How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

I've only had the N800 for a day and would like to getting hacking on it. What's the smartest way to compile software for the N800 at this point? Scratchbox as a cross compile tool? Qemu? I tried setting up scratchbox and suceeded twice only to trash the scratchbox partition through sheer ignorance. Please point a newb in the right direction.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

Can you be a little more specific with what you are trying to do?

I've been trying to set up a development environment as well. I managed to compile the "hello world" sample using scratchbox (see section 2.5):

http://scratchbox.org/documentation/...nstalldoc.html

As for anything more advanced (compiling for the GUI), I have not been able to get a compile going. The maemo development site is full of broken links (and old documents) and has been extremely frustrating to use.

I too would appreciate any pointers so if anyone out there has any...

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

An ideal way to get started is to download vmWare player and the vmWare Maemo appliance (use Google). These will give you a virtual pc preinstalled with all the necessary tools. Makes everything a hell of a lot easier :)

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

I found another great way to compile software is to... not compile: Python on 770 and N800 is great, a lot of programs will run fine without any modifications, although, of course, you can't really run/test IT specific things like Hildonized UI on your desktop without working Maemo environment in scratchbox.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

I would like to start to compile simple things like "screen" and "rsync" that I take for granted on *nix. I agree the broken links are really annoying.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

Thanks, I was not aware of the maemo appliance. It'd be even better if it worked with VirtualBox since I've got that installed already, but this will help a lot.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

This link has instructions - although not trivial - about converting vmware images to virtualbox images. May not be any easier than just installing vwmare server or player.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

I just found out that vmware is now available in feisty fawn via apt. That will make it much easier to install vmware than it was previously.

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

In case you need it, cron is already available: http://www.anomaly-music.com/cron/

Dre

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

Hi guys,

I was just wondering how I can cross-compile (command-line) software for the n800. I don't really use things with a gui. But I've had so much trouble trying to find just a simple and concise guide to cross-compiling a program. All of the guides I see assume that you are already used to working with an sdk and can simply adapt to using this one as well.

Can you please point me in the right direction as far as the general steps I need to take to do this?

Thanks!

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

1. Download vmWare Player for your OS

2. Download vmWare Maemo appliance: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/702

3. Read the Readme

4. Download the sources to the scratchbox environment (the path on the system is,somewhere in /scratchbox/ -- hunt around)

5. Compile and debug as usual (ARM target in Scratchbox)

6. Transfer the binaries to the N800/770 (I email them to myself)

HTH,
Dre

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

Is there a video of how to compile command line apps somewhere or would someone be willing to record next time you do one? I'm trying to recompile Lynx for N800 / OS 2008. Documentation seems to cover GUI development (which, granted is probably what most people are doing and is well beyond my level of programming experience at the moment).

I've got the virtual machine and can open scratchbox but am having some trouble wrapping my head around how to compile for N800 and get it to come out in a '.deb' package. I ran ./Configure and it seemed to check for dependencies, then said something about creating a makefile, but when I try to run Make on that it says "make: Nothing to be done for `makefile'." Running 'make install' seems to give me an executable which feels like I'm getting close . . . curious to know if there's a 'make ARMDebPackage' or something to that effect.

Nothing urgent, but I'd love to learn how to do this properly . . . I hope this all makes sense . . . constructive suggestions welcome. :)

Re: How are folks compiling software for the N800?
 

That's why you should read the INSTALL/README file in the package. Also, you just run "make" when a Makefile is created (you can specify a different file with the -f parameter)

Anyway, I've compiled the stable with the steps I did.
Except for the prefix, the rest of the CFLAGS (configure flags) were personal choice, check the README for ones that you can add or remove my ones.

sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~] > wget http://lynx.isc.org/lynx2.8.6/lynx2.8.6.tar.bz2
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~] > tar jxvf lynx2.8.6.tar.bz2
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~] > cd lynx2-8-6/
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > cat README | more
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > cat INSTALLATION | more
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-change-exec --enable-cgi-links --enable-charset-choice --enable-exec-links --enable-exec-scripts --enable-externs --enable-gzip-help --enable-internal-links --enable-ipv6 --enable-nested-tables --enable-scrollbar --enable-underlines

(Those cflags seem pretty normal except for --enable-ipv6. Why? Well, Diablo will have support for it so I may as well enable it and embrace the future... :P)
(if a program has CFLAGS, you will usually find them in README/INSTALL or by running ./configure --help)


[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > make
<waiting to compile>
<done with no errors!>
(This is qwerty's dodgy way of packaging, mostly right but it could be done so much better)
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > dh_make --createorig
<s>
</me goes into /scratchbox/users/faheem/home/faheem/lynx2-8-6/debian folder with a file manager>
</me edits control and changes Maintainer: unknown <faheem@unknown> to Maintainer: Faheem Pervez <qwerty12>>
<I also change Section: unknown to Section: user/net so that the built in package manager will install it fine without hacks (Don't use user/net for everything, different types of packages have different user/'s (but use user/ for everything, it's the bit after you should check)>
<I then edit the rules file to put in my new CFLAGS which I ran configure with>
[sbox-CHINOOK_ARMEL: ~/lynx2-8-6] > dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot

(Lets see if our package is made. I'm exiting sbox now because if I want to upload the package, I have to point my firefox into the scratchbox folder (mentioned below)

<Ctrl-D>
faheem@faheem-desktop:~$ ls -l /scratchbox/users/faheem/home/faheem/lynx2-8_6-1_armel.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 faheem faheem 816656 2008-06-13 07:15 /scratchbox/users/faheem/home/faheem/lynx2-8_6-1_armel.deb

I'll attach up the resulting deb and the source tree for a quick look (no mods were done to actual source).

I'll leave it to you to compile latest development and with some more funkier CFLAGS ;P.

lynx2-8_6-1_armel.deb:
http://www.mediafire.com/?92kgmwjwyiz

source with the quick debian folder:
http://www.mediafire.com/?h9u1ckwgzmz

(Also the diff files for package @ packages.debian.org can be nice for a debian folder (with changes required afterwards)
(And remember, these are the general steps but expect variations in some programs. Also learn some UNIX ;)).
This is also nice too: http://maemo.org/development/