Gentoo at Pandora - anybody interested?

[Hoodoo]

As I've been bragging this week, I've managed to install Gentoo on my Pandora, got X11 running and a good part of 'heavy' libs built, the process is pretty trivial after you went through installing Debian following the guide in Pandora wiki.


I'm aware of Nuevoo project (thanks, Prometheus) but I'm not sure about it's current status - is it still supported? Anybody wants a brief guide or a rootfs snapshot? Any cool ideas?


I'm interested in 'netbook' side of Pandora, so my primary goal is to see how the apps I'm used to will run on Pandora and how close to 'mainstream' distribution one can get. I'm thinking about hacking together something similar to Crunchbanglinux for myself.

 

[sebt3]

As far as I know, the neuvoo devs are quiete... realy quiete. That doesnt mean they dont work on it

 

[OpenUser]

First thing I'll do after getting and testing my Pandora is putting Gentoo on it.


Glad to hear your attempts succeeded so far.


So my answer to your question (see topic) is YES.


IMHO Gentooing the Pandora deserves an own website, what do you think?

 

[Hoodoo]

Well I have a place to host one, but I would rather stay here with all that stuff so far, I believe it maybe adds some value to the gadget (hackability rocks!) and save me some time. We have wiki here, I think all things about Pandora belong there and should not be spread across ten sites and eight forums.


When/if I have a more or less useable setup I can make a rootfs snapshot and share it via FTP. I'm not sure how the updates will be made, I need to find a way to set up a compatible cross-compiler in archlinux which is my distribution of choice, because compiling packages on Pandora itself is not an experience I would like to have over and over again

 

[EvilDragon]

I'm happy to provide webspace for anything like that

 

[maxxdoutvdub]

i want to make a gentoo sd card... next time i have money for a new card that is... what kernel do you have running?

 

[Hoodoo]

Even better. ) I'm afraid these are going to be pretty fat, because I'm installing to an SD card and I don't care too much for stripping them down - removing man pages and such.


I don't feel like starting a _project_ or _distribution_ around the kernel stolen from Pandora developers and packages anyone can get in repos, one simple guide would do.


maxxdoutvdub, I just use one from hf6, kernel hacking is not something I'm good at, setting up userspace stuff and writing primitive scripts is all I can do.

 

[Mr Rob]

This is why the open-source community is so great, getting Gentoo set up is very interesting.


Next stop, FreeBSD on Pandora? GNU/Hurd?!

 

[Tempel]

I need to find a way to set up a compatible cross-compiler in archlinux which is my distribution of choice, because compiling packages on Pandora itself is not an experience I would like to have over and over again

Are you aware of Arch Linux ARM? (Formerly called PlugApps; before that, PlugBox). It has a large collection of Arch packages compiled for ARM. wejp has a tarball working on Pandora.

 

[Hoodoo]

This is why the open-source community is so great, getting Gentoo set up is very interesting.


Next stop, FreeBSD on Pandora? GNU/Hurd?!

It's actually not a rocket science. The most complicated part of installing Gentoo is building the kernel, but you already have it, so you just install all the rest which is not more difficult than installing Ubuntu packages, only takes more time.


I doubt we will have *BSD or Hurd on Pandora soon because as far as I understand most of the drivers are Linux kernel modules, relying on a very specific kernel version. Maybe BSD people would write some drivers of their own though, you never can tell.

Are you aware of Arch Linux ARM? (Formerly called PlugApps; before that, PlugBox). It has a large collection of Arch packages compiled for ARM. wejp has a tarball working on Pandora.

Yes, I know. However, for Arch people !x86/x86_68 is a toaster, a vacuum cleaner or anything like that, so no support guaranteed, according to Arch wiki. I'll try the ARM version later when I have a spare SD, but I want a 'mainstream' distribution officially supporting ARM to work with Pandora, with Midnight Commander supporting 256 colors, newer Perl, maybe the latset Chromium or Luakit, probably wmfs and all such things easy to install. I hoped Debian would be that, but so far I only have dependencies hell there. Hence Gentoo: if you have to recompile half of the packages anyway let it be the distribution where such things are normal.

 

[Cloudef]

This is why the open-source community is so great, getting Gentoo set up is very interesting.


Next stop, FreeBSD on Pandora? GNU/Hurd?!

It's actually not a rocket science. The most complicated part of installing Gentoo is building the kernel, but you already have it, so you just install all the rest which is not more difficult than installing Ubuntu packages, only takes more time.


I doubt we will have *BSD or Hurd on Pandora soon because as far as I understand most of the drivers are Linux kernel modules, relying on a very specific kernel version. Maybe BSD people would write some drivers of their own though, you never can tell.

Are you aware of Arch Linux ARM? (Formerly called PlugApps; before that, PlugBox). It has a large collection of Arch packages compiled for ARM. wejp has a tarball working on Pandora.

Yes, I know. However, for Arch people !x86/x86_68 is a toaster, a vacuum cleaner or anything like that, so no support guaranteed, according to Arch wiki. I'll try the ARM version later when I have a spare SD, but I want a 'mainstream' distribution officially supporting ARM to work with Pandora, with Midnight Commander supporting 256 colors, newer Perl, maybe the latset Chromium or Luakit, probably wmfs and all such things easy to install. I hoped Debian would be that, but so far I only have dependencies hell there. Hence Gentoo: if you have to recompile half of the packages anyway let it be the distribution where such things are normal.

Using Arch here, and using Sebt's toolchain, works great. Before that I used cpujpaste's toolchain I think (which was just cross compiler and simple bash script that fetched ipk's from angstrom repo).


On-topic tho, I'm more interested in Arch Linux ARM myself.


As for Pandora gentoo, you should first get in contact with the already running project and ask if you can help or something, or if it's alive.

