ts-7000
[Top] [All Lists]

[ts-7000] Re: apt-not-get

To:
Subject: [ts-7000] Re: apt-not-get
From: "j.chitte" <>
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:26:08 -0000
Thanks for the reply Doug.

--- In  "Doug Sutherland" <> wrote:
>
> Well basically you want to have a cross development toolchain set up
> on your PC to build for ARM target, then you can copy the produced
> binary over to the target.
> 

Yes I've tried crossdev for that but I have a couple of issues to 
sort out there. Obviously something like this will be needed for our 
own software. In the mean time I'm getting familiar the board and 
TSlinux. Part of that involves installing the extra packages I need 
since TS is really barebones only.

"copy the binary to the target" covers any small software I may write 
but does not answer my question about installing a package which 
generally involves many files, often some script mods and may bring 
up dependancy issues.

Sure I could do all this by hand the hard way and research the 
depandancies on the net but the whole point of using a distro is that 
all this hard work has already been done and kept upto date. Debain 
maintains ARM arch so it's stupid to take advantage of what is 
available.

> What many developers do instead though is use something like 
> buildroot to build the entire flash image for the target. When they 
add 
> or change software they create a new buildroot image and flash it 
to 
> the embedded system.
> 

Fine , that's a logical step for production or a finished prototype 
but I'm not going to flash the entire fs every time I make a 
development change.


> I am not aware of any embedded systems that use apt like tools 
> to load software. This is due to the nature of the environment being
> small spaces and often hardware specific. 

Obviously in the field this is unlikely to be needed and would be a 
waste of limited resources but it could be appropriate in a 
development system. I chose the board with extra flash and memory for 
the development system exactly for this sort of reason.

>A binary distribution on an 
> embedded system is a convenience but its pretty much expected 
> that if you're adding stuff you're building from source. This is 
the case 
> in all embedded systems I am aware of. 

What TS provide is an, out of the box, bootable running system. 
This seems like a good base for what I need to do. The major time 
saving this represents over starting from scatch with a bare piece of 
hardware is why I chose their product.

Nowhere do I see an expectation that I remake from scratch what is 
already provided . I don't see why you say that.

> 
> Have you looked at the below?
> 
> http://www.embeddedarm.com/Manuals/gs_arm_tslinux.pdf
> http://www.embeddedarm.com/Manuals/linuxarm-guide-rev2.3.pdf
> http://www.embeddedarm.com/Manuals/TS_ARM_L.PDF
> http://www.embeddedarm.com/linux/ARM.htm
> ftp://ftp.embeddedarm.com/ts-arm-linux-cd/
> 
>   -- Doug
>

Yes thanks , I read all of those. The first one shows how to boot to 
the "full" Debian fs on a server via nfs. Although it failed to work 
earlier.

I could do a similar trick with the TSlinux. Boot into it using the 
target hardware but without the space restriction. There I should be 
able to use apt-get in a similar env to the target and take full 
advantage of Debian package management.

So I'm in a chicken and egg situation. I'll have to get into the guts 
of apt and see if it's possible to unpack a .deb with the limitted 
tools in the TS busybox.

regards, 
/js





 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ts-7000/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ts-7000/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
     
    

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

Disclaimer: Neither Andrew Taylor nor the University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering take any responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU