[ARMedslack] mini root fs && Openmoko Freerunner

[Brian Kelley]

maybe an sdcard install would be better   to get around the 512 megs of nand,, then   16gigs+  is possible

--- On Wed, 2/10/10, Wybrand Lohman <w.lohman at chello.nl> wrote:

From: Wybrand Lohman <w.lohman at chello.nl>
Subject: Re: [ARMedslack] mini root fs && Openmoko Freerunner
To: "Slackware ARM port" <armedslack at lists.armedslack.org>
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 5:11 AM

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
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