> This talk recently of other development platforms (Hard Hat and
> BlueCat) made me think about this.
>
> The original was Debian, as that was what was used, and it supported
> glibc 2.0 in Slink. It later became clear (to me anyway) that any
> glibc-2.0 based Linux should do, such as Red Hat 5.2 or Linux Mandrake
> 5.3.
>
> I've taken a look at some of these, and wonder what every one else
> thinks:
>
> * Hard Hat - seems like its made for true embedded applications, and
> the Professional version isn't GPL and isn't available for download.
> Embedded to me means: using some CPU no one's ever heard of, and
> putting the CPU and software into a device no one will ever see.
>
> * BlueCat - this is like Hard Hat in that it is for True Embedded
> Development... why develop for an i586 when you've get Joe's CPU
> xx87AA0-series 7 available?
>
> Maybe I just don't "get it" with this embedded stuff - I thought we
> were developing for mass produced Intel-compatible processors ....but
> anyway - more:
The part to 'get' about using an off-the-shelf distribution aimed at
embedded development is the tool chain. The typical embedded distribution
installs on top of some other system...most support a wide variety of linux,
and even Windows NT/2000 using the GNU compilers.
The big advantage to using something already setup with a cross compiling
development environment is we don't have to worry about (and fix) the many
little things that break when trying to build an environment like
this...someone else did that work for us.
Also, I guess I lean towards the embedded side of things, as I've done a lot
of work with embedded processors. In addition, I guess it seems (at least
to me) more likely to see a LEAF derivation in a stand-alone black-box
router or VPN gateway (ie embedded system) than to see a LEAF derivation
that is trying to be a full-blown desktop workstation with a self-hosted
development environment.
Note that even if we can self-host a development system, we're STILL in a
cross-compile environment, as the target install machine is typically NOT
the machine you're compiling on, even though they may share the same CPU
architecture.
> * Gentoo - this seems like a VERY appealing environment. I will
> probably see if I can install it sooner or later. The idea of not
> having GNOME support in binaries when you don't use GNOME is appealing
> - similar things could be said about NIS and about IP v6.
>
> * Peewee Linux - this also seems appealing, though it seems more
> geared towards making that bootable floppy disk distro than what I
> thought it was originally (a bootable mini CDROM distro).
>
> * Peanut - this is another distro that I will probably install or try
> out at some time. It IS a small CDROM-based distro.
>
> Thoughts?
I'm only somewhat familiar with Peewee linux and Peanut...I haven't heard of
Gentoo at all. I'll take a look at these...
The more I think about it, the more I'm tempted to think we'll probably wind
up with our own complete distribution, like it or not. At a minimum, we'll
probably need to re-package anything pre-made, unless we can get full
support for creation & extraction of RPMs or DEBs small enough to fit on a
floppy. Also, I'd prefer to make a system flexible enough to handle:
Base utilities...choice of:
"Standard" binary
BusyBox
asmutils
shell-script (POSIXness or similar)
omitted entirely
Libraries...choice of:
ulibc
glibc (various versions)
newlib
others?
With BusyBox and perhaps ulibc making up the 'standard' floppy firewall. A
full-blown glibc could be added as a package if something required it.
In summary, I'd like to see a compile environment flexible enough to handle
various library versions, and setup to compile for a target different than
the host. The other thing I'd like to see is an enhanced packaging system
of some sort, that can handle a variety of boot and storage media...from the
current floppy boot into a ramdisk, to CD or HDD boot into a hybrid system
with volitle (ram-disk), non-volitle (flash/HDD), and read-only
(CD-ROM/boot-ROM).
> PS: Maybe Charles wants to put Dachstein into a robot? :-) How about
> a wireless router in a robot, doing network routing during competition
> (hee, hee, hee, hee....) "Hey the network went down." "Yeah, I know
> - Charles' robot just got axed by that turtle thing from Monona,
> Wisc." :-) :-)
I do have plans on integrating some aspect of LRP/LEAF into a combat robot,
however I have yet to meet Lisa and her robot Tentamushi (sp?) in the
arena...blame any current network outages on the 'Wedge-of-doom". ;-)
Charles Steinkuehler
http://lrp.steinkuehler.net
http://c0wz.steinkuehler.net (lrp.c0wz.com mirror)
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