Hi,
WARNING: incoherent rant enclosed...
j.chitte <> [20080405 10:04:33 -0000]:
>
> [snipped grumbles about life revolving around version numbers]
>
> Well it was not Jim who said your hands were tied, it was you, and as
> I point out you are not unable to provide updates with your existing
> structure.
>
I think you are mixing the needs and expectations of the desktop world with
the embedded world to your suiting. From what I can tell the embedded world
expects you to be able to re-write chunks of kernel sourcecode, recompile it,
build your own rootfs and already know and use actively cross compilers; all
this can be learnt in the 'desktop' world without even having to buy a
embedded device.
TS provide *hardware* support and from my view this has been covered very
well[1]. The Linux kernel with their own rootfs seem to be really nothing
more than just a proof of concept and contains everything *you* need to make
of it what you want; many manufacturers give you even less than this.
>From their 'proof of concept' kernel tree I managed to get the Orion GIT
branch of Linux to work neatly on it. My C knowledge is...well much to be
desired but because the hardware documentation was there in the open I was
able to do this. What ever your project is, if it has a dependency on the
software provided[2] you are destined to run into problems, problems that the
embedded world would expect your project team to be able to resolve.
There are a lot of different ARM root file systems out there to pick from, you
do not have to use the TS kernel with the TS root fs; I personally would not
recommend it. Hell build your own with automated tools[3].
> This TSlinux and it's busybox are into thier fidth year now. One
> complete update with a few bug fixes and ts11 kernel would be a much
> better starting point than the buggy five year old release.
>
I'm guessing TS is marketing to the embedded world and not people who are
completely new to Linux. I'm surprised that recently there has been a number
of people who seem to not have a basic level of C knowledge or Linux/UNIX
knowledge even in the desktop arena; this new or something as the archives
show none of this.
TS build hardware, and soft-cores, it seems. They provide all the hardware
documentation an *embedded* developer needs (more than others I hear)...their
ARM boards are not targeted at 'green' Linux users. I am shocked that so
many people seem to buy these boards and have no idea how to:
* build their own root filesystem
* compile/patch/develop their own kernels
* write driver code
* little if no knowledge of C (and how it works in real life...stdio
buffering, come on, I'm only a Perl monkey and know this...)
* able to roll/obtain their own cross compiling tool chain
Then with this lack of...effort to meet the prerequisites then spend their time
complaining effectively about nothing more than what boils down to version
numbers are not as high as they could be. These are problems you would have
in the non-embedded world, the difference being that you can usually just sit
back and wait for someone else to complain and fix it with zero effort on
your part.
TS picked Linux, and now there is some *BSD action too I see, I'm guessing
so that we can can help ourselves and get the information we need so to be
able to write our own drivers and interact with the hardware on the board.
I have my eyes on the embedded XOR/crypto accelerator...RAID and IPsec is
going to be shiny on this kit.
The embedded world is for people willing to help themselves and know the
difference between hardware and software support. If there was no hardware
documentation you would see everyone screaming for blood and simply not
buying TS equipment. Software support, who really gives a damn? Its not as
if you cannot go and fix it yourself[4].
</rant>
There is no difference in development in the embedded or 'desktop' world,
however the expectations of developer ability and expectation of the supplier
for hardware documentation is much greater in the former. How many
complaints have you read regarding driver development under Linux is a pain
in the ass as manufacturers refuse to supply documentation for the hardware
under the hood? Now dig through the archives for complaints regarding the
lack of driver documentation on TS's equipment...
Quit complaining about problems you can fix yourself, and in my
sitting-on-a-pedestal opinion, should be able to. qemu is a great place to
learn how to do embedded development for a number of different architectures
(including ARM). Once you can solve the problems you find in qemu
development you should find real-life physical hardware much less daunting.
You will also gain enlightenment on how trivial the rootfs is in the grand
scheme of things....more so in the embedded world[5].
My $0.02+inflation-as-the-dollar-is-worthless :)
Cheers
Alex
[1] well a bit more FPGA info would not go amiss and direct raw access to the
SD card so *we* the userbase can work something out
[2] reminds me of those 'enterprise' applications companies develop that have
a dependency on unreleased-in-development code from another vendor
[3] Christ, with buildroot (over at uclibc) this is no longer hard
[4] this is like those arguments "there should be a 'server' Linux kernel
and a 'desktop' Linux kernel", well Billy Jo, there is nothing
stopping folk forking their own tree...especially now there is GIT.
No one does because actually there would be no point and the only
people who complain are the ones who do not understand the reasoning
[5] why do you think there are so many distros out there for Linux?
--
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