Re: Just enough OS for eCos

Re: Just enough OS for eCos

[Uwe Kindler]

Hello Sergei,

That is really a good idea. If I could put some things on the wish list 
that I would like to see in such an image ;O)


1. Precompiled toolchains for all architectures (or special JeCos for 
each architecture?)

2. The eCos Config GUI tool
I know that a lot of people use the command line tools. But especially 
for eCos beginners that download the VM image for eCos evaluation the 
GUI tool is easier to understand, to use and it helps to understand the 
eCos configuration system. And I know that there are also experienced 
eCos users (like me) that prefer the GUI tool.

3. A working docbook installation.
I did not even try to build the eCos dosumentation on a Windows machine 
and always switched to a Unbuntu VM to do this job.

4. A GUI debugger
I have to admit, I'm not a command line guru and I prefer GUI tools. I 
think if somone is familar with all the command line tools then he also 
has a running eCos linux environment. So it would be great to have a GUI 
debugger. I prefer Eclipse with Zylin CDT plugin.

6. A working synthetic target to play with eCos without real hardware

If you need some help testing stuff on a Windows XP machine I could help.

Regards, Uwe

Re: Just enough OS for eCos

[Sergei Gavrikov]

Uwe Kindler wrote:
> Hello Sergei,

Hello Uwe,

> That is really a good idea. If I could put some things on the wish list  
> that I would like to see in such an image ;O)

Just quick thoughts before I run away. It's time for gardering, I leaved
a message on twitter (`sgavrikov', it's me).

Why I tell about ubuntu-vm-builder. Using it, it's possible to stand up
core JeCos VM machine and then (the builder lets us do it) to run any
post install scripts (no login yet, no vmplayer yet!). So, all can be
maintained as a few bash scripts.  No bloat images. Because, I have not
place to maintain bloat MB images, thus, bitbucket (I use it) lets me to
use uploads until 150M.

> 1. Precompiled toolchains for all architectures (or special JeCos for  
> each architecture?)

It can be discussed. I would start with minimal toolset for i386-elf
and even (I think) I would found a place for the first image under 50M.

> 2. The eCos Config GUI tool
> I know that a lot of people use the command line tools. But especially  
> for eCos beginners that download the VM image for eCos evaluation the  
> GUI tool is easier to understand, to use and it helps to understand the  
> eCos configuration system. And I know that there are also experienced  
> eCos users (like me) that prefer the GUI tool.

Well, Lets call it Just eCos GUI OS image. Hm, X-server... Well, it's
possible for me stand up differ kinds of JeCos using the scripts around
the builder.

> 3. A working docbook installation.
> I did not even try to build the eCos dosumentation on a Windows machine  
> and always switched to a Unbuntu VM to do this job.

JeCos DocBook :-)

> 4. A GUI debugger
> I have to admit, I'm not a command line guru and I prefer GUI tools. I  
> think if somone is familar with all the command line tools then he also  
> has a running eCos linux environment. So it would be great to have a GUI  
> debugger. I prefer Eclipse with Zylin CDT plugin.

JeCos Eclipse.

> 6. A working synthetic target to play with eCos without real hardware

This is exactly what I thought about (with DHCPD, tap interfaces, may be
eCos synthetic serial ports, I use that brilliant from Savin Zlobec).

> If you need some help testing stuff on a Windows XP machine I could help.

Thank you Uwe, I promise that first image I give you for a testing ;-)

Regards, Sergei

> Regards, Uwe
>

Just enough OS for eCos

[Sergei Gavrikov]

Hello 

A day ago Uwe Kindler cried in ecos-patches (I and some one more asked
about in a past in discuss-list)

    Uwe> If there would be a preconfigured VM linux image available
    Uwe> on the eCos homapage with all tools installed and a working
    Uwe> synthetic target I would immediatelly start testing ;O)

And I thought, Why we have not Just enough OS for eCos?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_enough_operating_system

I mean an installation which would let anyone (well, any one who is
experienced, familiar with Linux) to get JeOS for building tests for
eCos Linux target (and may be more?).

IMO, it would be great to start such an appliance here:
http://ecos.sourceware.org/contrib.html

I had success with building the images which were suitable even for
VMWare Player (It's free and Windows guys in the most use it, not KVM or
QEmu).

A cool thing was in that what I used the Ubuntu's ubuntu-vm-builder:
https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/serverguide/C/ubuntu-vm-builder.html

That is just a script which downloads, installs distro (JeOS) and at the
end creates a disk image. I don't know, may be Debian, OpenSuSE, CentOS
have the same tool.

Well, what would we put into such a JeCos box? 

Note: I type: jeos, jecos. JeCos is not typo I kept this abbr in my mind
for some reason :-)

I think that would be build-essential, tcl, tcl-dev packages, eCos 3.0,
and i386-elf toolchain, ccache. Does we need X-server? IMO, we would not
install it. AFAIK, it's possible to run tests for synthetic under gdb
using -nw, -io args. If I wrong, tell me why. I know that 7-zipped image
(vmware appliance, vmware disk) could be just a few tens of Mb.

Well, why did I point on ubuntu-vm-builder? That's just a script. I knew
about it. Well, may be I did not discover America for you. Excuse then
the snippets the below. If you run script with default settings, e.g.,

ubuntu-vm-builder vmw6 hardy --mirror <yours>

You can get jeos.7z (jeos.vmx, root.vmdk) in ~45M. That will be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_JeOS

And when I used own settings, e.g.,

ubuntu-vm-builder vmw6 hardy \
	--mirror http://ftp.byfly.by/ubuntu \
	--domain local \
	--hostname jeos \
	--user user \
	--pass password \
	--mem 512 \
	--swap 1024 \
	--opt 4096 \
	--addpkg unattended-upgrades \
	--addpkg psmisc \
	--addpkg acpid \
	--addpkg openssh-server \
	--addpkg build-essential \
	--addpkg ccache \
	--addpkg tcl8.4 \
	--addpkg tcl8.4-dev \
	--addpkg vim

I got 31M jecos.7z (jeos.vmx, root.vmdk). Then I needed just to click on
root.vmdk to run JeOS VM with VMWare Player under ... X. Then using ssh
connection, I could add any deb packages and eCos itself there. Well,
that was just a try.

Unfortunately (fortunately) I have not Windows installed. So, I cannot
say what you can click on root.vmdk under Vista (or 7) and you will run
Ubuntu JeOS. I could not test it. But, may be some one have both OS
installed and he will try it, and then he will share JeCos vmdk with 
others.

Well, you can say, it's odd thing, let's they install Linux and get it
all then, if they want. What are advantages with JeCos? I thought: the
same kernel, the same toolchain, the same gdb, the same userspace, the
same Tcl, etc. And then you would say, Hey, download our image from here
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/ and try to build that example.  What
is disadvantage. It will be slow, but I used ccache, you know that is
very robust tool if you rebuild eCos again, again and again.

Excuse me if it looks like off-topic for this list and I did waste your
time. Then, I'm sorry. But, I hope this post would inspire some one to
build Just enough OS/eCos appliance.

All, Have a good weekend :-)

Regards,

	Sergei