Because of some constraints I will have to build Linux user space applications for PowerPC QorIQ (P1020) using Windows environment.
Has anyone tried it and could recommend some toolchain (working natively in Win 7)?
Using virtual machines for building applications is not acceptable. What can be done on VM is only kernel and rootfs preparation.
There are some toolchains like http://gnutoolchains.com/powerpc-eabi/ however they do not provide Linux libraries. I guess I need something like powerpc-fsl-linux-gcc.exe.
I have also tried to attach meta-mingw layer to Yocto and bitbake meta-toolchain, but I'm not sure if it's the right path - I got many build errors.
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I am trying to read the LDD book by Jonathan Corbet, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Alessandro Rubini and implement the sample modules. So to begin with, I tried setting up a development system. Installed Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial. Now, I just created a directory and wrote the hello_world module with a Makefile. Got it built and run it, verified the dmesg logs.
Is that all the development setup? I searched online and found articles where they are asking to download and compile the kernel, use a VM to boot the kernel. What is the reason? Or what am I missing?
Is there any better article which clarifies this?
Thanks
hago
You can try one more way:
If you have native windows, install virtual machine software such as
Virtual box. Get your favourite Linux distribution (no bias, just
an example - Ubuntu) and install it through Virtual box.
Get the latest kernel (or of your choice) from kernel.org.
Choose the platform you want to build this kernel for. E.g arm64 or x86.
In case you do not have real boards (e.g RPi for arm variant), you can use qemu-arm64 or qemu-x86 to run your compiled kernel. This is also a good option when users do not have the boards.
Another good use case for using qemu for the newbie kernel developers is even they write some modules which crashes, then the qemu instance is crashed so no harm.
I think using qemu is a good option for people who starts to learn kernel programming and also want to try writing some of their modules and do not intend to purchase hardware at this point of time.
It depends on your target. For your case, you have made a kernel driver for your computer (it run Linux kernel).
But if you want to develop a Kernel driver for another target like Rasberry Pi, ARM board, X86-X64 board, ... you must learn to compile, edit Kernel config, boot Kernel image, ... because each target has different kernel versions.
You can refer to this training for more detail: https://bootlin.com/training/embedded-linux/
I working on Odroid XU3 with the ubuntu platform. For the DS5 software to crosscompile for profiling , I need to build Linux kernel with specific configuration. I am new to this stuff, but I have created the UImage of the kernel on the host machine for the Arm processor. I need to ask how one can get that kernel copy in the target platform i.e. Odroid.
Because for the profiling I need to have gatord and kernel with specific configuration installed on the target machine. I am done with gatord and build the kernel on host. Just need to copy it on target. But it is not happening using the sdcard of the odroid. Please let me know.
So if you have created uImage that seems like you have U-Boot as a bootloader on your target board. U-Boot in its turns can download kernel uImages via TFTP. I haven't worked with such devices as yours, but if it has Ethernet port, you could use it.
Also you have to know the U-Boot commands (fortunatelly there are a lot of information can be found over Internet, just ask google.)
I am studying Linux driver programming and in it, it is recommended that I work on self-compiled Linux kernels and not any distributions. I have tried compiling Linux 2.6.9 in ubuntu but the process returns errors in 'make menuconfig' stage.
I would prefer to work with Linux in a virtual environment so that I can fearlessly experiment with the kernel. So, is there any way I can compile and run Linux in a virtual machine (say VMware installed on Windows)? I can use live CDs for the purpose of compiling the kernel.
So in short, please suggest, how can I compile, install and run Linux kernel in a virtual machine in an error-free way?
I searched and read this. But after following these steps when I restarted my computer there was no separate Linux 3.2.17 OS. But my ubuntu 12.04 was now showing 3.2.17 kernel. Although this is the first time I could compile a whole kernel on ubuntu without any error, I want to load that kernel on other partition and use it as an independent OS. So, if anyone can tell, what to do in addition to the steps in the tutorial so that I can achieve this?
The simplest thing to do is probably to install some Linux distribution on a VM, such as VMWare or VirtualBox, and continue from there. You could try using a live-cd, but I'm guessing that the lack of persistent storage might get irritating. There are, of course, ways around that, but installing some distribution is probably simpler, and you don't really need that much disk space for it if all you want to do is compile a kernel.
If all you want to do is compile a kernel module, and if you already have some pre-installed Linux environment, you should also note that modern Linux installations allow you to compile modules without the need to re-compile the entire kernel. You will need the kernel source and headers, though. See, for example, this document.
And BTW, speaking of modern kernels, why did you choose to use 2.6.9? It's almost 8 years old by now. Newer kernels might actually be easier to develop for. Also, there's no guarantee that
modules developed with such an old kernel would still work with current ones.
I suggest you to read this page. This document shows you how to boot your personal kernel on qemu and how to use the debugger on it.
Kernelnewbies is the right place to start kernel hacking. This website contains a set of rich tutorials about kernel hacking and tweaking just for newbie Linux developers. Also, you can join the community and start contributing to some tiny Linux projects.
For a quick start, follow the instruction from the "kernel first patch" tutorial. Since you're cloning the "origin" remote repository in this tutorial, you'll work on the latest branches of Linux kernel. So, there's no need to worry about working on an old version of Linux. Meanwhile, if you're not comfortable working with git trees, you can always download the latest version of Linux from front page of "kernel.org".
