[Gpephone-devel] Buildroot for G(PE)^2

[Nils Faerber]

alex zhang schrieb:
> Dear All,
Hi!

> I found that in order to build G(PE)^2, I have to build so many
> packages. It's repeating the bored steps: download, uncompress, patch,
> configure, compile, install. It will drive me crazy if I have to
> re-build all packages. So, it's possible to do these automatically? The
> answer is YES. I've found some good templets like Openwrt Buildroot-ng
> and Pixil. And the most ideas is from Openwrt Buildroot-ng, see
> http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=31794#p31794 for detail.

Yep, builroot is quite nice, but...

> Users or developers only need to do is type "make menuconfig" and then
> choose and manage packages, choose compiler and target (for X86 or
> ARM,etc.), finally, type "make" and wait until all things finished. I
> think if G(PE)^2 can do that, it would be a good news for developers and
> distributors.

We can/will/already(?) have SDKs which should be sufficient to do
application development.

> So, I've already started some works on it. But, I think it may be a big
> project, also I am not so familiar with G(PE)^2, so I need all of your
> help.
> 
> Now, my questions are following,
> 1) Do you think it's necessary to make a buildroot like OpenWrt for
> G(PE)^2? Or is it helpful for you?

The general idea is good but build systems like buildroot can not handle
complex systems like G(PE)² very well. Buildroot is more designed for
embedded system without GUI etc. You will pretty soon run into trouble
cross compiling all we we need with buildroot.

But: What we already have done is to integrate all that complex
information into OpenEmbedded (OE):
	http://www.openembedded.org

OE wil enable you to:
- build a complete distribution for a specific device
- build "just" an SDK either for standalone use or within other
development tools like Scratchbox
- (re-)build single packages

Using OE we have already successfully (re-)built G(PE)² for various
scenarios.

But admittedly installing OE is quite painful :(
Using the tutorial on the OE webpage (Getting Started) describes the
main steps and we should setup some repository to share configuration
files - the most important file you need in OE is a local.conf ;)

> 2) Any documents for describing the relationship of all the packages of
> G(PE)^2?

This is partially covered by the documentation on the web pages - but
not fully. OE handles this automatically!

> PS. Which phones in the market you have GPE ported to? I am going to
> plan porting G(PE)^2 to my Motorola A1200. :)

Uh, that would be cool!
We tried with the A1200 a little but had sever problems getting anything
non-Motorola running :( It starts with the problem that the released
kernel source is kind of broken and end with the hardware being quite
special - even the framebuffer seems to be a problem. So we gave up...
If you have some new on this we would be happy to share this!
We could even open up some porting projects at LinuxToGo so that people
can share this information and get G(PE)² going on more devices!

So far we have a very limited set of devices - most of them with non
public available kernel sources :( And then there is the SPV Typhoon,
quite promising but no GSM, etc. Quite frustrating.

Though we have been promised by a manufacturer that we will be given an
open device once their customer gets into real production! So stay tuned!

> All reply and idea is welcome, I really need your help! Thanks!

Hope this helps a little ;)

If you have further question they are fully welcome!

> Regards,
> Alex Zhang
Cheers
  nils faerber

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