Diskless Embedded Technology PC / News: Recent posts

A new forum service, intended to replace the mailing list and SourceForge forum as a means of user support, has now been established at http://forum.dietpc.org/.

The project website has moved to http://dietpc.org (a.k.a. http://www.dietpc.org/), with the help of Gus Gollings and ThinLinx. The DIET-PC wiki contents will likewise be relocated to http://wiki.dietpc.org/ (an open access wiki).

The new website contains has the same content as the old, with some minor cosmetic improvements. All DIET-PC 3 downloads will be relocated to the new website, but earlier downloads will remain in the SourceForge File Release System. Redirections are in place to ensure that the DIET-PC 3 assembly frameworks download from the new server.... read more

It is now possible to construct DIET-PC 3 boot images for ARM, ARM EABI, PowerPC, x86 and x86_64. To do this, you will need to download one of the dietpc3_framework_XXX-DDMMYY.tar.bz2 bundles (not necessary if using a DIET-PC 3 development VM, which have these preloaded), run "make fetch-ipks" to recursively grab the current feed state for the relevant architecture, and then follow additional instructions in the provided README.... read more

Debian Lenny QEMU virtual machines for ARM, ARM EABI, PowerPC, x86 and x86_64 are now available at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49613&package_id=261488&release_id=574093. These VMs are suitable for DIET-PC 3 development and testing, and include a DIET-PC 3 image assembly framework.

As with the DIET-PC 2 VMs, these VM packages include everything needed to run them on a Windows platform; the x86 and x86_64 VMs also include a means to easily convert them to VMware virtual machines (which is recommended). They are accessible via VNC and SSH as well as the console; graphical consoles are only provided for x86 and x86_64 VMs due to emulation bugs and limitations on other platforms. No-frills graphical environment - ICEWM, Firefox, Thunderbird, Xterm, and not much else (no KDE or Gnome).

I have finally managed to complete and upload five Debian Etch virtual machines (x86, x86_64, powerpc, arm, and mipsel), in Windows QEMU format.

These VMs are my reference platform for compiling DIET-PC binaries. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for Windows users to set up a Linux development and testing environment; the VMs are quite small (virtual disk max size is 4 GB, current size ~1 GB, size on disk ~400 MB), and will run under Windows without any complicated and potentially hazardous dual-boot arrangements.... read more

Snapshots of 64-bit x86 (x86_64) and little-endian MIPS (MIPSEL) ports are now available in the "alpha" container in the DIET-PC downloads area.

These ports are more-or-less complete (mmedia_xine is missing/broken for both platforms, ica is missing for MIPSEL and is fat, clumsy and mostly 32-bit for x86_64), and in synch with the January 1 2008 updates.

Webpages for these ports do not exist yet, but will be added soon.

I'm pleased to announce initial support for the ARM architecture. See http://diet-pc.sourceforge.net/arm/ for details.

The big ticket items in this release are:

• Linux 2.6 kernel support, including support for 2.6-specific features such as udev, initramfs, and ATA CD/DVD writing.
• New initrd assembly techniques (squashfs+tmpfs union, initramfs, UPX), and better support for a non-initrd /opt.
• DIET-PC can now be used recursively, to assemble and install further DIET-PC images. This makes it much easier to install DIET-PC on local permanent storage (hard disks etc).
• Almost every software component has been updated to the current version as at the release date.
• Complete source code availability and build instructions.... read more

The focus of this release is support for multiple bootstrap methods and a more generalised configuration system, which extend DIET-PC into a more general "embedded Linux appliance" role, rather than a specific thin client role.

See the release notes (click on "1.1 current" on the downloads page) for further details.

I don't know when you can call a kitset "stable", especially when no-one is using it, but since DIET-PC has been working quite reliably for me for some time now, and because it must be done eventually,I am declaring a 1.0 release rather than a "gamma" release or some such.

For simple use, 1.0 doesn't visibly differ much from beta. However, 1.0 is much better at managing multiple embedded GUI applications running simultaneously, and has a number of security improvements.... read more