My fist steps with the emdebsys

[Martin Laabs <s8606710@rcs.urz.tu-dresden.de>]

Hi,

I'd like to report you about my fist steps with the emdebsys.
As I understand right you use the emdebsys to create a propper 
kernel configure and also create a root file system with the
snp script.
Anyway I only need the root filesystem because I have a fine kernel
and the process of kernel building is sufficient simple.

So my first try was to configure the snp with ./cmlconfigure.py
and copied the config.out to the snp directory as described in
the documentation.

I don't know python but it seems to be the oop-perl ;-).

Anyway I started the ./snp.py script but get the following error:

--------------------------:<------------------------------------
Adding deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free source...
Pass 1 
SCANNING http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/binary-arm/Packages
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./snp.py", line 1864, in ?
    p.load_sources()
  File "./snp.py", line 1085, in load_sources
    d = Source(fields[1], fields[2], fields[3:], self.arch)
  File "./snp.py", line 859, in __init__
    self.add_packages(base, distribution, component, architecture)
  File "./snp.py", line 906, in add_packages
    p.get_file_list()           # Get file list from package
  File "./snp.py", line 795, in get_file_list
    file = File(fileinfo)
  File "./snp.py", line 630, in __init__
    (   self.mode, 
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'groups'
----------------------------:<---------------------------------------

Maybe someone should implement a check to prevent this error.

I removed the http://ftp.uk.debian.org/... URL from the
sources.list file. (And some other lines that does not
fitt for my system)

The next try:

--------------------:<-----------------------------
[INFO]: MAKEDEV std
sh: line 1: ../sbin/MAKEDEV: No such file or directory
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./snp.py", line 1866, in ?
    p.generate_rootfs(c)
  File "./snp.py", line 1532, in generate_rootfs
    s.make_dev_entrys()
  File "./snp.py", line 1467, in make_dev_entrys
    self.MAKEDEV(device)
  File "./snp.py", line 1273, in MAKEDEV
    doit("cd %s; ../sbin/MAKEDEV %s" % (dev_path, dev))
  File "./snp.py", line 377, in doit
    raise "Command Failed"
Command Failed
----------------------:<----------------------------

Because I have not MAKEDEV in ../sbin I searched the ../sbin string
and found it at line 1273 in snp.py.
I think someone forgot to remove the hardcoded string with the variable.
I also changed this and start again. Now I should to mention that
I have no root rights on this machine and won't get some.

And because of that I get this problems:

--------------------:<-----------------
[INFO]: MAKEDEV std
mknod: `mem-': Operation not permitted
makedev mem c 1 1 root kmem 0640: failed
mknod: `kmem-': Operation not permitted
makedev kmem c 1 2 root kmem 0640: failed
mknod: `null-': Operation not permitted
[...]
----------------:<----------------------

Do you have any idea how to solve such problems?


After that error messages I get some other:


------------------------------:<--------------------------
[WARNING]: Config option OS_NETWORK not defined. Substituting value in
                     ../templates/etc/resolv.conf with empty string.
[WARNING]: Config option OS_DNS_1 not defined. Substituting value in
                     ../templates/etc/resolv.conf with empty string.

[...]

/home/users/laabs/linux-2.6.2/scripts/Makefile.modinst:16: *** 
Uh-oh, you have stale module entries. You messed with SUBDIRS, 
do not complain if something  goes wrong.
--------------------:<-----------------------------------

Maybe you can explain why the second warning occure.


The idea of the emdebsys system is greate because you have
the big recource of the debian packets. But in my opinion one
big script (I mean the snp.py script) is clumsy, hard to debug
and uncomfortably.

Maybe you should have a look to the ports system in the freebsd system.

I'd like to imagine to create a finnish filesystem with the 
following commands:

cd emdebian
cd base
make install
cd ..
cd shells
cd bussybox
make install
cd ..
cd ..
cd editors
cd emacs
make install
cd ../..
make imagefile
cp root.fs [to my embedded system}

Can you follow me? For every progam you create a independend
directory that installs the files to the filesystem. So debugging
and creating new progamms would be pretty simple.
After all you call one script that creates the romfs file. (I could
also image to create different fs-types as ext2 ext3 minix etc.)

Of cause you could automize this steps with a script when you are
sure that there occure no errors in the single steps.

Thank you
 Martin Laabs