[ARMedslack] Question/suggestions regarding ARMedslack

[Stuart Winter]

> Yeah, the client version + case is $300; that's pretty expensive
> compared to the $99 Sheevaplug which has a target retail price of
> $40-$60! Besides, I'd use a second Gbit port and a RS232 one but I don't
> need all those USB, [e]SATA, VGA & other ports! If I want a serial port
> for HA I can use a cheap usb dongle too...

Agreed.  I didn't know the SP retail price was so low!!
If they drop in price more, I might buy another one.  I have 2 already,
and open OpenRD.

> > installer?  The installer is not related to any compilation environment.
>
> The idea is to build usable images straight from the build computer
> (x86). If there's anything build into the installer to automate the
> proces I'll use that (I'm not talking about tagfiles but rather all the
> rest).

Aah right I understand, I think.
You want to prepare stock images that can be written to the SheevaPlug
NAND flash so you can roll out your product.
The Slackware installer doesn't support what you want to do -- we did
start a project but none of the team have time to do it and do it well.

What you could do is:
ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/armedslack-devtools/slackkit/sansinstaller

Look at that script, and produce your own tag files for each package
series ("a", "ap" and so on); and call installpkg with -tagfile.

I'd guess that for the majority of packages you'd be installing
for your purpose, you'd not run into many problems doing this
process on the x86.  The only problems I know of are when the package's
post install scripts run the ARM binaries to update a system config file,
or make an initial database or something.
But what you could do if this *is* a problem, is install ARMedslack onto a
USB disc as the instructions say, and run the process on there, producing
a UBIFS image.  Then you can re-use the UBIFS image.

I'm guessing this is the sort of thing you want to do?

> distcc is a very nice solution - I haven't though of it :)

Yeah, I still build ARMedslack 12.2's security fixes without distcc since
the cluster is setup for -current; distcc is a life saver.

This is how my cross compile toolchain is:
ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/armedslack-devtools/x-toolchain/

then you just need to setup the environment inside ARMedslack to use
distcc.

> > It is on the front page of www.armedslack.org.
>
> Oh.. Just found the tiny section :). I'm not a web designer but I
> believe it could help is there was links (to page anchors) on the side
> or on the top...

Someone else made that single page about 8 years ago.  I'm not a designer
either.  I was tempted to replace the site with a .txt file ;-)