Re: Emdebian, DEB_VENDOR, Squeeze, Grip and Crush

[Bill Gatliff <bgat@billgatliff.com>]

Neil Williams wrote:
> 
> Ideas? How are issues like this solved in OpenWRT and other really small
> distros that use uClibc or C libraries other than glibc?

I don't know about those guys, but the way I do it is to re-host the runtime
environment via NFS or USB, and install debugging tools that won't fit in the
target environment.  As best as I can, I leave everything else untouched.  Then
I hack away.  Note that during development, a lot of device resources can be
expanded via networking, plug-in devices, a soldering iron, or emulation (QEMU).
   What's difficult to deal with is a system configuration that fundamentally
won't support something like strace, gdbserver, etc. whether the device has the
resources for it, or not.

Put simply, don't worry about target resources.  Just worry about making a
cohesive distribution with some known functionality, then worry about making
that distribution smaller--- all of which I think you're doing a fabulous job of
already.  :)

I like the idea of a uClibc-based Debian disto like Crush.  And I know that
strace and gdbserver will build and run under uClibc just fine.  So my question
was somewhat hypothetical.  Hope it wasn't too much of a distraction...

Perhaps OT, what would be below Crush?  Maybe the ability to use dpkg, etc. to
manage a foreign chroot that itself didn't have any package management
capabilities whatsoever.  Then you run that chroot through genromfs.  If you
forgot a package, you have to go back to your workstation and add it, and
re-burn a new romfs image.

Not that I've ever done that....  ;)


b.g.
-- 
Bill Gatliff
bgat@billgatliff.com