 64 bit ARM devices, there is one main toolchain,; aarch64-linux, which compiles both the ROM and the kernel. The recommended version is 4.9, because as of now 5.0 won't work with the kernel without heavy revision.
Switching ARM Toolchains
Step 1:
Run the following commands from your source directory to download the 4.9 toolchain for ROM and 4.9 toolchain for kernel
If using Linaro:
Code:
git clone -b linaro-4.9-arm-linux-androideabi https://github.com/ArchiDroid/Toolchain prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-androideabi-linaro-4.8
Code:
git clone -b linaro-4.9-arm-linux-eabi https://github.com/ArchiDroid/Toolchain prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-eabi-linaro-4.9
If using SaberMod: Download from http://sabermod.com
If Using UBER
Code:
git clone https://bitbucket.org/UBERTC/arm-linux-androideabi-4.9.git prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-androideabi-UB-4.8
Code:
git clone https://bitbucket.org/UBERTC/arm-eabi-4.9.git prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-eabi-UB-4.9
Step 2 :
Here's where things get a little tricky. Step 2 is different for different android sources. If you use a rom that has GCC Freedom, use the first method. If not, open the file in your source directory in gedit /build/core/combo/TARGET_linux-arm.mk and ctrl+f to search for "TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND" without the quotes. If it's found, use the first method. If not, use method 2.
Method 1: To actually use the toolchains, you'll need to change a few things in /build/core/combo/TARGET_linux-arm.mk. An example of what you need to change is shown below:
Code:
ifeq ($(strip $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND)),)
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND := SM-4.9
else
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND := $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND)
endif
ifeq ($(strip $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_ARM)),)
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_ARM := SM-4.9
else
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_ARM := $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_ARM)
endif
# Specify Target Custom GCC Chains to use:
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_AND := SM-4.8
TARGET_GCC_VERSION_ARM := SM-4.9
Notice how the target versions are each listed in two places?(AND is for androideabi and ARM is eabi) Just change the versions at the bottom where it says to specify the custom toolchain to the suffix of the toolchain you chose, for example linaro-4.8 and
SM-4.9 . Save and your done!
Method 2: Open /build/envsetup.sh in gedit or another text editor and look for the following section of code:
Code:
export ANDROID_EABI_TOOLCHAIN=
local ARCH=$(get_build_var TARGET_ARCH)
case $ARCH in
x86) toolchaindir=x86/i686-linux-android-$targetgccversion/bin
;;
arm) toolchaindir=arm/arm-linux-androideabi-$targetgccversion/bin
;;
mips) toolchaindir=mips/mipsel-linux-android-$targetgccversion/bin
;;
*)
echo "Can't find toolchain for unknown architecture: $ARCH"
toolchaindir=xxxxxxxxx
;;
esac
if [ -d "$gccprebuiltdir/$toolchaindir" ]; then
export ANDROID_EABI_TOOLCHAIN=$gccprebuiltdir/$toolchaindir
fi
unset ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN_PATH
case $ARCH in
arm)
toolchaindir=arm/arm-eabi-$targetgccversion/bin
if [ -d "$gccprebuiltdir/$toolchaindir" ]; then
export ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN="$gccprebuiltdir/$toolchaindir"
ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=":$gccprebuiltdir/$toolchaindir"
fi
;;
Look at the line "arm) toolchaindir=arm/arm-linux-androideabi-$targetgccversion/bin" and change $targetgccversion to the suffix of the androideabi toolchain you downloaded in step 1, such as linaro-4.8. Now look at the lines
Code:
unset ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN ARM_EABI_TOOLCHAIN_PATH
case $ARCH in
arm)
toolchaindir=arm/arm-eabi-$targetgccversion/bin
and change $targetgccversion to the suffix of the eabi toolchain you downloaded in step 1, such as linaro-4.9. Save your file and you did it!
Switching AARCH64 Toolchains
Both ROM and Kernel use the same toolchain for AARCH64, so we need to clone it first.
Step 1:
Run the following commands from your source directory to download the 4.8 toolchain for ROM and 4.9 toolchain for kernel
If using Linaro:
Code:
git clone https://android.git.linaro.org/git-ro/platform/prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-4.9-linaro.git prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-linaro-4.9
If using SaberMod 4.9:
Code:
git clone https://github.com/SaberMod/aarch64-linux-android-4.9.git prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-SM-4.9
Step 2:
To actually use the toolchain, you'll need to change a few things in /build/core/combo/TARGET_linux-arm64.mk. An example of what you need to change is shown below:
Code:
ifeq ($(strip $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_EXP)),)
TARGET_GCC_VERSION := 4.9
else
TARGET_GCC_VERSION := $(TARGET_GCC_VERSION_EXP)
endif
See where TARGET_GCC_VERSION is defined as 4.9? change 4.9 to your toolchain version, SM-4.9 or linaro-4.9, to switch toolchains. Save the file and you're golden!
Congrats, you just upgraded to better toolchains! Make sure you run "make clobber && rm -rf ~/.ccache" before your next build.

