ARM Raspberry Pi commitment

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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Lobster
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ARM Raspberry Pi commitment

#1 Post by Lobster »

Image

A USB mouse only for a Mac? Pleeeezzze . . .
Every once in a while Puppys have to buy hardware.
A new laptop, a USB camera, a motherboard replacement.
Much of the hardware support is built into the Linux kernel
So if the manufacturer says it runs on Linux, it can run on Puppy.
Do not buy legacy or specific OS hardware.

So what future hardware to recommend? :shock:
As far as I am concerned a low power Puppy running on ARM is too much fun . . .
So I am committing to get this ARM motherboard, as has caneri 8)
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
We can test that ARM Puppy . . .
Anyone with a spare $35 and a compiler gonna join us?
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PARM
:)
Last edited by Lobster on Sun 12 Feb 2012, 00:08, edited 5 times in total.
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raffy
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new logo

#2 Post by raffy »

It's good to know that they have finally chosen the raspberry pi logo,
..a 3d buckyball, which is a nice reminder of π. The designer points out that a buckyball has 32 faces, and that 11 are visible in the logo – the Raspberry Pi has a 32-bit processor and an ARM11 on board (someone got awfully lucky with the numbers here).
Getting a development board is not easy, so perhaps Lobster can go try to get one, and we chip in to send it to an interested developer. Please bill me by PM.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

nooby
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#3 Post by nooby »

Getting a development board is not easy
May I be so pessimistic that that Dev Board only works on
a special version of Vista and not on Win7 :)

What about this almost Linux Debian them already have for ARM
so why can we not make a Debian small distro that is "almost" a clone of Puppy?

I can chip in Dollars for that one if it works on the standard ARM surf pads them sell for nothing.

The $25 one have too small RAM memory. One need at least 512 and it has half of that. 1GB or more would be more ideal :)
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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#4 Post by Lobster »

Getting a development board is not easy,
I am not saving my tin cans for a development board. I want the first general release in November (two versions) which should be available world wide - $25 and $35
USB keyboard, USB mouse, plug into TV - I haz ARM . . .
:)

Are you in Raffy? I believe you have a compiler somewhere :wink:
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OK

#5 Post by raffy »

OK, I will buy one, most likely it will be for Barry.

Sorry, I can't have time for compiling 'coz am at the usage/testing side and website maintenance.

As to nooby's RAM comments, Puppy is quite comfortable with 256 MB RAM.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

nooby
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#6 Post by nooby »

Is there a GPU binary?
Yes. The GPU binary also contains the first stage bootloader.
GPU what is that? Graphical Processor Unit?
http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=106#comment-1608
What the drivers provide is an API to the GPU.
That is, there are drivers for OpenGL, VG and MAX.
All they do under the skin is convert the API in to messages passed to the GPU.

The GPU code is proprietary, and won’t be open sourced,
but since the only people who know how the hell that code works
are Broadcom, it makes no difference (and it is already optimised
to an extent most people wouldn’t believe, so no need to have access to it!).

...
As said elsewhere, the kernel itself is standard Debian, so no reliance on the vendor there.

Friday, I downloaded Xorg and XDE from the Debian Arm repos,
and it worked first time on the Pi prototype.
Edit
I fail to get why "We" can not first get it going using Debian and
then when we know how that works then a Puppy Dev can make
a puppy from the knowledge gained looking at that code?
Will it run <insert name of program here>?
In general, you need to look to see whether the program you want
can be compiled for the ARMv6 architecture.
In most cases the answer will be yes. Specific programs are
discussed on our forum, so you might want to look there for an answer.

What Linux distros will be supported at launch?
Debian, Fedora and ArchLinux will be supported from the start. We hope to see support from other distros later.

We will be selling SD cards with the distros preloaded.
As I get it the standard lowest priced unit have only 128MB RAM.

I don't mind paying the higher price though. 35$ means nothing for an old retired person.
Following the example of the BBC Micro, we intend to launch
both a Model A device (lacking the LAN9512, and with 128MB of RAM)
at the $25 price point, and

a Model B device (including the LAN9512, and with 256MB of RAM)
for a $5-10 additional cost.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

raffy
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Model B

#7 Post by raffy »

Thanks for finding those info, nooby. We should therefore buy Model B.

To get updates, I subscribed to the email list in the front page.

Somewhere, I also read about the speed compared to x86:
It’s like a 300MHz Pentium 2.
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#8 Post by nooby »

Here is an important thread on their forum?
Okay very many posts and I am too lazy to sort them out
but if your interested do read it. Very entertaining.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=43& ... ic&t=666.2

Now that relates to the Alpha boards so them most likely is less
restricted with the actual boards but still the booting is not like
what most of us expect. Booting is in a proprietary binary file.

So we will never actually be able to change it? One buy the code
for the OS to boot and them supply the necessary boot code for
that OS. Nothing any of us can set up? Only Broadcom knows how to.

Am I not right? I am a poor reader of text so check it out.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
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#9 Post by Lobster »

Noob and fellow Puppys,

In order to bootstrap PuppyARM we take a $35 (yep I will be getting that one too) and use the provided Debian or other boot available Linux and compiler
and provide a basic Puppy + devx
- then we can boot to and compile from Puppy 8)

This hardware is cheap and cheerful
and it arrives next month (fingers and claws crossed)

Once we have one ARM . . . others will follow . . . 8)

The code is provided and Lobster asks for the latest Browser
and sets up a wiki page
Nooby asks about security - it begins . . .
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#10 Post by qkall »

i've been following the raspi for a bit and dreamed of puppy but i can't really provide any help... what i can do is provide server space. somehow thru the years of the internet i've managed to get a free unlimited hosting (20g room) provided by justyouhosting.com (cool dude!).

i'm not using this server really at all... occasionally for shoutcast server but right now absolutely nothing. been dieing to do something useful and this is my ideal project.

