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Porting free for all as UPP releases tools By Chris Williams. Published: 28th Sep 2003, 15:29:34.Development kit roundup The Unix Porting Project has released the tools it uses to port open source software to RISC OS. The UPP has currently ported games, utilities and started work on an extensive X11-to-RISC OS-Windowmanager library.The tools are currently hosted on riscos.info and are designed to run in a Unix environment to enable software to be cross compiled to the RISC OS platform. How do they work? The tools basically configure the build environment to output ARM compatible RISC OS executables and then invoke the GCCSDK cross compiler to start the build. Below is an example of the tools in action.
From the example above, the esniper author kept his software portable and although it's highly likely that he doesn't know what RISC OS even is, his software could still be ported to our platform - that's the benefit of open source, portable software. Of course, there's a ridiculous amount of open source software that's just itching to be ported. There's also the issue of a port requiring some changes to the original source code to allow the application to usefully run on our platform. If the ported software doesn't fully work during runtime then the porter can concentrate on 'RISC OSify'ing the application to get it working, as the ground work to build the project has already been accomplished. The Unix POSIX interface and the design of RISC OS aren't particular compatible although UnixLib goes a long way to address that. Portable software that relies on fork(), for example, will need some manual programming work.
Happy porting. Of native libraries and kits On to platform native developments. Some time ago Steven Simpson released an experimental shared library system for RISC OS in order to address out platform's lack of shared library support. Shared libraries are loaded at runtime on demand rather than residing in kernel extension modules. Steven is especially looking for feedback and ideas and interestingly, he told drobe.co.uk that his system was cross compiled from Linux to RISC OS using the 32bit GCCSDK. Finally, Graham Shaw has developed the RISC OS Toolkit, a class library for developing applications in C++. Graham's library isn't finished yet but worth a look at if you're a C++ coder. Get coding! Links Unix Porting Project website Peter Naulls is an editor of drobe.co.uk Experimental shared library system Discussion Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the end
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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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