---

More Links
I decided to add Links to all (known/published) custom toolchains available with a short description of each! Feel free to tell me if I miss any.
SaberMod Git
SaberMod aims to optimize Android as much as possible, using only the latest and fastest sources for toolchains. SaberMod also uses its own fixes and patches for graphite, ISL, and other optimizations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UBERTC Git
UBER is focused on well rounded performace, starting with a GNU base, and building up smoothness, and battery by using Linaro and AOSP patches
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linaro (Switch to Linaro branch)
Linaro is the toolchain of Linaro Group, focussing on adding better support for ARM based targets
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ArchiToolchain (Also under branches)
ArchiToolchain's goal is minimalism, by simply optimizing for a variety of targets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boosted TC
Little is known about boosted TC other than it was based on SM, and is likely incompatible with Lollipop (for ROMs)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hyper Toolchains
Hyper Toolchains combines popular toolchains (Currently SM, Uber and Linaro) in various ways to create unique results, without a main goal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

---

Nice job! But what about Linaro 4.7?

---

joshuabg said:
Nice job! But what about Linaro 4.7?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4.7 is sooooooo last year, all the fast ROM's use 4.8

---

Thanks for providing steps to accomplish this not so easy task.

---

frap129 said:
4.7 is sooooooo last year, all the fast ROM's use 4.8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok what about linaro 4.10. And yes it does exist.

---

REV3NT3CH said:
ok what about linaro 4.10. And yes it does exist.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use 4.9 and 4.10 for kernel build only.
Never managed to build a ROM with a toolchain above 4.8 .

---

If you use graphene...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's graphene?

---

kantjer said:
REV3NT3CH said:
ok what about linaro 4.10. And yes it does exist.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use 4.9 and 4.10 for kernel build only.
Never managed to build a ROM with a toolchain above 4.8 .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, 4.10 doesnt work with ROM's, and for kernels it can cause (somtimes) stability problems. And doesn't "exist" per say. It's not an official version of GCC. From my understanding, it's a watered down version of GCC 5.0 mixed with 4.9 because 5.0 is currently in development and doesn't work. It also doesn't provide too much of a performance boost, so I chose not to include it in the guide.

---

koe1974 said:
What's graphene?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An optimized version of Carbon (click the link labled "My source" in description

---

frap129 said:
Yep, 4.10 doesnt work with ROM's, and for kernels it can cause (somtimes) stability problems. And doesn't "exist" per say. It's not an official version of GCC. From my understanding, it's a watered down version of GCC 5.0 mixed with 4.9 because 5.0 is currently in development and doesn't work. It also doesn't provide too much of a performance boost, so I chose not to include it in the guide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I know that lol...I was more so being sarcastic...I do Dev Roms and kernels but use GCC freedom as I know its creator personally....

---

REV3NT3CH said:
Well I know that lol...I was more so being sarcastic...I do Dev Roms and kernels but use GCC freedom as I know its creator personally....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're only causing unnecessary confusion. Specifying custom prefix and proper manifest entry works far better than hardcoding ANY version right in the android_build.

---

REV3NT3CH said:
Well I know that lol...I was more so being sarcastic...I do Dev Roms and kernels but use GCC freedom as I know its creator personally....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you post a link to GCC Freedom? I've seen it mentioned but i havent been able to find much about it.
JustArchi said:
You're only causing unnecessary confusion. Specifying custom prefix and proper manifest entry works far better than hardcoding ANY version right in the android_build.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but this is a beginer guide. It's meant for people who have started compiling ROM's and want to give it a little extra boost, and to be able to be applied to any source code with ease (and so you can have multiple toolchains incase you want to switch). People who are knowledgeable enough about android to the point where they add things to their roomservice.xml and have custom repo's probably wont need a guide. But thanks for the tip, it'll help more advanced people who read these posts, and also thanks for uploading the prebuilt linaro toolchains, It really makes it easy for everyone.

---

frap129 said:
Could you post a link to GCC Freedom? I've seen it mentioned but i havent been able to find much about it.
Yeah, but this is a beginer guide. It's meant for people who have started compiling ROM's and want to give it a little extra boost, and to be able to be applied to any source code with ease (and so you can have multiple toolchains incase you want to switch). People who are knowledgeable enough about android to the point where they add things to their roomservice.xml and have custom repo's probably wont need a guide. But thanks for the tip, it'll help more advanced people who read these posts, and also thanks for uploading the prebuilt linaro toolchains, It really makes it easy for everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea give me a bit..I'm at work and mobile but I'll shoot you a pm....it's more so a commit on github that's universal than a how-to guide on xda

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REV3NT3CH said:
Yea give me a bit..I'm at work and mobile but I'll shoot you a pm....it's more so a commit on github that's universal than a how-to guide on xda
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nevermind, a few minutes of highly determined google searching found the commit. Thanks anyways.

---

@frap129 : Are you planning on adding/talking about flags ? And Archi's too ?