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#11 Post by nooby »

I like that it can run totally silent. It has HDMI output so I can look at it on
my 19" modern 16:9 wide screen for Youtube things.

It can use usb keyboard and usb mouse and usb wifi dongle.

And the price 35USD is something I could buy one each month and
don't feel stingy or what the word for not expandign is.

But guys are you not too optimistic. Did not one of their Admin
write that it use a proprietary boot in a Binary.
It does not boot with a standard boot loader. It uses a proprietary binary!

Did not one of the admins tell us that that is what we have to adjust to.
So the only way to get Puppy on it would be to "Jailbreak" that boot
binary code? It is not like just changing a grub4dos open code!

We will not be root either in Debian :)
Last edited by nooby on Tue 11 Oct 2011, 16:05, edited 1 time in total.
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not an ideal solution though

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#12 Post by qkall »

the devs are very active on their forums ... so much so i'd be willing to bet they would be willing to help to get puppy to boot and/or donate a board for puppy.

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#13 Post by nooby »

qkall that would be very nice if we could get their ears. I would even pay them :)
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#14 Post by qkall »

http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=43& ... ic&t=725.0

i don't know what needs to be done or anything... but i started the thread so please go on there and help :)

nooby
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#15 Post by nooby »

qkall wrote:http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=43& ... ic&t=725.0

i don't know what needs to be done or anything... but i started the thread so please go on there and help :)
My confusing English will only be a hinder and not a help. :)
But I will go there and read and comment back here most likely.

Ooops important. Check up on the following your wrote.
john murga (lead puppy dev)


John deMurga is the Admin and owner of the Puppy forum and
maybe he has done development but the "lead dev" is Barry Kauler
and then a lot of Devs that are learning from him and making derivatives
but Barry is the lead Dev and Murga is Admin of Forum.

Puppy Linux foundation here?
http://pupweb.org/wikka/FoundationHistory
Board of Trustees

Barry Kauler (Creator of Puppy) - Creator of Puppy and Lead Developer


Murga is a Dev but not the lead developer as I know?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

qkall
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#16 Post by qkall »

you know i knew that... just wasn't thinking (was at work and was typing and 'listening')

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#17 Post by qkall »

guys check the thread a developer is looking into it!! :!:

Svartalf
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#18 Post by Svartalf »

qkall wrote:the devs are very active on their forums ... so much so i'd be willing to bet they would be willing to help to get puppy to boot and/or donate a board for puppy.
They would be willing, once the boards ship. They're limited in how many they have for the purposes of board bring-up. I tried to offer my help to the cause (I've done board bring up for many, many years and I'm one of the early pioneers of embedded Linux development...) but they couldn't hand out one to me. (Not sour grapes...I can completely understand their position and I've been trying to get to a point where I could do things for them and the community without having a board...)

As it stands, I'm looking at what all is needed to get Puppy to run on most ARM platforms (Reconfiguration of some things like boot would be required for each...) and only available time seems to have kept me from getting it done at this point. :D I should be able to vet my experiment here once I can actually get back to it this or next week shortly thereafter on my Beagleboard.

Svartalf
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#19 Post by Svartalf »

nooby wrote:
Getting a development board is not easy
May I be so pessimistic that that Dev Board only works on
a special version of Vista and not on Win7 :)
Heh... Not even close. :twisted:
What about this almost Linux Debian them already have for ARM
so why can we not make a Debian small distro that is "almost" a clone of Puppy?
If you re-work Bones a little bit, it would BE a Puppy- they have a Debian version already up on the R-Pi alpha boards, and Bones is designed to use Debian as one of it's source distributions.

The $25 one have too small RAM memory. One need at least 512 and it has half of that. 1GB or more would be more ideal :)
1) Those memory requirements are for an X86 machine trying to boot into a Live CD. You need less if you boot into an SD card or HD and have a bit of swapfile/swap partition help. You'd be surprised what you CAN do with that "little" a memory. The very first LiveCD (Yggdrasil Plug-and-Play...back in the earliest days of Linux...) could manage to run a full-on Linux in 64Mb of RAM and a CD-ROM, combined with a HD to cache things. We SHOULD be able to manage something similar, no?

2) The $35 one will have 256MB of RAM...

3) Later on versions may have more memory so long as PoP Memory devices go down in price for the Foundation. Right now, they only have access to the 128 and 256 MB PoP modules at the price-points they're working on.

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#20 Post by puppyluvr »

:D Hello,
Yes, John is indeed a developer..
Look up MurgaLua..
But in Puppy land, he is Forum Admin...
Must correct you tho..
BarryK is the Dev of Wary...
The current Dev of the main Puppy is 01micko...

And if it will boot Debian, it will boot Puppy...

Could have many embedded uses..
But to me kinda seems like a smartphone without a screen, keyboard, sound, etc...
Cute yes, but useful??

However, Puppy ported to an ARM based phone/tablet...
Is this the path??
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