[gentoo-embedded] Howto guide or something?

[gentoo-embedded] Howto guide or something?

[Tyler Akins]

Hi!  I'd ideally like to get X and a few apps on an Aquapad (x86 
instruction set).  I like the idea of Gentoo embedded, so I installed it 
on a box.  Thus, I am a newbie to this flavor of Linux, but I still have 
experience with other variations.  I've been hanging out on this list 
and I see the stage tarballs here and there (lost the URLs at the 
moment, but they are around somewhere), but I'm so amazingly new to 
Gentoo that I don't know what to do with them besides "tar xvfj".

So, now that I have a nearly blank hard drive and the most basic 
components of Gentoo installed, I was wondering what I should do next.  
Is there a howto document or something laying around?  Or, perhaps 
people could show a few sample instructions and provide a few steps to 
get me started?  Some sample commands for compiling a library or one of 
the things that X requires?

Ideally, I would like to create an image for other poor souls who are 
using the Aquapad.  I would like to get firefox going at the very 
least.  Once that works, everything else should be a downhill battle.

If there is no documentation, maybe a wiki could be started so that 
people can share their instructions with the world, or information could 
be dumped into gentoo-wiki.com.  I, for one, would be very appreciative 
of some sort of documentation that I could refer to and possibly enhance 
when snags get hit and whatnot.

If I missed this information in the past few months that I've been 
subscribed to this list, please forgive my inability to read and kindly 
remind me where the documentation is.


Additionally, I was wondering what the definiton of "embedded" was for 
this list.  I am working with a laptop (more or less) with CF instead of 
a hard drive and a touchscreen instead of a keyboard/mouse.  Is this 
meant more for routers and other hardware without much of a user 
interface, or would kiosks and cheap-cheap computers possibly fit into 
this category?


On an unrelated side note, my Gentoo box locks up after X minutes of 
inactivity (me not touching the keyboard).  As long as I'm there to tap 
the space bar or something every 20 minutes, it is fine.  I think that 
30 minutes is the magic number for the lockups.  The screen is blank 
(setterm didn't keep the screen on for some reason) and the computer is 
completely unresponsive (from both the keyboard and from the network).  
Any idea what I have misconfigured?


Oh, I also wonder if there are any good programs that a tablet computer 
should have.  I've been thinking of festival, a lite X client (icewm?  
matchbox?), a read-only filesystem (ext3? reiserfs? JFFS2? cloop?), 
firefox, handwriting recognition, etc.


Thanks a bundle for any advice offered!!

-- Tyler


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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Howto guide or something?

[Ned Ludd]

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On Wed, 2004-11-10 at 14:48, Tyler Akins wrote:
> Hi!  I'd ideally like to get X and a few apps on an Aquapad (x86 
> instruction set).  I like the idea of Gentoo embedded, so I installed it 
> on a box.  Thus, I am a newbie to this flavor of Linux, but I still have 
> experience with other variations.  I've been hanging out on this list 
> and I see the stage tarballs here and there (lost the URLs at the 
> moment, but they are around somewhere), but I'm so amazingly new to 
> Gentoo that I don't know what to do with them besides "tar xvfj".
> 
> So, now that I have a nearly blank hard drive and the most basic 
> components of Gentoo installed, I was wondering what I should do next.  
> Is there a howto document or something laying around?  Or, perhaps 
> people could show a few sample instructions and provide a few steps to 
> get me started?  Some sample commands for compiling a library or one of 
> the things that X requires?
> 
> Ideally, I would like to create an image for other poor souls who are 
> using the Aquapad.  
I would be interested in knowing what patches you have to add in order
to support the Aquapad. I've not worked with these yet. But I know it's
a matter of time before I'm making something with them.


> I would like to get firefox going at the very 
> least.  

that might take some time.

> Once that works, everything else should be a downhill battle.



> If there is no documentation, maybe a wiki could be started so that 
> people can share their instructions with the world, or information could 
> be dumped into gentoo-wiki.com.  I, for one, would be very appreciative 
> of some sort of documentation that I could refer to and possibly enhance 
> when snags get hit and whatnot.

