Subject: [E3-hacking] Re: Re: Amstrad E3

From: Jonathan McDowell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 18:27:23 +0100

On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 04:13:34PM +0000, Iain Learmonth wrote:
> > On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 03:06:48PM +0000, Iain Learmonth wrote:
> > > Hi, I read an entry on your blog and it says that you managed to get
> > > linux to boot via serial or something like that :S
> > > 
> > > Is this just booting the MontaVista Linux or actually a usable linux
> > > system with Sh/Mini-sh?
> > > 
> > > If it is booting a decent linux system, could you reply with details
> > > of how you have achieved this?
> > 
> > Did you find:
> > 
> > http://www.earth.li/~noodles/hardware-e3.html
> > 
> > The list and wiki mentioned on that page are probably good starting
> > points; we have a 2.6.16 based kernel running on the device along with
> > an OpenEmbedded based filesystem.
> Ok, I can now boot into the kernel and get a shell either on the
> device itself or via the serial port. I know want to code/recompile
> some userland apps so that it's running Linux usefully. I can't find a
> cross-compiler :S
> 
> Do you know of one?

This sort of thing is better asked on the e3-hacking list rather than
direct to me.

gcc is the obvious cross compiler to use. I believe there are numerous
guides around for building it in a cross compiling configuration, but
there are at least 2 options that make it easier:

* buildroot (http://buildroot.uclibc.org/)
  This is what Mark's image (the one you can download) is built using.
  Fairly quick to get going; you can use the BR_config in
  E3_release_v1.tar.gz

* OpenEmbedded (http://www.openembedded.org/)
  This is a lot more involved to get going, but does offer a huge number
  of packages. It's the basis for Familiar (the iPaq distro) and
  OpenZaurus and David Ford's patch to support the E3 (including
  building u-boot and the kernel) was recently added to it.
 
J.

-- 
Revd. Jonathan McDowell, ULC | You!... Off my planet!