Gcc Running On Pandora?

[zoranc]

Hi all,

I just got my Pandora and it's up and running. :-D

However I noticed there is no C/C++ compiler out of the box. I'd like to install gcc on the 1. SD card since there is not much space in the NAND (df says 80MN or so). Seems not so easy, not that I didn't look around... I found this thread: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/52343-pandora-sdk-installer/ but is mainly for debian, ubuntu and I'd like native OS.

Now my questions:
1. How to tell ipkg to install on the SD instead of the internal flash?
2. Which filesystem would you recommend me to use for the SD? I guess the default FAT32 would not be best choice for a system files. And how to format the card?
3. Should I just jump into debian/ubuntu wagon instead? And have GCC and all out of the box?
4. Is there central repository that is compatible with pandora where I can get libraries SDL, openssl come to my mind.
5. Do you know of some tutorial for how to get GCC up and running on Pandora?

 

[urjaman]

http://blogs.distant-earth.com/wp/?p=106

EDIT: There jump to "Native (on device) software development". I'm surprised that you have only 80Mb of free space on NAND, what did you do to it? . Anyways on-nand will take about 35-40M so it will still fit just fine.

Stuckie has some dev environment stuff that he's been wrapping into a .pnd.

Also, you can put a rootfs on an SD card and boot from there and install from the repos to your hearts content

 

[zoranc]

Thanks a bunch for the great link it it works will solve all.

Concerning the flash free I got the device from another guy so I guess he installed some stuff. Maybe I'll just reflash to clean things up...

 

[whynodd]

Hi all,

I just got my Pandora and it's up and running. :-D

However I noticed there is no C/C++ compiler out of the box. I'd like to install gcc on the 1. SD card since there is not much space in the NAND (df says 80MN or so). Seems not so easy, not that I didn't look around... I found this thread: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/52343-pandora-sdk-installer/ but is mainly for debian, ubuntu and I'd like native OS.

Now my questions:
1. How to tell ipkg to install on the SD instead of the internal flash?
2. Which filesystem would you recommend me to use for the SD? I guess the default FAT32 would not be best choice for a system files. And how to format the card?
3. Should I just jump into debian/ubuntu wagon instead? And have GCC and all out of the box?
4. Is there central repository that is compatible with pandora where I can get libraries SDL, openssl come to my mind.
5. Do you know of some tutorial for how to get GCC up and running on Pandora?

I just used the Extend-Utils from this thread: Extend Utils from Stuckie
This way you don't have to mess around with the NAND and you have the tools on SD-card.

 

[zoranc]

This is also a good option. For now I opted for a full development environment in the NAND since I consider it core functionality. It worked flawless, baring a small trick to update openssl all went without any problem. ANd all my projects are up and running.

 

[torpor]

Bollocks! Seriously though, I've had a great time using my Pandora for development lately .. it just works, no cross-compiling required ..

 

[joseluisjazz]

I've had a great time using my Pandora for development lately .. it just works, no cross-compiling required ..

Yes but for big projects (gcc, chromium) I think cross-compiling would be wiser. Mainly because of memory shortage.

 

[torpor]

I really highly doubt that its *necessary*, just preferred, due to speed. However the simplicity of development within the end-user target environment leads to a very much needed lack of bloat!

 

[marktuson]

With this being able to put your rootfs on the SD card, the Pandora is sounding more similar to the NanoNote than I'd thought it could be. Not that I'm complaining, I eventually got my NanoNote working just fine, except I had to change operating systems to get what I want.

Surely there's going to be a 'Developer Edition' of the Pandora OS, with all the devel stuff already installed and integrated? Heh heh.

When the devel tools get built, I'll be installing them properly, so I hope there's going to be a plain binary available that I can put straight in the bin and man directories.

In fact, I'd rather be able to install all the software I download by installing it properly... are these PND files like archives - could I extract them and copy them where they would go had they been installed to the system?

 

[sebt3]

I really highly doubt that its *necessary*, just preferred, due to speed. However the simplicity of development within the end-user target environment leads to a very much needed lack of bloat!

Well, cross-compiling is just a matter of having the right environnements variables set. As theses are loaded by default, I can open a new shell, extract a package type make and be happy as you would on the pandora.

Surely there's going to be a 'Developer Edition' of the Pandora OS, with all the devel stuff already installed and integrated? Heh heh.

I guess not : with a few opkg install command, you get your 'Developer Edition' already.

are these PND files like archives - could I extract them and copy them where they would go had they been installed to the system?

Using these pnd content to update your NAND won't be supported, and you'll probably broke your system :
These packages are build to be use as it is. There is even a thread for request to go the other way : from angstrom to PND...

 

[zoranc]

Surely there's going to be a 'Developer Edition' of the Pandora OS, with all the devel stuff already installed and integrated? Heh heh.

I guess not : with a few opkg install command, you get your 'Developer Edition' already.

Yes. As explained in the link from the 2. post you just do:
sudo opkg update
sudo opkg install gcc gcc-symlinks make binutils-dev cpp cpp-symlinks g++ g++-symlinks libstdc++-dev
sudo opkg install libsdl-1.2-dev libsdl-image-1.2-dev libsdl-gfx-dev libsdl-net-1.2-dev libsdl-ttf-2.0-dev libgles-omap3-dev

...and you are all set.

