uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

zio · 2008-03-31 02:02:21

Hello all,

just wanted to post the new web site for uArch it can be found at

http://code.google.com/p/uarch/

check it out and let me know what you think..

zio

Last edited by zio (2008-03-31 06:21:21)

Sigi · 2008-03-31 02:03:59

doublepost...

zio · 2008-03-31 02:38:03

sorry if cross posted, I thought both forum indexes would be interested.

zio

Last edited by zio (2008-03-31 02:38:29)

venox · 2008-03-31 02:46:48

Great idea. I would love to try porting uArch to Playstation 2, since some nice efforts from ps2dev.org community got the Linux Kernel to boot on it.

zio · 2008-03-31 04:21:40

Sounds interesting. once I'm done with the i386 uclibc repo. I'll update this post and link the howto.

here is an example of file sizes. arch vanilla vs uclibc

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 589K 2008-03-30 21:02 bash.glibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 440K 2008-03-30 21:02 bash.uclibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  74K 2008-03-30 21:11 pacman.glibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.1M 2008-03-30 20:55 pacman.glibc.static
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  59K 2008-03-30 21:13 pacman.uclibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 669K 2008-03-30 20:56 pacman.uclibc.static

The uclibc images are not completely optimized at this point. As you can see running on your mobile phone is going to be alot of fun.

zio

Fred · 2008-04-04 08:47:01

Looks interesting. We're evaluating pacman as a package manager for our embedded system, and integrating uClibc is one of our goals too. We're currently using Scratchbox to generate our packages, so the scripts should be compatible (with some specific fixes for ARM).

How far are you on this project? Do you have some files out yet? I'll be evaluating this in the next few weeks, maybe I can help you out with your packages too.

zio · 2008-04-04 18:53:33

Thanks for your interest Fred. So far I have a complete base-devel i386 system. well not 100% complete I'm sure I'm missing the odd thing, All built against uclibc and all managed with pacman. The system self replicates. I need to move packages around into groups better. ie mini-base vs base . but I'm putting that on the back burner. I think its better to focus on base-devel and then work out the mini-base vs base later.

I'll be working on getting a repo up in the next couple of days, with instructions on how to get a root system up. I'll post a link here to the wiki once its ready.

zio

zio · 2008-04-05 05:01:59

I've updated the uArch wiki with instructions on installing uArch

here's the link

Installing uArch from Arch Linux

zio

Fred · 2008-04-07 09:39:22

Great, I'll have a look by the end of the week. Thanks zio.

zio · 2008-04-19 08:00:51

Hello again.

I just wanted to post a progress report for uarch.

We have been pretty busy on uArch. We have added quite a few packages widening base and base-devel's use. We also added a more stable repo location.

You can find more info, and instructions here uArch

At this time we would like to ask for some feedback, so give it a whirl if not just send a quick comment either here or on the uArch wiki.

Regards,

z1o

quetzyg · 2008-04-19 12:15:09

Nice, now I can run Arch on my AMD K6-2!

Thanks!

zio · 2008-04-19 12:18:16

quetzyg check it out see how it goes, currently there is no kernel. one is in the works but you can use any kernel that your hardware supports mean time.

damjan · 2008-04-20 13:55:01

Interesting project, 2 questions:
a) will a system compiled like this suppor UTF-8 in it's applications?
b) is it possible to have some kind of X server for it too.

zio · 2008-04-20 14:13:00

Currently ware are walking a fine line with internationalization. We are trying to have as much language support as we can, and still keep the size of packages to a minimal. assuming you need UTF-8 for multi language support.

I'm hoping to get as much feed back or help with this since my experience with internationalization is poor.

as for an X server. I current have Kdrive (tinyx,subset of xorg-server) working and I'm still ironing out some bugs before I add it to the repo. its size... 900kb . I do plan for full X support in the repo later. once I'm happy with the micro packages.

Give the dev. version a whirl and tell us what you think.

