Node.js is available for many different operating systems and architectures. We can run it on our Macbooks locally, on full server grade systems, and on IoT devices with ease. The Node Foundation publishes binary tarballs for a broad spectrum of target platforms. Over at NodeSource we package those builds up for Linux to make them easy to install. However, building Node.js for architectures other than Intel x86 or x64 can be very time-consuming. A clean build of a release from the 10.x line on a Raspberry Pi 3 takes around five hours. It would be nicer if we could cross compile from a beefy Intel machine with the target being the ARM chips that are used in the Raspberry Pi. This is possible, but not as easy as I would have thought when using a recent 64bit Ubuntu system. I spent the better part of my Friday night figuring out exactly how to do it, so I thought I’d share what I learned so you don’t have to jump through all of the hoops I did.
