Embedded Gentoo?

An anonymous reader writes "Gentoo Linux may soon begin showing up in consumer gadgets, thanks to a new project creating an embedded version of Gentoo Linux. The year-old project has achieved preliminary releases on x86, MIPS, PPC, and ARM. The releases include native core system binaries, along with toolchains for native or cross-platform compiling. Native compiling, eh... considering it's Gentoo, how long would X take to compile on an iPAQ? :-)"

Comments

You wouldn't compile from scratch.

[Principito]

Compiling from scratch would be insane. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to put cross compiling tools on a host machine and build your iPAQ or whatever in a chrooted environment. After which you would transfer your build.

$0.02

PS:
Cross compiling tools are part of this project.

I've just got one requirement for embedded gentoo

[Crimsane]

Any gentoo-embedded specific ebuilds get renamed to wee-builds.

This is actually a great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an embedded software engineer, so hopefully I know what I am talking about. I work with ARM chips, and every linux system that I have built has been compiled from scratch. Not because I want to, or because I am some kind of speed freak - but because in general there are not any up to date binary packages for ARM available. Or if there are you often find that they are not compiled quite right for your particular needs.
Using a Gentoo like system to cross-compile apps with the options, etc that you need is an excellent idea. Some features that I would like to see in this project
o Keep the code for a package unpacked, so that I can make code changes to that package, recompile it & the package management system will build my changes into the binary. Updating the package version could auto merge my changes.
o Auto generation of root directories, in the file format you want (ie, nfs, cramfs, initrd, etc)
o Able to maintain several different configurations at once, ie one Gentoo maintained set of packages for my iPaq, and one set of packages maintained for my custom device. And to completely rebuild them I could go "emerge -set-board iPaq; emerge -u world"

Re:This post

[Gherald]

> Many people want Gentoo for the portage system and not nessesarly for the
> advantages of running the most super optimized kernel possible.

Bleh, for the upteenth time:

1) Completing stage3 (whether by unpacking a stage3 tarball or bootstraping plus "emerge system" from previous stages) will net you the base system which is, well, basically complete with all the required system packages FOR WHICH THERE IS NOT CHOICE. Gentoo, is all about choice, so there's still a few things you need to add: your choce of a system logger, cron daemon, and your own customized kernel. There is a utility called "genkernel" which will set you up with a generic kernel, but in most cases this is Considered Harmful. So most users who start from stage3 should still end up with a fairly "super optimized kernel"

and in response to some of the grandparent posters:

2) Installing from a stage earlier than stage3 is ONLY advisable if:
a) No reasonably optimized stage3 tarball is available for your particular subarchitecture (unlikely)
--OR--
b) The default CFLAGS="-O2" optimization is insufficient for your taste.

3) Realize that even if the stage3 tarballs aren't exactly what you're looking for, they are most likely still close enough that it makes sense to use them to avoid a lengthy install. Bootstraps can fail pretty easily -- even "emerge system" has it's quirks. And in the long run, once your system is up and running, future "emerge -uD world" updates will gradually replace those horribly unoptimized pre-built stage3 packages you've had to endure... (ha!)