[Clfs-dev] embedded

[Andrew Bradford]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013, at 08:42 PM, Robert Sink wrote:
> I do have a question as to the eventual completion of the embedded clfs
> book.  With my main example being android.. which is also built from
> source, there is much more "roll over and play dead" pandering towards
> manufacturers inc and since ICS (4.x ROMs)..  Now binaries (blobs) can be
> downloaded from some manufacturers if you've got a development device
> and/or enough pressure was applied by the consumer base.  Rarely are
> these
> open sourced; in fact, since ICS, Google has pretty much ok'd the
> binaries
> in their policy.  Too much time & effort to reverse engineer and
> perfect..
> only to have a new device roll out and switch to it (the life of a dev).
> So.. question would be, use the binaries in an open source/building
> manual/process [embedded clfs] or no?  Without the embedded binaries..
> One
> would have a hard time bringing a device's camera online, NFC, or such
> things that the manufacturer community holds close (sometimes GPU even).
> I suppose there are open embedded platforms that would work as targets
> (ie
> Raspberry pi, beagleboard/bone, even gta04 (previously openmoko)) but
> very
> few... So I guess it boils down to.. If you own a device and manufacturer
> has given you the binaries (they are a pain in the a$$ to build with;
> basically errors make you twerk HALs [hardware application layers] so you
> can keep using the blob until a newer is released (if ever)).. Should we
> build in w/ clfs.. or is that in and of itself against clfs mantra, bad
> form or whatever.. Just thought I'd ask before I attempted building for
> one
> such target.

I'm not that familiar with Android but you're welcome to do what ever
you'd like with the CLFS books in terms of building your own system. 
There's no rules, it's just a book with some exactsteps you can follow.

Regarding hardware support, that's just a kernel and firmware thing,
userspace and the toolchain don't care at all about what hardware you
have other than being the right architecture and right settings for that
architecture (like on ARM picking a valid CLFS_TARGET and
CLFS_ARM_ARCH).  So long as you build your kernel properly you'll get
hardware support.

Thanks,
Andrew