Got emdebian.gpe second stage to complete!

[p <pmeloy@shaw.ca>]

I started over with a fresh emdebian-tools/rootfs installation and ran
emsandbox with the unmodified emdebian.gpe script.

After untarring emdebian-arm.tgz into a handy directory, I copied in the
group and passwd files that I saved from a previous attempt (has the
missing groups and users in it).

I then downloaded the emdebian grep package and manually extracted the
files and put them into the proper directories.

I downloaded the debian coreutils package and extracted only fmt
(postinst and postrm scripts wanted it). I also grabbed readlink
(busybox readlink wasn't recognized for some reason) but I can't
remember which package I stole it from (debianutils?).

I downloaded the Busybox source and compiled my own busybox with the
greps deselected and stat turned on. The emdebian busybox binary ignored
the emdebian grep package I installed through apt-get even though I had
deleted the links in /bin. I guess the shell intercepts the call before
checking the path. This got me a working fgrep and stat!

the emdebian supplied "which" (debianutils?) was failing after all this
(complains about getops) so I removed it and used the busybox version.

I then copied it all to SD card, chrooted to the card on my arm box and
ran ./emsecondstage. Except for runlevel complaints from dbus and libc6
and tzdata failing (got it to install later) everything seemed to
configure properly.

I spent the rest of the day getting confused trying to get a desktop
running. x11-common and xinit were installed along with matchbox but
there doesn't seem to be an X server anywhere.I did a lot of googling on
matchbox and X servers but I didn't see anything really helpfull.

I did try getting the emdebian xorg package (since xfree said it was for
transitions) but apt refused due to unmet dependencies. Following the
dependencies revealed that xkbd-data doesn't exist in the emdebian
repository. 

Thats where I am now and its time for a break!

P.S. Its amazing how much you learn while stumbling around in the dark.
Some day I'll know enough to turn on the flashlight 8)