 

[kaprikawn]

In answer to the thread title, I'm definately interested. A snapshot would be much appreciated.

 

[Hoodoo]

I did contact Vitaly (vminko) yesterday about his setup. The snapshot is quite old, so updating it may take several days and maybe even break something which he probably have fixed ubdating little by little, but he has an updated system on his Pandora. Anyway, I can download the archive and poke it and probably steal some configuration files.


As for Nuevoo ppl - I didn't talk to them so far, but I know JavaJake can be seen on IRC. Again, I will not install their snapshot, but I'll look at it and scavenge.


I'll study from them with great pleasure.

 

[Hoodoo]

OK, since I hope I'll get my cables this weekend, if I don't screw my Pandora up replacing them, I'll resume that Gentoo thing real soon.

 

[lomaxx]

I am interested in Gentoo on the Pandora as well. And i tried around several months ago. But stopped it after a while for several reasons.


- One thing I was missing back then (and still am) was the ability to run a rather uptodate kernel since AFAIK some system-related packages depend on it - or you have to run rather outdated versions of these as well.


- The portage system creates so many small files, that the inode-capacity of the file-system is maxed rather fast. You can reserve more space for the inode, but still you would have the issue that you need quite some space for distfiles and so on. Also compiling to SD wears off the SD rather intense (compared to common usage without compiling).


- Compiling a whole Linux-system on the Pandora is not that much fun as it takes a lot of time. Especially in the beginning, when you have to recompile packages again with slight changes to the flags, this is quiet annoying.


I still do have a plan in mind that I might go for one day:


- wait for a newer kernel for the Pandora


- wait until i bought a new PC (mine is almost 8 years old now without any hardware-updates - hell, even mobile-phones have more memory than i do )


- create a cross-compile environment on the Gentoo-PC that creates binary packages.


- either synchronize that cross-compile-environment with a USB-harddisc, or - which would be nicer - mount the environment-directory through a net-filesystem on the Pandora.


So in the end i would update my Gentoo-system on the Pandora by connecting the USB-harddisc or mounting the net-filesystem and install all cross-compiled binary-packages that way through portage. That way i wouldn't have to do any compilation on the Pandora, wouldn't have to spend SD-card-space for the portage-directory and binfiles. Even portage would be synced on the PC and not on the Pandora. The drawback would be, that i can't update my system when I'm on the run, but I doubt that i would do that anyway.


I'm not sure if this is possible the way that I drew all that in my mind, but to me this sounds worth a try.

 

[Hoodoo]

I'll go with cross-compiling this time (gonna install Gentoo in chroot), that should address much of what you mentioned.

 

[jonny:Dumb]

I was wondering if and how gentoo would be possible on the pandora (Don't have it yet, so no way of trying). I very much like the chroot idea together with syncing the files. I use rsync to backup my gentoo system and use exclusion lists (/proc/, /sys/, /dev/, /tmp/, ...) to not copy unnecessary things (Copy is an instantly bootable system!). Maybe that would help to get rid of the portage, distfiles and some other overhead (I am no expert in those things)?


I would also be interested on how you would create the chroot environment for the ARM architecture. I could help then also with documenting steps for this and helping with scripts (as far my skills would allow me to produce acceptable quality).


Since I always planned on using the pandora at university/work, i could live with some features of it not working when in those situations. Does anyone know if a "gentoo" kernel would be able to support keyboard and screen (touch not neccessary -> i use a bluetooth mouse)?


For occasionally playing games, the default OS wouldn't be lost anyway.


Even though some would probably be almost unusable on the pandora, I would like to have some programs like KiCad, doxygen, (g)vim, avrdude, maybe some cross compiler, ... installed without having to compile myself tons of dependencies (well, there is no way around that for the cross compiler... the gentoo scripts did not work for me and I like to understand what is happening).


I would be very happy if we could find a solution in one or another way.

 

[arcangeli]

I've got Gentoo on my Pandora but as main OS on SD. I use the official 3.2 kernel so all is supported. I use it as a laptop. never play game.


You can read the Gentoo handbook for info on how to install gentoo in an chroot environment.


If you use gentoo in a chroot environment, the kernel do not change.


As always with gentoo, you need to compile all thing. There is little binary pkg for arm. You can use distcc with an x86 for faster installation.

 

[jonny:Dumb]

Hi arcangeli


thank you very much for your answer and awesome that you are actually running Gentoo on the Pandora!!


If I may, i would like to ask you some more questions:


Does the touchscreen work?


Can you use the game controls as X input devices ( x11-drivers/xf86-input-joystick )?


Is wireless LAN working?


I was thinking to not compile anything on the Pandora, but to have a "cross compile chroot" on my normal computer. With a script, i would enter the chroot-enviroment and install/remove whatever i need. With rsync and its exclusion lists i would then sync the important parts of the chroot environment with the root on the pandora. That way, i imagine to keeping the system on the pandora smaller and having a backup at the same time. I think the syncing process and best practice for it are the most critical parts of the hole thing.


When i have time, i will research how to do the cross compile chroot. I assume a cross compile tool chain has to be installed first...


Anyway, I am very happy to hear that you successfully run gentoo. I hope you will find the time to take a look at my questions.


Best regards

 

[arcangeli]

Hi jonnyumb


I've tried the touchscreen and the nubs for now. Because my pandora was in the way for the 1GHz upgrade.


Now i'll try to make all working as with superzaxxon.


I'll make an overlay with all that is needed. And a web page with all instruction.


For now, i use regulary the awesome window manager with great success. The only problem is for compiling FF 14. It need more memory and need to be compiled on my x86 pc directly (with cross compiler) and not with distcc.


I'm installing gentoo on my new PC. After that, i'll continue my work on the pandora.


All the best