Running on Linux armv8 (Problem with cspice)

[MariusPrm]

Hey everyone,

I am trying to run basilisk on a Raspberry Pi 5 (armv8 processor architecture).
However, when trying to build, an error occurs showing that cspice does not support gcc on linux armv8. Does anyone know whether there might be a workaround for this or different version of cspice that does support this? If so, how could I tell the basilisk compilation to load that version?

Thanks a lot for your help

[cpaul-mech]

Hello! I read about this briefly in this paper where a Graduate student at the University of Colorado mentioned this exact same problem. It's been a few years since the paper, and it generally seems as though Basilisk has transitioned away from running on embedded systems, but it is possible that this paper will provide some insight. Please reply if it was helpful!

[cpaul-mech]

Hey! If you're still looking for a solution, I managed to work around this issue by using Buildroot to cross-compile both CSPICE and Basilisk for my BeagleBone Black (ARMv7-A architecture).
Buildroot allows you to create custom packages with specific build instructions for your target architecture. The key is that Buildroot handles the cross-compilation toolchain, so you just need to tell it how to build CSPICE properly.
Here's what my approach does:

1. Downloads the CSPICE .tar.Z archive from NASA JPL
2. Extracts it using zcat piped to tar (since .Z files need special handling)
3. Compiles all the C source files using Buildroot's ARM cross-compiler (TARGET_CC) with the -fPIC flag (Position Independent Code - necessary for linking with other libraries)
4. Creates a static library (libcspice.a) using ar (archive tool)
5. Installs the library and headers to Buildroot's staging directory, where the Basilisk package can link against it during its own compilation
   The key difference from a standard CSPICE build is using the cross-compiler for ARM instead of your host system's compiler, and ensuring -fPIC is enabled.
   For your ARMv8/Raspberry Pi 5 case: You'd need to adapt this approach by:

• Setting up Buildroot for ARMv8 (64-bit ARM) instead of ARMv7-A (32-bit)
• Using the appropriate CSPICE download (possibly the 64-bit Linux version from the NAIF website)
• Following a similar custom package approach
  I'm attaching my Buildroot makefile below for reference. The main challenge was that CSPICE doesn't have a standard build system (no CMake/autotools), so you have to manually specify the compilation steps:

################################################################################
#
# cspice
#
################################################################################

CSPICE_VERSION = N0067
# The file is a .Z archive (old Unix compress), which requires custom extraction logic
CSPICE_SOURCE = cspice.tar.Z
CSPICE_SITE = https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/toolkit//C/PC_Linux_GCC_64bit/packages

CSPICE_LICENSE = NAIF
CSPICE_LICENSE_FILES = doc/html/index.html
CSPICE_INSTALL_STAGING = YES
CSPICE_INSTALL_TARGET = NO

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 1. EXTRACT COMMANDS (The Fix)
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Buildroot doesn't natively handle .Z files well in all versions.
# We force it to use zcat (gzip) to decompress, then pipe to tar.
define CSPICE_EXTRACT_CMDS
	$(ZCAT) $(CSPICE_DL_DIR)/$(CSPICE_SOURCE) | tar --strip-components=1 -C $(@D) -xf -
endef

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 2. BUILD COMMANDS
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# -fPIC: Required for creating Python bindings later
# -w: Suppress warnings
define CSPICE_BUILD_CMDS
	mkdir -p $(@D)/lib
	cd $(@D)/src/cspice && $(TARGET_CC) $(TARGET_CFLAGS) -fPIC -w -c *.c -I$(@D)/include
	cd $(@D)/src/cspice && $(TARGET_AR) cr $(@D)/lib/libcspice.a *.o
	$(TARGET_RANLIB) $(@D)/lib/libcspice.a
endef

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 3. INSTALL COMMANDS
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
define CSPICE_INSTALL_STAGING_CMDS
	$(INSTALL) -D -m 0644 $(@D)/lib/libcspice.a $(STAGING_DIR)/usr/lib/libcspice.a
	mkdir -p $(STAGING_DIR)/usr/include/cspice
	$(INSTALL) -m 0644 $(@D)/include/*.h $(STAGING_DIR)/usr/include/cspice/
endef

$(eval $(generic-package))