[ale] Needed Tools

[Chris Fowler]

I have done this and have a customer that is attempting this theirselves.  They went the long way and I went the short way.  they started from a RH 7.0 distribution.  I started from 2.2.18 and built

from the bootom up.  Building from the bootm up I believe is the best.  It allows control over size which is the main problem when working in an embedded environment.  Your rom is 5 mb and 

that is very small.  Below is what I'm using:


1.  2.2.18 kernel
2.  ex2compr file system.  (compressed)
3. Ram image, RO partition that is compressed, config partion that is placed in ram.
4. I have the following on a 16mb DOC
    Netscape, X, icewm, ssh, tcl/tk 8.0, x3270, busybox, custom programs, ica, rdesktop, vnc client, tetris, serial connectivity, various tcl/tk apps for interface and config, libc5 and NO! glibc.

You'll never squeeze all that in 5mb.  But my total OS size is around 50mb. 




-----Original Message-----
From: Bao Ha [mailto:baoh at linuxwizardry.com]
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 10:11 AM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: RE: [ale] Needed Tools




>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  We are in the phase of creating our own stripped of 
> linux to fit
> into a rom size of 5 mb. Now our linux size is 50 mb. we want 
> to reduce
> the size of library and binaries. Is there any tool to do that ?.
>


What platform you are building it on?   It is better to go with
one of the embedded linux distributions, rather than trying
to create one on your own.   There are many ways to do it:
libc5, kernel 2.0.38, busy box, ash, boa,  ...  There is no one 
tool to do it, but the knowledge of how to do it.  And it is one 
of strengths of open-source software that could be used to 
your advantages.


We go with uCLinux on the Motorola Coldfire embedded
processor.  The core service is compressed and fits within 2 meg 
flash, including IPSec!   It uncompresses on start-up and runs
in RAM.  The development is tough since there is no MMU, no
shared lib, no separation of user/supevisor, ...  uCLinux on
Intel is more than double of the size, with limited support on
MMU, blah blah ...   And forget about fitting RH on a 16-meg
flash Intel-based unit. 


Bao


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