My ultimate goal is to do some programming for the Angstrom Linux (or Debian or other Linux distros), on QEMU emulating ARM processor board s.a. Versatile board. I am happy to experiement, but if someone has attempted something similar, and can give little guidance, it might hasten progress.
My understanding of the steps needed are:-
1. Build QEMU from source (although I am not sure if a prebuilt binary won't do). I found QEMuManager on Windows (XP being my Desktop OS on which I intend to run QEMU).
2. Install ARM tool chain (e.g. Yagarto / GNU-ARM for Cygwin?)
3. Download an Angstrom Linux tarball and build it
4. Create a QEMU image with Angstrom Linux.
However I am missing on the details, as I believe there are choices to be made at each of those steps.
IMHO you should use a linux distribution as host machine for your QEmu instead of trying to compile/install all the QEmu stuff in a cygwin based system, it will remove some futur headaches. You can use a VMWare player with an ubuntu image.
I used to play with this tutorial for Debian on QEMU.
The beagleboard, hawkboard, open-rd sites all tend to lead to their distros being built on qemu (arm), and from there there is no reason why you cannot just continue to keep running on the simulation instead of heading for hardware.
This is an example of how to do it with ubuntu.
https://wiki.edubuntu.org/ARM/RootfsFromScratch
Yes it is also possible to cross compile everything as well, I would start with wiki pages that hand hold you through all of the steps. Or as with the hawkboard or beagleboard get a pre-built binary (kernel and root file system) and just boot it and run on that environment and not mess with building everything.
Is it possible to run the COFF executable files on UNIX or the ELF executable files on Windows? And what would be the steps to be able to run either file type on Windows and UNIX. I'm just curious.
To answer your question properly, it is relevant to review what ELF, COFF, and PE are. These binary formats are essentially just containers that give directions to the operating system about how to execute the raw CPU instructions contained in the file. They are very much like audio/video containers like MKV, WMV, and OGG. Support for the executable format is either in the operating system or not. Microsoft Windows has consistently not given any support for COFF or ELF, until recently. With Windows 10, Microsoft has provided indirect support for ELF by building into the Windows kernel UserMode-Linux compatible system routines. A UserMode Linux kernel runs on top of the Windows kernel and runs all ELF binary formats almost as if it were running independent of MS Windows.
The alternative to using the UserMode-Linux (sub-kernel) being for Microsoft to rewrite the majority of the Linux API in a completely compatible format, their choice solves one other compatibility issue: The API. "A" stands for Application and "I" for Interface, however the API as an interface is mainly just a set of executable routines and environment assumptions. Access to the filesystem and most basic system routines is provided by the Windows kernel, while everything else is provided in the UserMode Linux kernel. This way not only can Windows run ELF formatted executables, but in can run the most popular ELF executables that are already made to run on the Linux API.
The reverse, the other half of the question, running PE (most Microsoft Windows executables) on Linux is possible as well. There are two runtime wrapping libraries that can run MSIL (virtual machine application) and Win32 (normal CPU application). Because the Linux kernel is extendable to recognize a certain byte format, then run an appropriate wrapper program, in effect the kernel supports PE and potentially more executable container formats. Therefore, Linux can run some PE programs either in the mono runtime (.NET/C# applications) or in the WINE runtime (Win32 C/C++).
To install the UserMode-Linux environment you can follow instructions provided on Microsoft's Development Network. To summarize:
Turn on Developer Mode: Settings | Update & Security | For Developers | Check the Developer Mode radio button
From the start menu, open “Turn Windows Features on or off”
Scroll down and check the “Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta)” feature
Hit okay and reboot (required step)
Once rebooted, open a PowerShell/command prompt and run “Bash” and follow the simple prompts to accept Canonical’s license and kick-off the download of the Ubuntu image
After download has completed, you’ll be able to start “Bash on Ubuntu on Windows” from the Start menu
Be aware this method only works on Windows 10 and is still limited to text-mode console and a Win32 port of Xorg like vcXsrv for anything graphical. Cygwin or MSYS2 systems are not able to run ELF binaries, but make it possible to port and run the same applications that are normally ELF binaries on a Linux system.
To actually run executables and have them do useful stuff, you need to worry about the API, not just the executable file format. On a Linux machine with WINE installed, you can run Windows .EXE files from the command line and they do the same thing that they do on Windows.
The other way around is not really possible, however if you install CYGWIN on a Windows machine, and then rebuild the application from source with CYGWIN compilers, you will get an executable that runs on Windows and does the same thing that the Linux executable does on Linux. Lots of standard Linux tools are already ported and in the CYGWIN repository including stuff like X-Windows and GIMP.
http://lbw.sourceforge.net/ works better than line.
low was another project for doing the same thing, but that was the less working.
EDIT: http://atratus.org/ seems to do the same as well, without the need to have Interix/SFU.
COFF was originally introduced by UNIX (around System V or thereabouts) so yes, some UNIX probably still supports COFF format. It's been deprecated by Linux at least for a while, and presumably most other Unices have also deprecated or outright dropped support.
Windows ELF support is a bit more iffy - almost certainly not there without some deep trickery. You should be more specific about what you're trying to do here...