Sounds fine. You should start posting what you know there/here..

> 
> If I missed this information in the past few months that I've been 
> subscribed to this list, please forgive my inability to read and kindly 
> remind me where the documentation is.

Nobody has joined the project that is interested in documenting the misc
processes.


> Additionally, I was wondering what the definiton of "embedded" was for 
> this list.  I am working with a laptop (more or less) with CF instead of 
> a hard drive and a touchscreen instead of a keyboard/mouse.  Is this 
> meant more for routers and other hardware without much of a user 
> interface, or would kiosks and cheap-cheap computers possibly fit into 
> this category?

I don't think this list can really define what "embedded" is as
"embedded" means nearly something different to everybody and what they
are building. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet to assume most of us are
working with SBC's vs say micro controllers.

> On an unrelated side note, my Gentoo box locks up after X minutes of 
> inactivity (me not touching the keyboard).  As long as I'm there to tap 
> the space bar or something every 20 minutes, it is fine.  I think that 
> 30 minutes is the magic number for the lockups.  The screen is blank 
> (setterm didn't keep the screen on for some reason) and the computer is 
> completely unresponsive (from both the keyboard and from the network).  
> Any idea what I have misconfigured?

perhaps check that your apm is all setup correctly and supported by the
device your using and that xscreensaver is disabled.



> Oh, I also wonder if there are any good programs that a tablet computer 
> should have.  I've been thinking of festival, a lite X client (icewm?  
> matchbox?), a read-only filesystem (ext3? reiserfs? JFFS2? cloop?), 
> firefox, handwriting recognition, etc.

I would not use ext3 on any embedded device.
A few weeks ago a very informed user posted to this list about file
systems for CF and he was very willing to explain in detail to anybody
that wanted to know. So perhaps you want to find that thread and Re: to
it and ask your questions there.

> Thanks a bundle for any advice offered!!
> 
> -- Tyler
> 
> 
> --
> gentoo-embedded@gentoo.org mailing list
-- 
Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org>
Gentoo (hardened,security,infrastructure,embedded) Developer

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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Howto guide or something?

[Selwyn Tang]

Hi Tyler,

On 11/11/04 03:48, Tyler Akins wrote:
> moment, but they are around somewhere), but I'm so amazingly new to 
> Gentoo that I don't know what to do with them besides "tar xvfj".

Me too. I'm a newbie in Gentoo and Gentoo embedded.

> So, now that I have a nearly blank hard drive and the most basic 
> components of Gentoo installed, I was wondering what I should do next.  

Can you tell me more about it? Did you install the Gentoo on your 
development box or your target (ie Aquapad)? My understanding is that we 
need to install a bootloader to the boot partition, a kernel that can 
boot on the target, a baselayout with essential files and initscripts, 
and any other binaries and libraries for your apps.

Selwyn

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[gentoo-embedded] Re: Howto guide or something?

[Peter S. Mazinger]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Tyler Akins wrote:

> Hi!  I'd ideally like to get X and a few apps on an Aquapad (x86 
> instruction set).  I like the idea of Gentoo embedded, so I installed it 
> on a box.  Thus, I am a newbie to this flavor of Linux, but I still have 
> experience with other variations.  I've been hanging out on this list 
> and I see the stage tarballs here and there (lost the URLs at the 
> moment, but they are around somewhere), but I'm so amazingly new to 
> Gentoo that I don't know what to do with them besides "tar xvfj".
> 
> So, now that I have a nearly blank hard drive and the most basic 
> components of Gentoo installed, I was wondering what I should do next.  
> Is there a howto document or something laying around?  Or, perhaps 
> people could show a few sample instructions and provide a few steps to 
> get me started?  Some sample commands for compiling a library or one of 
> the things that X requires?

