Live Cd For Developpers

[alan]

i would like to show you a good idea that might interrest every developpers :

ZFR c'est quoi ?

ZFR est la distribution GNU/Linux orientée PDA sous OS Libre.

Il s'agit d'un live-cd classique dans lequel ont été ajoutées les applications nécessaires à la synchronisation et au développement d'applications pour votre PDA favori.
Pourquoi ZFR ?

La seule distribution existant à ce jour à ma connaissance est celle proposée sur le site de Sharp. Cette distribution semble ne plus évoluer et se trouve être relativement pauvre. Il s'agit en fait d'une distribution demolinux à laquelle a été ajouté un cross compilateur pour processeurs ARM. L'équipe de pdaXrom indique sur son site qu'une distribution va voir le jour avec leur SDK... Bref, aucune distribution ne propose tout le necessaire pour travailler efficacement et complètement avec son PDA. Il fallait y remédier ! Hors de question de se limiter à une "ROM" particulière où à un profil développeur endurci !
Qui fait ZFR ?

ZFR à été créée à l'initiative de votre serviteur (Titeuf) pour le compte de la Communauté des Utilisateurs Francophones de PDA sous OS Libre : ZaurusFR

C'est une distribution ouverte à laquelle chacun peut, s'il le désire, participer.
Comment participer ?

C'est très simple, et il y a beaucoup de manières de participer (debug, doc, scripts, propositions, etc...) Tout le monde est invité à apporter sa touche personnelle, toutes les idées sont les bienvenues. Pour le moment, il suffit de faire un mail à titeuf@2m01.net A ce jour, il est prévu de mettre en place un forum de discussion
Comment est construit ZFR ?

La distribution live ZFR est basée non pas sur la debian (effet de mode !) mais sur LFS 5.1 et BLFS 5.0

Le cdrom contient tous les outils nécessaires pour refabriquer un nouveau cdrom. Cependant, afin de ne pas partir dans tous les sens et de faire profiter à tous de vos idées, il est conseillé de proposer vos modifications/ajouts afin qu'ils soient pris en compte dans la distribution "officielle".

I'm really tired, so i won't translate everything tonight. (bablefish might do the trick for me.) In short, ZFR is a live CD in wich any necessary pda programing tool have been added. It s not desingned for any particular rom, but might be a good source of inspiration for pdaxrom team.

more infos (in french, sorry...) here :
http://zfr.2m01.net/AProposDeZFR

[allyrfriends]

What is ZFR?

ZFR is the PDA-orientated GNU/Linux distribution under Free OS [FSF? -- perhaps it's just my ignorance, but I'm not sure what 'Free OS' refers to, other than GNU/FSF].

It acts as a traditional live CD to which has been added the necessary applications for synchronisation and application development for your favourite PDA.

Why ZFR?

The only existing distribution to date, to my knowledge, is the one on Sharp's website. That distribution seems to be no longer developed, and is relatively poor. It acts in fact as a Linux demo distribution to which has been added an ARM cross-compiler. The pdaXrom team mention on their site that a distribution will see the light of day with their SDK... In short, no distribution provides all that is necessary to work effectively and completely with its PDA. This must be remedied! Being limited to a particular 'ROM' or to a hardened developer profile is out of the question!

Who makes ZFR?

ZFR was created through the initiative of your servant (Titeuf) on behalf of the Community of Francophone Users of PDAs under Free OS -- ZaurusFR.

It's an open distribution in which everyone can participate, if they wish.

How do you participate?

It's very easy, and there are many ways of participating (debugging, documentation, proposals, etc.). Everyone is invited to bring their personal touch, all ideas are welcome. For the moment, just email titeuf@2m01.net. A forum is expected sometime.

How is ZFR built?

The ZFR live distribution is based not on Debian (due to fashion!) but on LFS 5.1 and BLFS 5.0.

The CD contains all the utilities needed to recreate a new CD. Nevertheless, in order not to proceed in every direction and to profit from all your ideas, it is recommended that you propose your modifications/additions [to ZaurusFR] so that they may be included in the 'official' distribution.

