Beta Neuvoo (Former Gentoo For Pandora)

[viridior]

Since the old Gentoo for Pandora thread was closed while there still is interest, I have started this thread.

neuvoo-0.2.0 was released last month. Both in -minimal form (stage3 with boot capability) along with -desktop (openbox). Neuvoo-0.2.0 was a test build that utilized gcc-4.4.2 and glibc-2.10 and was completely cross-compiled. We are actively working on neuvoo-0.2.1 which, when completed, will be a much more cleaner build. I plan on getting neuvoo-0.2.1-minimal released by 11-22-2009 with -desktop hopefully the following two weeks. If you are a previous Gentoo user then you should have no problems building your own custom system with any of the neuvoo releases either natively or using our binary repo.

Good links
----------
News: http://neuvoo.org/news/
Wiki: http://neuvoo.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Git: http://gitorious.org/gentoo-arm-overlay
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/neuvoo
IRC: Freenode#neuvoo
Binary Repo: http://neuvoo.org/gentoo/packages/armv7a/

Looking forward to talking to anyone interested in the project and I eagerly await your inputs.

Thanks,
Jake

 

[icurafu]

I would be happy to beta test on my A81 (coming in a week) if it is not to hard to compile. (I used to be a developer)

It uses a omap3530 as well.

http://www.witstech.com.cn/en/products_show.asp?Sendid=17

Anyway, I'm looking forwards to using your OS on a Pandora when I can order one and get it with a couple of weeks.

 

[viridior]

I would love to have your suggestions. I've had my head in a console so much lately I haven't really been tracking other platforms outside of the Pandora and Touch Book, so I haven't heard of the A81 but I have no doubt we can get it to work fairly easily. I'm actively working on neuvoo-0.2.1-minimal this week, I have a buggy rc1 out that needs some tweaking but im sure by rc2 or rc3 it will be a great base install for any ARMv7a system.

Afterwards I will be charging ahead for neuvoo-0.2.1-desktop, my current thinking is using LXDE as the base and then adding in xfce, e17, afterstep/windowmaker, and matchbox. Standard run of programs on top of that for hardware functionality and generic mobile use, but I definately could use some suggestions.

I listed the binary repo above, please let me know if you have any issues or custom .ebuilds that I can add into our overlay as you start using neuvoo.

-Jake

 

[viridior]

Neuvoo-0.2.1-rc2-minimal is out and verified to work on the Touch Book

Wiki: http://neuvoo.org/wiki/index.php?title=Pre-built_Images/0.2.1/minimal
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXNmbzEWHkE

On to -desktop.

EDIT: fixed wiki link

 

[Alec]

What is the relation between Neuvoo and the upstream Gentoo? Is there collaboration with the gentoo-arm team? Are they interested or even aware of the Pandora or the Neuvoo project?

 

[Bigun]

You have another tester here, just be sure to backup the SD Card sent with the unit in case all goes bad!

 

[viridior]

What is the relation between Neuvoo and the upstream Gentoo? Is there collaboration with the gentoo-arm team? Are they interested or even aware of the Pandora or the Neuvoo project?

Sorry for the delay, was traveling for the holiday.

Neuvoo is using mainstream Gentoo with a custom overlay for cross-compiling fixes and inclusion on community projects and patches. There isn't any weird things being done in the background. Neuvoo is implementation of Gentoo on embedded devices. Right now we are distributing a "minimal" tarball which is basically a stage3 equivalent with a few other packages to provide boot capability to a command prompt. From there you can edit /etc/make.conf and build your personal system as you would with stock Gentoo. Our "desktop" image will be built as a standard GUI-based OS like Angstrom/Ubuntu/etc. The desktop image is still very fluid and we actually haven't set many requirements as of yet, we will be more than happy for some suggestions. Reguardless of which image you want to use, we are actively building our binary repo to include as many packages possible, based on user input. You can take a look here: http://neuvoo.org/gentoo/packages/

You have another tester here, just be sure to backup the SD Card sent with the unit in case all goes bad!

Glad to hear, please join us in IRC @ FreeNode #neuvoo

 

[viridior]

the neuvoo-0.3.0 base system is complete, looking for some input on apps that people would like.

You can see all packages currently installed here: http://neuvoo.org/neuvoo/DOCS/neuvoo-0.3.0-official-packagelist.txt
Or you can see the binrepo here: http://neuvoo.org/neuvoo/packages/armv7a/0.3.0/official/

 

[Alec]

Looks good!

I would prefer unstable, but I haven't run ~arm, so I don't know what state it's in.

 

[viridior]

Looks good!

I would prefer unstable, but I haven't run ~arm, so I don't know what state it's in.

We are just using 'arm' for the official image, in fact I have quite a few ~arm compiled software in the library due to specific benefits or due to the lag of the keywords being updated for arm stable.

I will be starting a dev branch that works on cutting edge software such as xorg-server-1.8.0, gnome-3.0, etc. Let me know if you are interested.

 

[Alec]

I'll definitely be interested ... once I get my Pandora

By the way, how is it size-wise? How much do the packages in the packagelist.txt take up? Would they fit in the internal 512M disk?

 

[viridior]

I'll definitely be interested ... once I get my Pandora

By the way, how is it size-wise? How much do the packages in the packagelist.txt take up? Would they fit in the internal 512M disk?

The neuvoo-official line is intended to be ran from SD, since the cards are cheap and large (and our image will work with the Beagleboard, Gumstix Overo, Touchbook, Pandora, ...) Based on that, we decided to use a gnueabi toolchain and a standard base of software such as util-linux, debianutils, openrc, etc which is easier to build and compile for so we could give users more of the traditional desktop experience. So semi-quick answer is no, this will not fit on the NAND. (If we really edited down our default build this still may be possible, but it would be very tight)

We did however build our framework to be modular and making a busybox-based uclibceabi system would be fairly easy to do. I have interest in working on a 'neuvoo-embedded' image but my current focus is finishing up the official image. Along these lines I would like to really work on tweaking the boot process to squeeze out as quick of a boot time and minimal power consumption as possible along with looking at some kernel modifications such as real-time, etc. If your interested we can talk more about this and layout some goals and ideas.

 

[Alec]

What I was thinking was that it would be cool is to create a NAND image that is similar in functionality to the official Ångström image and see how it compares (Who knows, maybe Gentoo is better!). Another thing that would be interesting is to get the eglibc working (since the normal glibc is not well tuned for ARM processors) - I remember reading it could be done with a few tweaks to the glibc ebuild. The little device should be a load of fun

 

[viridior]

What I was thinking was that it would be cool is to create a NAND image that is similar in functionality to the official Ångström image and see how it compares (Who knows, maybe Gentoo is better!). Another thing that would be interesting is to get the eglibc working (since the normal glibc is not well tuned for ARM processors) - I remember reading it could be done with a few tweaks to the glibc ebuild. The little device should be a load of fun

I've read a little into this and also thinking along the same lines. Unfortunately I'm swamped with quite a few other things with the project, but if you are interested and are doing a little research I would love to see what you have. Setting up the resources for a dev branch to Neuvoo should be fairly easy and straight forward, I don't see why this couldn't be looked into and tested. If it shows promise or improvement I can dedicate one of my beagleboards as a compile host.