X (tested older XFree86 and xorg-x11-6.8.1) can't be built against uclibc 
for now (missing math functions)

solar,vapier:
I could add to the masked uclibc
use X && (apply X needed math funcs)
and/or
use java && (apply sun-jdk math funcs)
the java condition is not quite true, they are needed to build sun-j2sdk

Peter

-- 
Peter S. Mazinger <ps dot m at gmx dot net>           ID: 0xA5F059F2
Key fingerprint = 92A4 31E1 56BC 3D5A 2D08  BB6E C389 975E A5F0 59F2


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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Re: Howto guide or something?

[Ned Ludd]

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On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 04:09, Peter S. Mazinger wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Tyler Akins wrote:
> 
> > Hi!  I'd ideally like to get X and a few apps on an Aquapad (x86 
> > instruction set).  I like the idea of Gentoo embedded, so I installed it 
> > on a box.  Thus, I am a newbie to this flavor of Linux, but I still have 
> > experience with other variations.  I've been hanging out on this list 
> > and I see the stage tarballs here and there (lost the URLs at the 
> > moment, but they are around somewhere), but I'm so amazingly new to 
> > Gentoo that I don't know what to do with them besides "tar xvfj".
> > 
> > So, now that I have a nearly blank hard drive and the most basic 
> > components of Gentoo installed, I was wondering what I should do next.  
> > Is there a howto document or something laying around?  Or, perhaps 
> > people could show a few sample instructions and provide a few steps to 
> > get me started?  Some sample commands for compiling a library or one of 
> > the things that X requires?
> 
> X (tested older XFree86 and xorg-x11-6.8.1) can't be built against uclibc 
> for now (missing math functions)
> 
> solar,vapier:
> I could add to the masked uclibc
> use X && (apply X needed math funcs)
> and/or
> use java && (apply sun-jdk math funcs)
> the java condition is not quite true, they are needed to build sun-j2sdk

Well here is what I'm thinking in this respect. mjn3 is working on a new
libm but it's going to be a while before he is done. Reading the
uClibc/TODO states that libm is targeted for 1.0 which we know is going
to be a ways out. So if we have replacement functions then lets post
them here for review and consider patching out own -lm till such time as
mjn3 has it ready and it works for us.

http://uclibc.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/uClibc/TODO?&view=auto
TODO list for the uClibc 1.0.0 release:
*) Implement the float and long double versions of math funcs
	using wrappers on top of the double versions (size / precision
	trade off where size clearly wins).
> 
> Peter
-- 
Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org>
Gentoo (hardened,security,infrastructure,embedded) Developer

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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Re: Howto guide or something?

[Peter S. Mazinger]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Ned Ludd wrote:

> > X (tested older XFree86 and xorg-x11-6.8.1) can't be built against uclibc 
> > for now (missing math functions)
> > 
> > solar,vapier:
> > I could add to the masked uclibc
> > use X && (apply X needed math funcs)
> > and/or
> > use java && (apply sun-jdk math funcs)
> > the java condition is not quite true, they are needed to build sun-j2sdk
> 
> Well here is what I'm thinking in this respect. mjn3 is working on a new
> libm but it's going to be a while before he is done. Reading the
> uClibc/TODO states that libm is targeted for 1.0 which we know is going
> to be a ways out. So if we have replacement functions then lets post
> them here for review and consider patching out own -lm till such time as
> mjn3 has it ready and it works for us.
> 
> http://uclibc.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/uClibc/TODO?&view=auto
> TODO list for the uClibc 1.0.0 release:
> *) Implement the float and long double versions of math funcs
> 	using wrappers on top of the double versions (size / precision
> 	trade off where size clearly wins).

look in the current uclibc patches tarball subdir math, those are that I 
needed until now, they are edited versions of net/openbsd (as almost the 
whole original libm stuff in uclibc)
sinf/cosf/tanf/atan2f/sqrtf/powf/fabsf are implemented
I'll add IUSE="X" and use X && epatch patch/math to the new uclibc ebuild

Peter

-- 
Peter S. Mazinger <ps dot m at gmx dot net>           ID: 0xA5F059F2
Key fingerprint = 92A4 31E1 56BC 3D5A 2D08  BB6E C389 975E A5F0 59F2


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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Re: Howto guide or something?