[My French is not the greatest; there may be some mistranslations there.]

So this is a CD you boot up from just in order to compile for the Zaurus, or other Linux PDA? Seems a little like overkill. Or am I missing something?

[Laze]

Its already made and is going to be available together with the next release.

Actually pdaXrom is going to be available for Dreamcast, x86 and many more different platforms.

[cs_jacky]

Perfect! Everybody can cross compile program for pdaXrom for Zaurus woithout problems?

[ScottYelich]

there is a zaurus dev livecd -- but it's for qtopia and sharp rom.

with pdaxrom able to run on x86, all that is needed is to make the cd iso
bootable, etc.  This should be no problem.

This would be perfect for vmware, etc.

Scott

[murple]

Dreamcast???  AWSOME!  bring life into the old girl!!  I have the NIC, mouse and kb to boot

sweet!

[kingmob]

It's a nice idea - it's sometimes a real PITA to prevent the build from picking up the native libraries on my build machine.

But if it's a live cd, how would you go about adding your own (new) libraries to the build system?

[amrein]

USB key, CF/MMC card reader, small room in your harddrive, network share, an harddisk partition, ramdisk, filesystem created in a file...

If you use Windows, QEMU will permit you to run this CD out of the box and without needing to partition your harddrive nor to reboot. (same thing for GNU/Linux of course)

[pgas]

If you compile something you'll need some writable storage mounted anyway, so
you will be able to add the libraries.

No that I don't believe you should expect too much about this, some (most) apps building process just don't take cross-compilation into account or worse need some porting work to run on  arm.

A LiveCD will be a convenient way to have the sdk set up without doing anything,  compiling the application of your  dream might still not be straightforward.

For instance w3m compiles a small helper apps during that it runs afteward during the build process, if you cross compile it, it doesn't work because the helper apps is compiled for arm. So you have to work around, compile the helper app for your build platfrom, tweak the makefiles etc...

The only way to have a no frill cross-SDK would be to provide fixes/patches for all the applications that causes troubles.....

[ScottYelich]

USB key, CF/MMC card reader, small room in your harddrive, network share, an harddisk partition, ramdisk, filesystem created in a file...

If you use Windows, QEMU will permit you to run this CD out of the box and without needing to partition your harddrive nor to reboot. (same thing for GNU/Linux of course)

huh?

the livecd is gonna be x86, eh?

the only thing qemu would help with would be to exec mid-compile bins such as
lua for arm... on the x86.

Scott

[henrik]

How about offering gcc et al on the actual Zaurus so I can compile the software I need on the road or away from any other computer. Having to use a desktop computer to compile software for the Zaurus is really a pain in the ass.

[amrein]

A Live CD is interesting but I guess the faster way is to use a chrooted x86 pdaXrom or to install it directly.

[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']Sorry ScottYelich, I haven't understood your comment. Perhaps you were talking about qemu-arm but the liveCD is for x86. You can install it on your harddrive, use it and install it in QEMUlator or VMWare or another x86 emulator, or you can chroot it if this last option is possible, or...[/span]

[pgas]

@henrik: gcc on the actual zaurus is available now.

@amrein & ScottYelich:
I think amrein refers to the possibility to run the liveCD inside his environement after loading his system on his pc, while ScottYelich is refering to the possibility to run arm binary on his pc.

[ajb]

How about offering gcc et al on the actual Zaurus so I can compile the software I need on the road or away from any other computer. Having to use a desktop computer to compile software for the Zaurus is really a pain in the ass.

I am a bit confused, isnt this already available.  There are feeds for gcc, et al available.  I installed them in a chroot environment on a 4GB microdrive on my C860 and I have been able to compile software natively.  Is there something wrong with that?  I have seen it mentioned in several places that you can not compile software natively.  Someone please straighten me out.

[conundrum]

I have gotten gcc running on the zaurus, it's pretty easy.  I even tossed the mount command into a shell script to amplify my laziness.   However, I noticed there is no make for the Z.  Is it hidden away somewhere, or do I have to compile it myself?