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Old 08-30-2010, 03:14 PM   #1
bran
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Installing dev environment

Hi Everyone,

I have a DR800S. I am personally running a debian linux sid distribution (very up to date, refresh about every 4 to five days)). I am also an experienced programmer. The installation instructions for the dev environment really assumes that you use ubuntu which I do not. Is there documentation available that helps with a debian sid installation of the dev environment including the qemu? I would really like to contribute to the communal effort to keep this device alive.

This would be my first foray into cross-compliing and qemu emulation. I realize I need help. I could try to setup an ubuntu in a virtualbox, but I that is emulation in emulation. I believe that is not the way to go. My current sid is way beyond the suggested ubuntu platform

Can anyone give me some hints?

Regards Bran

Last edited by bran; 08-30-2010 at 03:16 PM. Reason: Forgot to add DR800 TAG
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Old 08-30-2010, 04:21 PM   #2
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Welcome to the cross-compilation world, it's fun

I'd suggest you
1) download QEMU disk, unpack it to any folder you like. Download QEMU load image, put it to the same folder
2) download POKY compiler set, unpack it to /usr/local/poky
3) get the scripts for Anjuta-free development; tweak them to suite your paths
4) get hello-world, compile, put into QEMU disk, start emulator, iterate
5) tweak iRex/thirdparty projects

Additionally it is useful to download all available iRex sources for taking a glance or/and studying.
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Old 08-30-2010, 04:21 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
Hi Everyone,

I have a DR800S. I am personally running a debian linux sid distribution (very up to date, refresh about every 4 to five days)). I am also an experienced programmer. The installation instructions for the dev environment really assumes that you use ubuntu which I do not. Is there documentation available that helps with a debian sid installation of the dev environment including the qemu? I would really like to contribute to the communal effort to keep this device alive.

This would be my first foray into cross-compliing and qemu emulation. I realize I need help. I could try to setup an ubuntu in a virtualbox, but I that is emulation in emulation. I believe that is not the way to go. My current sid is way beyond the suggested ubuntu platform

Can anyone give me some hints?

Regards Bran
IMHO the best option is to use the same OS version IREX people recommends. Install a virtual machine for the development. And don't forget to read the doc at [1] carefully.
This way you don't mesh your own computer and even you can save states (snapshots) and recover if something goes wrong.

There is a VMware Player/WorkStation image you can download, search this forum, but you'll have to update it because it contains an old version of IREX SDK.

Anyway, if you have a minimum Linux experience I recommend to install a new vm or to download an already-made virtual machine and install the SDK yourself; it's really easy. Look at [2] for some sources.

Btw, I'm using a VirtualBox vm, it works perfectly.

Some of us have some draft documents about DR development, maybe we could polish and publish them finally...

[1] http://developer.irexnet.com/pub/iOn/SDK/
[2] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...81&postcount=3


PS: welcome onboard
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Old 08-31-2010, 05:03 PM   #4
bran
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Hi All,

I've got the emulator running.

I'm stunned that the the default block device is so small! Its only 256 MiB and already 45% full is it possible to somehow create a larger virtual SD card and use that instead? If that is possible, how do I do that?

What I also noticed is that the SD card that is mounted on first boot in the emulator is an ext2 file system. Does that mean that native linux filesystems are availble for the SD card on a physical DR800 device? Obviously the vfat filesystem is the lowest common denominator, and that it is the one, most computer users are familiar with. So, using vfat makes sense from a consumer's point of view. For me using ext or ext3 or jfs makes more sense. Is this possible?

Regards Bran

Last edited by bran; 08-31-2010 at 05:24 PM.
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Old 08-31-2010, 05:37 PM   #5
Iņigo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
Hi All,

I've got the emulator running.

I'm stunned that the the default block device is so small! Its only 256 MiB and already 45% full is it possible to somehow create a larger virtual SD card and use that instead? If that is possible, how do I do that?

What I also noticed is that the SD card that is mounted on first boot in the emulator is an ext2 file system. Does that mean that native linux filesystems are availble for the SD card on a physical DR800 device? Obviously the vfat filesystem is the lowest common denominator, and that it is the one, most computer users are familiar with. So, using vfat makes sense from a consumer's point of view. For me using ext or ext3 or jfs makes more sense. Is this possible?

Regards Bran
qemu doesn't emulate the SD card really, it's using root partition:

Code:
root@qemuarm:~# df /media/mmcblk0p1/
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                  275415    211130     62236  77% /

If you look at /etc/fstab file you could see that SD card is mounted with auto parameter as file system type. That means that you should use any file system supported by the kernel:

Code:
root@qemuarm:~# cat /etc/fstab
# stock fstab - you probably want to override this with a machine specific one

rootfs               /                       auto          defaults              1  1
proc                 /proc                proc          defaults              0  0
devpts              /dev/pts           devpts       mode=0620,gid=5	   0  0
usbdevfs          /proc/bus/usb  usbdevfs    noauto                0  0
tmpfs                /var                  tmpfs         defaults              0  0
tmpfs                /media/ram      tmpfs         defaults              0  0

# uncomment this if your device has a SD/MMC/Transflash slot
#/dev/mmcblk0p1       /media/card          auto       defaults,sync,noauto  0  0
... and which are the supported file systems:

Code:
root@qemuarm:~# cat /proc/filesystems
nodev    sysfs
nodev    rootfs
nodev    bdev
nodev    proc
nodev    sockfs
nodev    pipefs
nodev    anon_inodefs
nodev    futexfs
nodev    tmpfs
nodev    inotifyfs
nodev    devpts
              ext2
              cramfs
nodev    ramfs
	      vfat
nodev    nfs
nodev    nfsd
nodev    smbfs
nodev    jffs2
nodev    rpc_pipefs

Ok, I haven't tested it but ext2 should work.

