Problems with #esp-open-sdk build on Debian jessie #ESP8266 solved

I have had problems lately to build the esp-open-sdk on my main Debian machine with Jessie. Very annoying of course as I needed it but I haven’t had time to investigate the problem until today. I post the solution here i case it is useful for someone else.

The symptoms is that the build stops quite early in the build process spitting out something like this

[INFO ] =================================================================
[INFO ] Retrieving needed toolchain components’ tarballs
[INFO ] Retrieving needed toolchain components’ tarballs: done in 208.37s (at 03:41)
[INFO ] =================================================================
[INFO ] Extracting and patching toolchain components
[ERROR]
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> Build failed in step ‘Extracting and patching toolchain components’
[ERROR] >> called in step ‘(top-level)’
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> Error happened in: CT_DoExecLog[scripts/functions@257]
[ERROR] >> called from: CT_Extract[scripts/functions@982]
[ERROR] >> called from: do_binutils_extract[scripts/build/binutils/binutils.sh@38]
[ERROR] >> called from: main[scripts/crosstool-NG.sh@615]
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> For more info on this error, look at the file: ‘build.log’
[ERROR] >> There is a list of known issues, some with workarounds, in:
[ERROR] >> ‘share/doc/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-1.22.0-60-g37b07f6/B – Known issues.txt’
[ERROR]
[ERROR] (elapsed: 4:12.94)
[04:15] / ct-ng:152: recipe for target ‘build’ failed
make[2]: *** [build] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG’
../Makefile:132: recipe for target ‘_toolchain’ failed
make[1]: *** [_toolchain] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG’
Makefile:128: recipe for target ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/xtensa-lx106-elf/bin/xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc’ failed
make: *** [/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/xtensa-lx106-elf/bin/xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc] Error 2

Investigating the crosstools-NG/build.log (less crosstool-NG/build.log)

[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘touch’ ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG/.build/sr
c/.ncurses-6.0.patched’
[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘rm’ ‘-f’ ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG/.build/
src/.ncurses-6.0.patching’
[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘touch’ ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG/.build/sr
c/.binutils-2.25.1.extracting’
[DEBUG] Entering ‘/home/esp/esp-open-sdk/crosstool-NG/.build/src’
[EXTRA] Extracting ‘binutils-2.25.1’
[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘mkdir’ ‘-p’ ‘binutils-2.25.1’
[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘tar’ ‘–strip-components=1’ ‘-C’ ‘binutils-2.25.1’ ‘-xv’ ‘-f’ ‘-‘
[FILE ] tar: This does not look like a tar archive
[FILE ] tar: Skipping to next header
[FILE ] tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
[ERROR]
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> Build failed in step ‘Extracting and patching toolchain components’
[ERROR] >> called in step ‘(top-level)’
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> Error happened in: CT_DoExecLog[scripts/functions@257]
[ERROR] >> called from: CT_Extract[scripts/functions@982]
[ERROR] >> called from: do_binutils_extract[scripts/build/binutils/binutils.sh@38]
[ERROR] >> called from: main[scripts/crosstool-NG.sh@615]
[ERROR] >>
[ERROR] >> For more info on this error, look at the file: ‘build.log’
[ERROR] >> There is a list of known issues, some with workarounds, in:
[ERROR] >> ‘share/doc/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-1.22.0-60-g37b07f6/B – Known issues.txt’
[ERROR]
[ERROR] (elapsed: 4:12.94)

The line

[DEBUG] ==> Executing: ‘tar’ ‘–strip-components=1’ ‘-C’ ‘binutils-2.25.1’ ‘-xv’ ‘-f’ ‘-‘
[FILE ] tar: This does not look like a tar archive

says it is a problem with a tarball and testing the binutils tarball under crosstool-NG/.build/tarballs shows it really is a problem with the tarball.

So after some discussions here is finally found a solution to the problem.

• remove the partly extracted binutils – rm -rf crosstool-NG/.build/src/binutils*
• remove flags  – rm crosstool-NG/.build/src/ .binutils-*
• remove the bad tarball  – rm crosstool-NG/.build/tarballs/binutils*
• Download binutils
• copy this tarball from the gnu link to crosstool-NG/.build/tarballs
• Continue with the build – make

This will make things build.  At least it did for me.

if the version of binutils is something else in your case you have other versions here.  Select the tar.gz version