[ARMedslack] mini root fs && Openmoko Freerunner

[Wybrand Lohman]

Stuart Winter wrote:
>
> I'm really curious about people will use ARMedslack for.  For me, ARM has
> always been for Desktop machines (since ARM CPUs were manufactured for the
> Acorn archimedes range), so I consider ARMedslack aimed at desktops and
> server usage on those machines rather than hand held gadgets.
>
>   
Two things really. I intend to use it as a server platform. Now that the 
GuruPlug Plus (with two NIC's) comes out in April, it offers everything 
I need to replace my x86 server. And once those ARM based netbooks hit 
the market, as they've been promising for sooo long now :-( ARMedslack 
will find it's place on one of those.

I also see some good possibilities in the SheevaPlug&ARMedslack combo. 
One thing for example is as an update server on the other side of a VPN, 
so to safe bandwidth. I know several locations where they use an x86 
desktop running 24x7 for that. ARMedslack running on a SheevaPlug will 
offer greatly more efficiency and reliability and yet keep the price 
point below €100,- TCO. How cool is that? :D


Brian Kelley wrote:
 >the openmoko freerunner is another good choice

I tried that, but I found it was not without difficulty. I have been 
able to get /something/ going on the Freerunner, but the device is so 
limited in terms of disk space, while it's also exotic in terms of 
hardware and method of install. A bit like what Stuart now did with 
building a mini rootfs (interesting development there) I build a roofts 
of my own to act as a sort of bridgehead allowing me to interface with 
the Freerunner.

The thing is, you can't really install a very limited version of 
ARMedslack on a device like that. With all you can shave off, it'll 
still be too big. I took the initrd from the ARMedslack installer, which 
offers a busybox environment with dropbear and a nice collection of 
networking, maintenance and diagnosis tools in under 25MB or so.

The stock kernel, although it didn't panic and kept booting, was 
spitting out errors like crazy. It needed some hefty adjustments, and 
the quickest route was to just 'steal' a kernel and it's modules from 
another Openmoko distro and put that in the image.
But then you have a Freerunner that boots in 3 minutes or so, draining 
the battery and still does nothing more than offer an ssh login. For X, 
you need something like tinyX or one of it's variants. This needs to be 
compiled to accept the touch screen as it's primary input device. And 
then a WM on top that is capable of being steered by the touch screen. 
Neither of which I had any success in.

But even if you do succeed in that, you still have no telephony 
capability on the Freerunner. Let alone that you can start optimizing it 
for the HUGE power efficiency that's needed. (Is there such a thing? 
Somehow 'huge' and 'efficient' seem contradictory to me)

My personal opinion is that it /can/ be done. I was interested in it not 
so much for the smartphone side of the Freerunner, but more because as a 
handheld embedded device it could do all sorts of tricks. I wanted it to 
act as a sort of thin client, mounting a network share and pull it's 
software from there. That would negate the limited disk space, and offer 
maximum flexibility (perhaps at the cost of mobility). But you'd need to 
get the touch screen going, no mather what.

To conclude. It's possible to start with ARMedslacks initrd, steal or 
recompile a kernel (+modules), add something like tinyX and a WM and get 
the device going. It's a tremendously good learning opportunity, if 
nothing else. But it's not really ARMedslack anymore by then, more 
ARMedLFS without a manual.
I think the strength of Slackware is that it offers a very complete 
environment that allows you to build whatever you want, be it a router, 
headless server, multi-media system or a desktop as lean or bloated as 
you can imagine. But to cramp all that power and flexibility into an 
embedded device as the Freerunner wont be without difficulty.

Sorry 'bout the long read. And with that, we return to the order of the day.

Greets,
Wybrand