Hope it helps,
Iņigo
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Old 08-31-2010, 06:16 PM   #6
bran
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Thanks for the tip!

I'll be testing ext2 very soon! Hmm, dows anyone know if using jffs2 on a SD card has advantages. Formatting that way should not be a problem and might make SD cards more durable?

TIA Bran

Last edited by bran; 08-31-2010 at 06:21 PM.
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Old 09-01-2010, 04:08 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
I'm stunned that the the default block device is so small! Its only 256 MiB and already 45% full is it possible to somehow create a larger virtual SD card and use that instead? If that is possible, how do I do that?
Is this thread what you are looking for?
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Old 09-01-2010, 05:47 AM   #8
bran
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Originally Posted by Mackx View Post
Is this thread what you are looking for?
Yes! My dev image is now 2GB.

Regards Bran
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Old 09-23-2010, 01:55 PM   #9
bran
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
Thanks for the tip!

I'll be testing ext2 very soon! Hmm, dows anyone know if using jffs2 on a SD card has advantages. Formatting that way should not be a problem and might make SD cards more durable?

TIA Bran
I've done the test.

bought an 8GB microsd and formatted is with ext2. mounted both cards on my debian sid box and copied from vfat to ext2.

Inserted ext2 card into dr800s and switched it on. Works like a charm. The dr800 seems more responsive now. Reindexing is much faster. I'm still wondering about the jffs2 on a microsd and if that would help.

Maybe this would even work for windows users as mounting via usb is just a mount and the usb layer emulates scsi protocol and the dr800s can mount. I haven't tested that though as my laptop is linux only.

Maybe someone with access to windows and linux could try this.

Regards Bran
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Old 09-24-2010, 02:47 PM   #10
bran
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Hi All,

I've reread the documentation on jffs2. I must have had a brain fart on my first read through. It seems it is not useful at all for block devices. (knocking head on table)

I've also managed to get a test running of my DR800S with ext2 on a windows box. That won't work. The disk is recognized as disk but the filesystem of the partition is not.

Regards Bran

Last edited by bran; 09-24-2010 at 04:48 PM. Reason: typo
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Old 09-25-2010, 07:53 AM   #11
Iņigo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
Hi All,

I've reread the documentation on jffs2. I must have had a brain fart on my first read through. It seems it is not useful at all for block devices. (knocking head on table)

I've also managed to get a test running of my DR800S with ext2 on a windows box. That won't work. The disk is recognized as disk but the filesystem of the partition is not.

Regards Bran
Some years ago I used to use a free ext2 driver for my work Windows XP laptop...
Ok, it's still there: http://www.fs-driver.org/
Maybe it can be useful for you.

Iņigo

EDIT: note it looks like Windows 7 is not supported currently
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Old 09-25-2010, 03:00 PM   #12
bran
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iņigo View Post
Some years ago I used to use a free ext2 driver for my work Windows XP laptop...
Ok, it's still there: http://www.fs-driver.org/
Maybe it can be useful for you.

Iņigo

EDIT: note it looks like Windows 7 is not supported currently
Iņigo,

I am a linux user myself and do not use windows if I can avoid it. For me the reformatting to ext2 is not a problem at all. Calibre recognizes and mounts the device just fine. A manual mount also works if I want to copy non calibre content.

Your tip sounds like it might be work for windows users. I have no idea if calibre on windows will automount.

Regards Bran
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Old 09-28-2010, 04:31 PM   #13
bran
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Hi Guys,

I've managed to compile dr800+ and install it in the dev environment. I'm happy about that. Iņigo do you have any tips for me regrading what needs replacing upon recompile. I've found the src directory with the new binary but what else do I need to copy?

I have run the 2.0 release of dr800+ on the emulator to get the proper updates. I am very new to the device please advise.

Regards Bran
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Old 09-28-2010, 05:43 PM   #14
Iņigo
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Posts: 730
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Here or there
Device: iRex iLiad, iRex DR800S. K4NT. Kobo Aura, Aura One, Libra 2.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bran View Post
Hi Guys,

I've managed to compile dr800+ and install it in the dev environment. I'm happy about that. Iņigo do you have any tips for me regrading what needs replacing upon recompile. I've found the src directory with the new binary but what else do I need to copy?

I have run the 2.0 release of dr800+ on the emulator to get the proper updates. I am very new to the device please advise.

Regards Bran
Test the installation script inside the binary package which you can find in the first message of the DR800+ release thread.
Note that some of the binaries require some additional resources (icons, style files, etc).
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