[fedora-arm] Fedora ARM and Devices

[Manas Saksena]

Peter Robinson wrote:
> I have 3 (well 4 actually I think) that either run linux already or
> can run Linux. They are:
> - Nokia 770
> - O2 XDA (or a HTC Wallaby -
> http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Wallaby)
> - A router (can't remember make/model but I'm sure its ARM based)
> - A Sarotech 3.5 ABIGS 570HD
> (http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/pd.cgi?cmd=view&rno=19 
> <http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/pd.cgi?cmd=view&rno=19>) - already
> run Linux but not sure if a Sigma Designs EM8621 is an ARM variant or
> something else)
> 
> I was also wonder whether ScratchBox (http://www.scratchbox.org/) as
> used by Maemo to cross compile stuff would be an appropriate tool for
> cross compiling.

Our current thinking is that we want to just to proper cross-building of 
packages without the need for emulation. Many people have done this 
successfully, and the trick is to bring those things together into 
something that is acceptable to and pushed upstream (whenever possible)
and get it integrated into the fedora build toolchain (rpmbuild, mock,
koji, yum, pilgrim, revisor, etc.)

Having said that, that should not prevent anyone from using scratchbox,
and building a build-toolchain around that. I dont believe scratchbox 
today supports building rpms, but I am sure it can be extended to do 
that. And, then you have to figure out how to integrate it into the
rest of the fedora build toolchain.

> Anyway first on the list to play with will be the Wallaby as its not
> currently in general use.
> I've found the Fedora ARM wiki http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ARM and
> there's a general get Linux booting howto for it
> (http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=WallabyLinuxBooting).

The base ARM architecture support that we have built is for ARMv5.
So, if any of the machines has an older ARM architecture, then it
wont work. It appears that this is SA-1110, which probably wont work
with the pre-built packages we have.

Part of the issue here is that ARM changed their ABI, and we wanted
to get started on a clean base and only support the new ARM EABI.

That should not prevent someone from building for the older CPU's,
but I think that may be a substantial effort.

Perhaps, if one of your devices is ARMv5 architecture, then we can
use that as a base. Or, maybe this would be an excuse to get a new
one which has a CPU based on armv5 (or later).

> Is there a general "this is roughly how to get your dev booting Fedora
> ARM but your milage may vary dependant on your device" howto?

I have a howto in works to boot it on qemu. We definitely want to
add more howto's and cover the common use-cases for different types
of scenarios.

Regards,
Manas