Re: [Gumstix-users] Out of date os x buildroot

[Chris M. <ch...@mc...>]

At the risk of changing the debate, but offered as an alternative, my 
approach has been to use VMware Fusion on the mac. I would prefer to use 
Mac OS X natively, but I'm not up to managing either my own environment 
as Dave suggests or to provide the support to the gumstic Mac OS X 
community. VMware Fusion does cost money, I'm not aware of any "player" 
technology as available under Linux or Windows, and I don't benefit in 
any fashion from any implied recommendation of VMware.

My question to all is whether there exists a preferred or recommended 
build environment for gumstix - not what will work, but what works best 
- Windows, Linux (which flavor, version) or whatever?

Chris

Dave Hylands wrote:
> Hi Ethan,
>
>   
>> It would help me btw, if someone defined 'buildroot' and it
>> relationship to gumstix...
>>     
>
> Buildroot is an open source project which can be found over here:
> <http://buildroot.uclibc.org/>
>
> It is designed as a series of scripts and makefiles for building a
> toolchain, kernel, and other assorted packages for embedded linux
> systems.
>
> Building for embedded systems has unique challenges since you need to
> use a cross compiler.
>
>   
>> My understanding is that buildroot is basically a set of scripts for
>> acquiring/configuring/compiling the packages needed for a gcc cross-
>> compiler.  But further, it's also something of a package manager for
>> everything in the environment that winds up going in the embedded
>> system? (e.g. linux kernel, command line utilities, etc.)
>>     
>
> Yeah - that's the basic picture.
>
>   
>> And gumstix is maintaining its own fork of the buildroot project in
>> order to customize the package selection and configuration for their
>> line of products?
>>     
>
> Well, it's more to maintain a set of patches required to build stuff
> on the gumstix. So buildroot contains many packages that won't work on
> the gumstix, or may require tweaks.
>
> u-boot and the kernel are the two packages which require the most
> modification. Most of the other stuff works with only minor changes.
>
>   
>> Part of the trick in my case is that I already have the verdex system
>> set up, and I'd be happy with having *just* the cross compiler on my
>> local (OS X) development system.  For doing the occasional system
>> update, it would be fine to fall back to a linux system.  But not
>> being able to build my own code on my local system is a nuisance, and
>> that's where I'm spending 99% of my time.
>>     
>
> The toolchain is the first thing that's built, so if you can get that
> portion to work, then you can stop and not have to build the rest of
> buildroot.
>
> You can then use the toolchain for building your own stuff and not
> have to use buildroot at all. The hello-world sample is an example of
> doing just that.
>
>