BTW just check beforehand with df -h if you have at least 50-60 MB free.

 

[marktuson]

Surely there's going to be a 'Developer Edition' of the Pandora OS, with all the devel stuff already installed and integrated? Heh heh.

I guess not : with a few opkg install command, you get your 'Developer Edition' already.

Yes. As explained in the link from the 2. post you just do:
sudo opkg update
sudo opkg install gcc gcc-symlinks make binutils-dev cpp cpp-symlinks g++ g++-symlinks libstdc++-dev
sudo opkg install libsdl-1.2-dev libsdl-image-1.2-dev libsdl-gfx-dev libsdl-net-1.2-dev libsdl-ttf-2.0-dev libgles-omap3-dev

...and you are all set.

BTW just check beforehand with df -h if you have at least 50-60 MB free.

How feasible would it be for me to get my CD card and make /usr and /bin partitions on that, and keep it mounted on the Pandora so any software I install goes there? IF that can be done, I can keep the OS (pretty much) untouched, and install all the software I want without worrying about space (got an 8G card, for now). I'll likely be doing that with /home, too, when I get a 64G card.

This is the problem I'm going to be having; my cards are going to be mounted as part of the system, not just floating drives. Will the OS still see my PND files without me telling it where to look?

 

[WizardStan]

How feasible would it be for me to get my CD card and make /usr and /bin partitions on that, and keep it mounted on the Pandora so any software I install goes there?[/url]
You want something like this; alternatively, there's a way to load the actual Pandora OS onto an SD card and run it off of that. I forget how to do that though, but I'm sure you can find it if you look around
It might be in the tweaks thread at the top here, maybe?

This is the problem I'm going to be having; my cards are going to be mounted as part of the system, not just floating drives. Will the OS still see my PND files without me telling it where to look?

Yes. Even though you mount the card elsewhere, it'll still be automounted to /media/xyz on insert or bootup. In fact, if your plan is to have the OS on the NAND and then have different directories (such as /home) mounted on the card, it may be easier/better to instead make them symbolic links to your card mounted at /media/xyz
If you've decided to run the OS off an SD card, you'll still find /pandora/[menu|desktop|appdata] directories in the root OS: put your PND files there. This is the home of the Pandora specific scripts and applications, but it doesn't hurt to add more stuff; just be careful when deleting.

 

[marktuson]

How feasible would it be for me to get my CD card and make /usr and /bin partitions on that, and keep it mounted on the Pandora so any software I install goes there?[/url]
You want something like this; alternatively, there's a way to load the actual Pandora OS onto an SD card and run it off of that. I forget how to do that though, but I'm sure you can find it if you look around
It might be in the tweaks thread at the top here, maybe?

This is the problem I'm going to be having; my cards are going to be mounted as part of the system, not just floating drives. Will the OS still see my PND files without me telling it where to look?

Yes. Even though you mount the card elsewhere, it'll still be automounted to /media/xyz on insert or bootup. In fact, if your plan is to have the OS on the NAND and then have different directories (such as /home) mounted on the card, it may be easier/better to instead make them symbolic links to your card mounted at /media/xyz
If you've decided to run the OS off an SD card, you'll still find /pandora/[menu|desktop|appdata] directories in the root OS: put your PND files there. This is the home of the Pandora specific scripts and applications, but it doesn't hurt to add more stuff; just be careful when deleting.

I'll probably be just using the SD cards to hold my own files, to be honest. I'm not sure about Debian on there; I've ordered the thing to play games on, primarily, not to program on. That's what I bought my NanoNote for. If it's possible to use Debian on it and still use the PND files, however, that might be different. But only if I can have Gnome or KDE.

I'm definitely still going to put a swap partition on the SD card. I've got a 1G partition ready and formatted on my 8G card, ready to be activated.

Tell you what would have rocked: a MicroDrive instead of a NAND.

 

[skeezix]

You can of course put the pnd-files anywhere you like; if the path isn't in the current searchpath, you can edit the conf and add it. (Everything in the libpnd system is configurable, nothing is really hardcoded.)

pnd files can be unpacked and used in their unpacked form (still with the appdata-magic going on etc); they're coded to work like that, so it would be goofy to split their files up all around in the filesystem; note that was the point -- we have limited space in NAND, so we devised a system to make things work 'like cartridges' off SD (removable media, without install, etc and so on.)

There is something to be said for installing the firmware onto SD and booting from that (you'd then have the option to boot from SD or NAND, so if you bugger up your SD's firmware, just reboot fro NAND and good to go; or use NAND for file storage of importnt bits, or something.) Booting from SD means your firmware can grow without a problem, meaning you could install into the filesystem as any normal unix system, which is handy (go nuts with opkg .. but then you can't really eject the SD while turned on without blowing everything up (but you also have 2 slots, so it works just fine; while developing the firmware, we booted from SD the whole time, using the second slot for the fun stuff, so it works very well.)

jeff