Re: [Gumstix-users] path of least resistance? (which OS to use?)

[James L. <ja...@ti...>]

On 25/05/2013, at 5:56 AM, gum...@li... wrote:

> I'm new to Gumstix but I've been reading a lot of old mailing list
> discussions and poking around the wiki, as well as Yocto, Angstrom,
> Linaro, etc.
> 
> At this point I'm rather confused and frustrated.  I feel like I've
> been wasting a lot of time.  The information available online often
> seems outdated or contradictory.  And I've spend hours burning SD card
> images and trying to get a useful setup.
> 
> What I'd like to do is get a working SD card image that I can run on a
> several different Overo units (Water, Fire, Earth) with Tobi boards.
> I'm looking for a a distro that has integrated package management,
> semi-modern kernel, and a decent selection of packages available
> (rsync, perl, etc--nothing exotic).  I'm really NOT interested in
> cross-compiling if I don't NEED to.
> 
> It seems that Angstrom works but is old and Gumstix isn't updating it anymore.
> 
> Linaro seems like a way forward (I know Ubuntu well) but I've
> experienced a number of kernel panics and filesystem corruption so far
> by going that route.
> 
> The Yocto images from Gumstix seem to work but there's no package
> management, no compiler (gcc), and I'm having trouble understanding
> why (and how anyone gets anything done starting from there).  And
> building my own Yocto image appears to be a maze of twisty paths,
> mostly not documented well.
> 
> Can anyone give me suggestions/pointers on a way forward?
> 
> Am I just spoiled, having spent 10+ years in the Debian ecosystem?  I
> can't help but feel like what's currently available for Gumstix is
> very Do It Yourself.
> 
> How do most people do this?

I've read your pedigree, and there will be as many answers as you want, I found the arch linux install easy and configurable and usable,
you sound like this will be a good solution for you.

ciao
James