so it definitely also links build-grub-mkfont with a freetype for the wrong platform when cross-compiling for other targets, but it only seems to complain when there is a difference in endianness? wack…

gcc -o build-grub-mkfont -I./include -std=gnu99 -fno-common  -DGRUB_FILE=\"util/grub-mkfont.c\" -I. -I. -I. -I. -I./include -I./include -I./grub-core/lib/libgcrypt-grub/src/  -DGRUB_MKFONT=1 -DGRUB_BUILD=1 -DGRUB_UTIL=1 -DGRUB_BUILD_PROGRAM_NAME=\"build-grub-mkfont\" util/grub-mkfont.c grub-core/unidata.c grub-core/kern/emu/misc.c util/misc.c -I/nix/store/cc1p26vnf53s7rk01hazvi1x6r90rhw8-freetype-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu-2.13.3-dev/include/freetype2 -L/nix/store/x49s38xdy4h12k0ynrfh5z6xv9qhppjb-freetype-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu-2.13.3/lib -lfreetype
[...]
./build-grub-mkfont -o unicode.pf2 /nix/store/6d4rjzwgsh8vlr8pmzikxzlm5jrnd4lc-unifont-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu-16.0.03/share/fonts/unifont.pcf.gz || (rm -f unicode.pf2; exit 1)