---

frap129 said:
Nevermind, a few minutes of highly determined google searching found the commit. Thanks anyways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your welcome...the one I use is the direct commit from @IAmTheOneTheyCallNeo

---

bud77 said:
@frap129 : Are you planning on adding/talking about flags ? And Archi's too ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Archi's are the one's I use, so I don't plan on really talking about them. I may talk a little about Graphite flags, as those are highly optimal flags that are included in SaberMod, but that would be a separate guide because I'd have to talk about adding them to the ROM and the kernel,

---

@frap129 love the guide, so happens I have been trying to change the kernel toolchain to SaberMod 4.9 and currently building the the ROM and Kernel with toolchain Sabermod 4.8. I am compiling temasek build for the Oneplus One, and using archidroid optimizations, take a look here https://github.com/temasek/android_build/blob/cm-11.0/core/combo/TARGET_linux-arm.mk
This file I did not edit.
This one i did edit line 172, to toolchaindir=arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9/bin
https://github.com/temasek/android_build/blob/cm-11.0/envsetup.sh
And here is a link to the toolchain I want to use https://github.com/RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-eabi-4.9
and here is my Tool Chain manifest
Code:
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.8-->
<project path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-androideabi-4.8" name="UBERUTILS/arm-linux-androideabi-4.8" remote="github" revision="master" />
<project path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-eabi-4.8" name="UBERUTILS/arm-eabi-4.8" remote="github" revision="master" />
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.9-->
<project name="RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />
<project name="RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-linux-androideabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-linux-androideabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />
And last but not least is my terminal error
Code:
HOSTLD scripts/dtc/dtc
/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/kernel/oneplus/msm8974/Makefile:515: recipe for target 'scripts' failed
make[2]: *** [scripts] Error 2
Makefile:130: recipe for target 'sub-make' failed
make[1]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/kernel/oneplus/msm8974'
build/core/tasks/kernel.mk:175: recipe for target 'TARGET_KERNEL_BINARIES' failed
make: *** [TARGET_KERNEL_BINARIES] Error 2
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
target StaticLib: libc_nomalloc (/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/out/target/product/bacon/obj/STATIC_LIBRARIES/libc_nomalloc_intermediates/libc_nomalloc.a)
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c: In function 'pcache1Fetch':
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:39405:25: warning: suggest braces around empty body in an 'if' statement [-Wempty-body]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:39407:25: warning: suggest braces around empty body in an 'if' statement [-Wempty-body]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c: At top level:
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:98075:1: warning: missing initializer [-Wmissing-field-initializers]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:98075:1: warning: (near initialization for 'sqlite3Apis.aggregate_count') [-Wmissing-field-initializers]
[[email protected] cm-11.0]$
Hope I gave you plenty of info to help me figure out my error in compiling.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank You

---

katinatez said:
@frap129 love the guide, so happens I have been trying to change the kernel toolchain to SaberMod 4.9 and currently building the the ROM and Kernel with toolchain Sabermod 4.8. I am compiling temasek build for the Oneplus One, and using archidroid optimizations, take a look here https://github.com/temasek/android_build/blob/cm-11.0/core/combo/TARGET_linux-arm.mk
This file I did not edit.
This one i did edit line 172, to toolchaindir=arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9/bin
https://github.com/temasek/android_build/blob/cm-11.0/envsetup.sh
And here is a link to the toolchain I want to use https://github.com/RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-eabi-4.9
and here is my Tool Chain manifest
Code:
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.8-->
<project path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-linux-androideabi-4.8" name="UBERUTILS/arm-linux-androideabi-4.8" remote="github" revision="master" />
<project path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/arm-eabi-4.8" name="UBERUTILS/arm-eabi-4.8" remote="github" revision="master" />
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.9-->
<project name="RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />
<project name="RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-linux-androideabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-linux-androideabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />
And last but not least is my terminal error
Code:
HOSTLD scripts/dtc/dtc
/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/kernel/oneplus/msm8974/Makefile:515: recipe for target 'scripts' failed
make[2]: *** [scripts] Error 2
Makefile:130: recipe for target 'sub-make' failed
make[1]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/kernel/oneplus/msm8974'
build/core/tasks/kernel.mk:175: recipe for target 'TARGET_KERNEL_BINARIES' failed
make: *** [TARGET_KERNEL_BINARIES] Error 2
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
target StaticLib: libc_nomalloc (/home/katinatez/android/cm-11.0/out/target/product/bacon/obj/STATIC_LIBRARIES/libc_nomalloc_intermediates/libc_nomalloc.a)
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c: In function 'pcache1Fetch':
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:39405:25: warning: suggest braces around empty body in an 'if' statement [-Wempty-body]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:39407:25: warning: suggest braces around empty body in an 'if' statement [-Wempty-body]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c: At top level:
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:98075:1: warning: missing initializer [-Wmissing-field-initializers]
external/sqlite/dist/sqlite3.c:98075:1: warning: (near initialization for 'sqlite3Apis.aggregate_count') [-Wmissing-field-initializers]
[[email protected] cm-11.0]$
Hope I gave you plenty of info to help me figure out my error in compiling.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank You
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There might have been an error in compiling the toolchain itself, try switching
Code:
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.9-->
<project name="RobbieL811tc/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />
to
Code:
<!-- TOOLCHAIN SaberMod 4.9-->
<project name="SaberMod/arm-eabi-4.9" path="prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/arm/sm-arm-eabi-4.9" remote="github" revision="master" />