It used to be tedious to set up a cross compile environment. Sure you can compile on the Raspberry Pi itself, but sometimes you want to use your big computer — and you can use it when your Pi is not on hand like when on an airplane with a laptop. It can be tricky to set up a cross compiler for any build tools, but if you go through one simple step, it becomes super easy regardless of what your real computer looks like. That one step is to install Docker.
Docker is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. It allows developers to build images that are essentially preconfigured Linux environments that run some service. Like a virtual machine, these images can run together without interfering with each other. Unlike a virtual machine, Docker containers (the running software) are lightweight because they share the same underlying kernel and hardware of the computer.
The reality is, setting up the Raspberry Pi build environment isn’t any easier. It is just that with Docker, someone else has already done the work for you and you can automatically grab their setup and keep it up to date. If you are already running Linux, your package manager probably makes the process pretty easy too (see [Rud Merriam’s] post on that process). However, the nice thing about the images is it is a complete isolated environment that can move from machine to machine and from platform to platform (the Windows and Mac platforms use a variety of techniques to run the Linux software, but it is done transparently).
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