[Ned Ludd]

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On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 09:23, Peter S. Mazinger wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Ned Ludd wrote:
> 
> > > X (tested older XFree86 and xorg-x11-6.8.1) can't be built against uclibc 
> > > for now (missing math functions)
> > > 
> > > solar,vapier:
> > > I could add to the masked uclibc
> > > use X && (apply X needed math funcs)
> > > and/or
> > > use java && (apply sun-jdk math funcs)
> > > the java condition is not quite true, they are needed to build sun-j2sdk
> > 
> > Well here is what I'm thinking in this respect. mjn3 is working on a new
> > libm but it's going to be a while before he is done. Reading the
> > uClibc/TODO states that libm is targeted for 1.0 which we know is going
> > to be a ways out. So if we have replacement functions then lets post
> > them here for review and consider patching out own -lm till such time as
> > mjn3 has it ready and it works for us.
> > 
> > http://uclibc.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/uClibc/TODO?&view=auto
> > TODO list for the uClibc 1.0.0 release:
> > *) Implement the float and long double versions of math funcs
> > 	using wrappers on top of the double versions (size / precision
> > 	trade off where size clearly wins).
> 
> look in the current uclibc patches tarball subdir math, those are that I 
> needed until now, they are edited versions of net/openbsd (as almost the 
> whole original libm stuff in uclibc)
> sinf/cosf/tanf/atan2f/sqrtf/powf/fabsf are implemented


> I'll add IUSE="X" and use X && epatch patch/math to the new uclibc ebuild

USE=X is not logical and should not be the controlling factor which
decide if libm is built.

Please consider.

if use build || use bootstrap; then
 # It's ok to skip it here.
else
 # It really should be enabled here.
fi


-- 
Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org>
Gentoo (hardened,security,infrastructure,embedded) Developer

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Re: [gentoo-embedded] Re: Howto guide or something?

[Brian Jackson]

On 2:58:58 pm 11/11/04 Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 09:23, Peter S. Mazinger wrote:
> >  On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Ned Ludd wrote:
> >
> > > >  X (tested older XFree86 and xorg-x11-6.8.1) can't be built
> > > >  against uclibc for now (missing math functions)
> > > >
> > > >  solar,vapier:
> > > >  I could add to the masked uclibc
> > > >  use X && (apply X needed math funcs)
> > > >  and/or
> > > >  use java && (apply sun-jdk math funcs)
> > > >  the java condition is not quite true, they are needed to build
> > >   sun-j2sdk
> > >  Well here is what I'm thinking in this respect. mjn3 is working
> > >  on a new libm but it's going to be a while before he is done.
> > >  Reading the uClibc/TODO states that libm is targeted for 1.0
> > >  which we know is going to be a ways out. So if we have
> > >  replacement functions then lets post them here for review and
> > >  consider patching out own -lm till such time as mjn3 has it
> > >   ready and it works for us.
> > >  http://uclibc.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/uClibc/TODO?&view=auto
> > >  TODO list for the uClibc 1.0.0 release:
> > >  *) Implement the float and long double versions of math funcs
> > >      using wrappers on top of the double versions (size /
> > >      precision trade off where size clearly wins).
> >
> >  look in the current uclibc patches tarball subdir math, those are
> >  that I needed until now, they are edited versions of net/openbsd
> >  (as almost the whole original libm stuff in uclibc)
> >  sinf/cosf/tanf/atan2f/sqrtf/powf/fabsf are implemented
>
>
> >  I'll add IUSE="X" and use X && epatch patch/math to the new uclibc
> ebuild
> USE=X is not logical and should not be the controlling factor which
> decide if libm is built.
>
> Please consider.
>
> if use build || use bootstrap; then
>  # It's ok to skip it here.
> else
>  # It really should be enabled here.
> fi

I like this method more than using the X use flag. I've actually run into a
few other packages that tried to use those math funcs. (although I can't
remember which ones off the top of my head).

--Iggy

>
>
> --
> Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org>
> Gentoo (hardened,security,infrastructure,embedded) Developer
>


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