OpenEmbedded success story

[Hrw]

I bought my SL-5500 in February 2004 because I was bored with PalmOS. After few weeks with SharpROM 2.38 (doesn\'t had a card to reflash) I managed to flash OZ 3.3.5, soon moved into more \"experimental\" OZ 3.3.6-pre1.

It worked OK but I wanted to get few programs on it so I needed to get some toolchain running. Many people build software for Zaurus. They mainly use old gcc-2.95 toolchains (which is good if they use Sharp based or OZ <3.3.6-pre1 distros) or gcc 3.3.2 from OpenZaurus buildroot (which is old too :) or own toolchains.

I was thinking about OZ buildroot but mickeyl & kergoth said that this is deprecated and I was going into OpenEmbedded. It was good choice - first attempts to build something was hard (those 2 glibc (glibc-initial, glibc), two gcc (gcc-initial, gcc-cross) makes me mad sometimes but after few tries I removed /opt/cross/ (gcc 3.3.2 from OZ) and started to use OE builded toolchain.

After that I got SubApplet 1.0.7 compiled, then I patched it\'s GUI to makes better use of screen (all those margins/paddings....). Next was KO/Pi which is great stuff and I like it.

I sent some patches to OE mailinglist (better subscribe before sending - it\'s semi-moderated list), then tried to get bootstrap-image booted correctly on my Zaurus.

First attemps was full of errors but OE team and I get them patched so it gets better more and more. Few days after I became official OpenEmbedded developer with full access to BitKeeper repository.

Today I\'m \"collie\" maintainer and we got system which boots into text console with CF slot working (SD/MMC was not tested yet) and USB networking. Next step is getting OPIE to work.

At the end I want to write that OpenEmbedded is hard to use at the beginning but later it shows it\'s power. Main sources of informations are OpenEmbedded Wiki and #oe on Freenode.

[Fifth]

Great to hear oe is still moving forward. I\'ve always wanted to take part, especially when there is always a shortage of willing developers, just to try and \'do my bit\' to help. Unfortunately my linux programming knowledge is extremely limited and reading through the docs (without prior know-how) makes my head spin
Good luck with oe.

[lpotter]

perhaps you could write up your experiences, or update an OE HOWTO get started doc.

[comcute]

Hi
I'm trying to compile 2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix linux for my collie with oe environment.
Kernel is booting OK, but I can't use mtdblock6.
mtdblock6 is there, but it contents are changing all the time.
It is really strange. I can't figure out what the problem is.
Does someone know what causes this?

in local.conf I have:
ASSUME_PROVIDED = "virtual/arm-linux-gcc-2.95 virtual/libc"
MACHINE = "collie"
DISTRO = "openzaurus"

part of kernel config:
CONFIG_MTD_MTDRAM_SA1100=y
CONFIG_MTDRAM_TOTAL_SIZE=32768
CONFIG_MTDRAM_ERASE_SIZE=1
CONFIG_MTDRAM_ABS_POS=E000000
CONFIG_CMDLINE="console=ttyS0 root=/dev/mtdblock4 rootfstype=jffs2 jffs2_orphand
_inodes=delete mem=32M"


# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00020000 00020000 "Angel Monitor"
mtd1: 00020000 00020000 "CF Updater"
mtd2: 00080000 00020000 "Diagnostics"
mtd3: 00100000 00020000 "kernel"
mtd4: 00e20000 00020000 "jffs2"
mtd5: 00020000 00020000 "angel stuff"
mtd6: 02000000 00000400 "mtdram"

Everything looks normal, but now interesting part starts:

# mke2fs /dev/mtdblock6
mke2fs 1.33 (21-Apr-2003)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
8192 inodes, 32768 blocks
1638 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
4 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
2048 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:         8193, 24577

Writing inode tables: done                           
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 24 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.


# mount -t ext2 /dev/mtdblock6 /mnt/ram/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mtdblock6,
       or too many mounted file systems

I'm compiling kernel with "oemake openzaurus-sa" command
I have tried oe-exported tarballs and CVS server version, but the result is the same

[comcute]

Ok, I found the cause of this problem.
OE environment was calculating CONFIG_MTDRAM_ABS_POS parameter wrongly
in file openzaurus-sa_2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix20030509.oe there is line:
addr=`echo "obase=16; ibase=16; C000000 + $mempos" | bc`
but there should be one more zero, then the correct one is:
addr=`echo "obase=16; ibase=16; C0000000 + $mempos" | bc`

[Teletubbie]

I could now build my first Package with openembedded. It is Shopper and now runs without  the compat-libs under 3.3.6-pre1.
Openembedded is a really very professional tool.
Thanks for the help.
Cheers,
Sam

[henrysviper]

It would be nice if there was a document listing what needs to be done in OpenEmbedded.
I mean, after someone installs the OE build environment, what is next? Should one trying to build packages, to add packages or what? I think some "howto" about first steps for contributing would be useful.