On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 10:42:57AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:

(It has annoyed me for years that if you want to cross-compile, you
first have to do "make ARCH=xyz config" and then remember to do "make
ARCH=xyz" for the build too, but I cross-compile so seldom that I've
never really cared).

Same here.  I'd so much love to just have ARCH an CROSS_COMPILE in my
.config for cross-builds.  Oterwise I keep forgetting them, or keep
forgetting to unset CROSS_COMPILE and will just waist a lot of time
either way.

The fact the the .config files even mention what architecture they are
for in a comment but don't make use of that information is just hostile
to users.