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ARM Linux Distributions By Peter Naulls. Published: 27th Jan 2004, 10:39:50.Slackware and Zynot come to ARM People often ask me "Why have you chosen Debian to bundle with ARM Linux?". Apart from the advocacy reasons, which has made Debian an increasingly popular choice on Desktop Linux platforms (and cut down versions on PDAs), Debian is by far the most appropriate choice for an ARM desktop distribution, for reasons I'll discuss shortly.When talking about Linux distributions, what's being referred to is really the way the system is installed, maintained as well as the way programs are packaged up, and the associated rules to ensure consistency. There are many distributions available for x86 platforms - RedHat, Slackware, Debian, Mandrake and Gentoo, to name just a few of the more well-known ones. Many of these have also been ported to other platforms such as PowerPC. It's this porting process which is the difficult part; nearly every program has to be recompiled - which can run to many thousands of packages, and problems in programs which have made assumptions about the system they're running on have to be fixed. For ARM, the choice is more limited. Originally, there was just RedHat, used for early ARM Linux systems, and still maintained today for NetWinder systems. Later, Debian was ported to ARM, and considerable effort has been put into this such that almost all of its over 10000 packages are avilable for ARM. This is all the more exceptional, because this work was done by only a handful of ARM Linux enthusiasts, and why Debian is the best choice for Desktop systems. The remainder of the choices are either customised free and commerical embedded systems, often based on BusyBox, or cut down versions of Debian, such as Familiar aimed at PDAs. However, the status quo, at least for some situations, is in jeopardy, with two more distributions being developed. Early last year, the Gentoo distribution was forked, for reasons which are far too long to discuss here, to a new distribution called Zynot, but not before Zachary Welch had a basic port of Gentoo working on ARM. Unlike many other distributions, where focus is often entirely given to, or driven by x86, Zynot gives equal footing to all its supported architectures, including ARM. Zynot is slated for its first release later this year. Not too long afterwards, although punctuated by a months long trip to Australia, Stuart Winter started work on a port of the popular Slackware distribution to ARM, with a preliminary name of ARMedslack. In recent weeks, Stuart has made considerable progress, with the aid of his trusty RiscPCs and ScratchBox, a cross compiling system. Slackware for ARM is also likely to have a first release later this year. Because of the considerable work done on Debian, both Zachary and Stuart have taken liberties with the considerable Debian patches, especially to fix ARM issues that haven't yet made it upstream; such as all important items like the C library. Many of these patches are used in RISC OS ports, for the same reason. In the meantime, if you'd like to help out on any of these projects, then get in touch with the maintainers; they'd appreciate it. Links Zynot for ARM Slackware (no ARM specific page, see Stuart's Homepage for contact details) ARM Linux Debian ARM ARM Linux and Debian Resources Discussion Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the endNo comments posted - yet. Post one yourself or come back soon. Please login before posting a comment. Use the form on the right to do so or create a free account. |
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Featured articles The weekend's RISC OS event has been and gone and we've got the rest of our lives to look forward to. Here's a round-up of extra news and Drobe's show-related coverage and some photos taken from Wakefield 2009 - plus a video from the show floor.  16 comments, latest by AW on 29/4/09 7:41PM. Published: 27 Apr 2009Picture exclusive - This grainy photograph shows a port of RISC OS 5, sourced from the RISC OS Open project, running on a Beagleboard - a device powered by a 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with a built-in graphics chip. The port, developed by Jeffrey Lee with help from Uwe Kall and ROOL staff, is seen as a major breakthrough for the shared-source project as it proves the OS can be ported to new hardware without the need for a large team of engineers. 75 comments, latest by rjek on 30/4/09 3:15PM. Published: 25 Apr 2009It can be a pain when someone sends you a file that can only be opened on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux - but with the help of a free-to-use website and NetSurf, Paul Stewart reveals how these documents can be viewed on RISC OS. 6 comments, latest by AW on 8/5/09 12:12AM. Published: 19 Apr 2009Useful links News and media:Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • GAG-News Top developers: RISCOS Ltd • RISC OS Open • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn Dealers: CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster Usergroups: WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG • GAG • RISCOS.be Useful: RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • NetSurf Non-RISC OS: The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign |
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