Archlinux On Pandora?

[GizmoTheGreen]

When i get my Pandora I would love to put archlinux on it.

There seems to be an archlinux for ARM available already:
http://www.archmobile.org/

And a post on the archlinux forum:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=76319

If one of the devs could make a video of arch running with say, openbox and lxde, that would be very cool.

 

[Vorporeal]

Are you really asking a dev to spend a lot of time getting a whole OS configured and running on the Pandora? I'm sure there are better things they could spend their time doing. Just try it once you get yours.

 

[lulzfish]

If one of the devs could make a video of arch running with say, openbox and lxde, that would be very cool.

The devs are very busy working on the official OS / GUI, which is Angstrom / xfce at the moment.
When the Pandora comes out, I am sure someone who has more free time will make a video of Arch linux running.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

Im sorry if i sounded offending, its not like im asking them to start developing a new environment.

more like, when they need a break from developing the main OS they could try archmobile quickly and see how it runs, kindof like they make quick unoptimized ports to see how they do.

If they dont have time they dont

 

[transmition]

I used to wonder the same thing myself. However, I am pretty sure that there is going to be a version of Angstrom that will just contain the minimum required components, and then we can add on to that ourselves (so things like openbox, etc.)

It makes much more sense to have a minimal version of Angstrom then Arch, as we can still do all the configuring we want, while not splitting our Dev base, and having a system better suited to our system.

 

[Alec]

I used to wonder the same thing myself. However, I am pretty sure that there is going to be a version of Angstrom that will just contain the minimum required components, and then we can add on to that ourselves (so things like openbox, etc.)

It makes much more sense to have a minimal version of Angstrom then Arch, as we can still do all the configuring we want, while not splitting our Dev base, and having a system better suited to our system.

I think the more distro choices the better, especially since some of them are more popular than others.

Personally, I think the best would be to have a binary repository for Gentoo with a configuration that is sane for a small device (I guess like Sabayon, although I never used it). The reason is that Gentoo is a pretty popular distro, and it already supports a ton of architectures, so a lot of useful packages could be easily built. Also, from what I see, Gentoo seems to be much more up-to-date, even for the ARM packages, than Ångström...

 

[Sphinxter]

The more pandora specific the os is tailored the better the user experience is going to be so it should be pick one and only one and then nail the living shit out of it.

 

[second exodous]

Well, Ångström is what it will have but that shouldn't stop anyone from porting another distro/OS to it. If a better distro is found then switch, that simple. Also, the more Arm hand helds come out the more distros will be optimized for these devices. Conical(ubuntu) is officially supporting arm right now so others will surly follow suit. For the time being Ångström will be my main OS and then I'll experiment with others.

I think what it will boil down to is repositories, what ever distro has packages that will work straight out of the repository will win. I would think a distro repository will be more up-kept than a device repository. Of course the ubuntu repositories are driving me crazy, you have to add a PPA for everything because every package is outdated by one or two releases on the official ubuntu repositories. I miss Gentoo but I just don't have the knowledge or time to run it anymore.

For me it's not the distro, it's the repositories.

 

[slygamer]

The more pandora specific the os is tailored the better the user experience is going to be so it should be pick one and only one and then nail the living shit out of it.

That's just going against the whole philosophy of the *nix scene. Why wouldn't I want to fracture off a new distribution and call it some silly name, all because I don't like how distro X's scheduler works, or some piddly-pants reason like that?

 

[musicalwoods]

Whoah, when did Arch decide to support ARM? This is wonderful news. I love that distro. Rolling release binaries for the win.

 

[Sphinxter]

The more pandora specific the os is tailored the better the user experience is going to be so it should be pick one and only one and then nail the living shit out of it.

That's just going against the whole philosophy of the *nix scene. Why wouldn't I want to fracture off a new distribution and call it some silly name, all because I don't like how distro X's scheduler works, or some piddly-pants reason like that?

Welcome to the embedded scene.

 

[nikkopt]

You can always try the arm version on QEMU..

 

[Calmatory]

If I ever get my Pandora, I'll definitely run Arch on it.

(Yes, already running Arch on this laptop. ;o)

 

[Spirit]

Wow, I can't want to try it once I have mine. Arch

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

Already got ARM on always all my computers, I love setting it up, lol.

 

[juniorm33]

The more pandora specific the os is tailored the better the user experience is going to be so it should be pick one and only one and then nail the living shit out of it.

Your right for out of the box use. Choose one and get it as good as possible.
But the good thing about the Pandora is the ability to customise it to this level.
Nice thing is when other versions are ported should be able to use PND's etc.

 

[transmition]

The more pandora specific the os is tailored the better the user experience is going to be so it should be pick one and only one and then nail the living shit out of it.

Your right for out of the box use. Choose one and get it as good as possible.
But the good thing about the Pandora is the ability to customise it to this level.
Nice thing is when other versions are ported should be able to use PND's etc.

I don't see any reason why PNDs should be cross compatible. A gentoo binary will not run on an Ubuntu system, why would an Angstrom binary run on Arch?
As long as we have the option of a minimal Angstrom image, we will be able to have nearly the same amount of control as Arch, while not distracting from the main project.

 

[WizardStan]

A gentoo binary will not run on an Ubuntu system, why would an Angstrom binary run on Arch?

Assuming the same architecture, and providing all required libraries are present, a linux binary should run on all versions of linux. There are some cases where they don't, but I've found that most do. If you are finding a lot of cases where they don't, then you are either very, very (un)lucky, or something is wrong with your setups.
There's no reason that (most) PND files couldn't work across any Linux based OS that is being run on the Pandora.

edit: or perhaps it is I who is lucky enough to have only ever hit programs that are binary compatible.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

WizardStan is pretty much correct, if the target cpu during compilation is the same, it should run on any linux distro for that cpu.

 

[Alec]

Which version of libc is Pandora going to use? Archmobile seems to use glibc, which is not a good idea considering that Ulrich Drepper does not like supporting "crap architectures"... Hopefully pandora will use µClibc, but that would cause compatibility problems since I'm pretty sure µClibc uses a different ABI...