Zio

zio · 2008-05-01 14:57:31

uArch is growing, and we have moved our wiki to a larger system it can now be found at http://uarch.zapto.org/wiki/

Zio

Husio · 2008-05-01 15:42:44

Looks nice, think I'll give it a try on my old machine.

zio · 2008-05-01 16:45:30

Great stuff, lets us know how it works out or if you run into any bugs. Or if you want to help out instructions can be found at http://uarch.zapto.org/wiki/Join

Last edited by zio (2008-05-01 16:46:13)

bender02 · 2008-05-01 17:36:03

Is it really supposed to be 300MB after installation, or do I have some problem with pacman config?
Also - did you consider building against dietlibc, at least some basic tools? I think it produces even smaller and cleaner binaries.

Anyway - interesting project, keep up the good work!

zio · 2008-05-01 19:27:39

no 300MB is about right, if you installed base and base-devel. mainly the current system reflects core entirely and provide a full devel enviroment. I'm still working on base-micro to provide the embedded or space limited group. This makes the system more scalable, I've looked at dietlibc but ultimately uclibc is better in the long run. its actively maintained and developed and its localization is the best of the bunch

Zio

chimeric · 2008-05-04 16:49:53

Hi zio,

I've tried to install uArch by following the instructions on the wiki but I am unable to find the pacman.conf, the link gives me a 404. Has it moved to another location?

Thanks in advance.

zio · 2008-05-04 17:07:46

chimeric wrote:

Hi zio,
I've tried to install uArch by following the instructions on the wiki but I am unable to find the pacman.conf, the link gives me a 404. Has it moved to another location?
Thanks in advance.

Chimeric, thank you for pointing this out, I was doing work on the repo yesterday. and I re factored the sync process. In the process I de-synced pacman.static and pacman.conf.

There back in place, if your doing an install can you use the pacman.static instructions. Just to verify the instructions are still working, should work. But I haven't tested yet

chimeric · 2008-05-04 17:52:17

zio wrote:

There back in place, if your doing an install can you use the pacman.static instructions. Just to verify the instructions are still working, should work. But I haven't tested yet

Thx for the prompt response , I've tried both methods with the static pacman and the one of my system. But unfortunately both attempts failed because of bad md5sums .

error: failed to commit transaction (corrupted package)
file gcc-4.2.1-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file klibc-1.5-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file klibc-udev-116-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file openssl-0.9.8g-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file pciutils-2.2.8-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file sysfsutils-2.1.0-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)
file vi-7.1.293-1-i386-uclibc.pkg.tar.gz was corrupted (bad MD5 checksum)

zio · 2008-05-04 18:04:27

ok, I ran into some problems too but everything should be resolved now . just do a rm /var/cache/pacman/pkg/*uclib* . and that will purge the packages, and then install again. if you still get checksum errors in the future just have pacman delete the files. I haven't switch to a rolling release, quit yet. since technically we have not released. but we do need testers so let me know how it works out .

chimeric · 2008-05-04 19:09:48

zio wrote:

ok, I ran into some problems too but everything should be resolved now . just do a rm /var/cache/pacman/pkg/*uclib* . and that will purge the packages, and then install again.

That worked perfectly, thanks .

zio · 2008-05-04 19:36:26

good stuff I'll be on #uarch most of today. if you have any questions. also uArch would be a good choice for a NSLU2 . if you are using it let me know and I'll create a wiki page explaining how its being use. if your missing some packages or you need to tweak something, there is Join page on our wiki. Gives full instructions on how to Join the uArch team. and make commits

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-31 02:02:21

uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#2 2008-03-31 02:03:59

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#3 2008-03-31 02:38:03

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#4 2008-03-31 02:46:48

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#5 2008-03-31 04:21:40

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#6 2008-04-04 08:47:01

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#7 2008-04-04 18:53:33

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#8 2008-04-05 05:01:59

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#9 2008-04-07 09:39:22

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#10 2008-04-19 08:00:51

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#11 2008-04-19 12:15:09

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#12 2008-04-19 12:18:16

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#13 2008-04-20 13:55:01

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#14 2008-04-20 14:13:00

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#15 2008-05-01 14:57:31

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#16 2008-05-01 15:42:44

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#17 2008-05-01 16:45:30

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#18 2008-05-01 17:36:03

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#19 2008-05-01 19:27:39

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#20 2008-05-04 16:49:53

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#21 2008-05-04 17:07:46

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#22 2008-05-04 17:52:17

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#23 2008-05-04 18:04:27

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#24 2008-05-04 19:09:48

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

#25 2008-05-04 19:36:26

Re: uArch - arch linux for embeded and old machines

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