Re: "porting" Debian to some tablet - are Blends right for me?
Charles Plessy answered your immediate question, but allow me to
suggest a path for getting Debian on your tablet.
Presumably you want to cross-compile things on your more powerful x86
based machine, take a look at pdebuild-cross xdeb xapt and the other
stuff coming out of the Emdebian project.
First try to compile the Linux mainline kernel for your device,
preferably 2.6.38 release candidates. Then try to run it. If it fails
or features are missing then write patches and or copy drivers from
the Android sources (if they exist) and get them included in Linux
mainline. Rinse and repeat as often as needed. Links to Android
sources for some tablets are here, most tablets don't appear to be GPL
compliant though:
http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/android_tablets/
Then do the same for your preferred bootloader, u-boot is usually the
one used on ARM devices.
Once that is done, you will need to wait until the right kernel is in
Debian. If you need the kernel to be compiled for a specific ARM
sub-arch then you will need to file a wishlist bug on linux-2.6 asking
for a new kernel package on ARM and detailing the kernel config
options etc that are required to support the device.
You might need to do something similar for u-boot, but I'm not sure.
Choose a UI; there are many choices, most of them not particularly
well designed for tablets. Pick one and get involved in the group
packaging it for Debian. Not sure which is best, maybe MeeGo? Others
are Android (not yet being packaged), GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment, Xfce,
GPE, GNUStep and so on.
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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