On 08/28/2017 10:23 AM, W. Martin Borgert wrote: > Quoting uhmgawa <uhmg...@member.fsf.org>: >> On 08/28/2017 08:46 AM, W. Martin Borgert wrote: >>> As long as you have enough flash memory (some hundreds of MiB) and RAM >>> (at least 64 MiB, better 128 MiB), Debian runs fine on such hardware >>> in my experience. It depends on your applications, of course. >> >> Available flash is from 32~64MB depending on platform. So manual subset >> of the distro id required and where recurring the effort enters the picture. > > OK, then Debian is probably not an option. I doubt, that one can strip down > Debian 9 to 32 MiB... Has anybody tried?
We've done so for Jessie, but it is a rather tedious manual process and one which starts eroding the benefit of project soak on a supported installation footprint. A relief I didn't call out previously is these figures are physical sizes. We can shoe horn in considerably more using squashfs, resulting in an acceptable image for even 24MB flash. > >>> Debian is supposed to be the "universal operating system". I.e. it is for >>> server + workstation + embedded + whatever. This is different from most >>> other Linux distributions. >> >> I applaud that goal. But the approach of using a native arch build vehicle >> for the distro also introduces complication for embedded class development. >> Not insurmountable but additional compared to the cross-build approach >> typical of embedded linux distros. > > The native build requirement is only affecting Debian itself, not its users > (people deriving the distribution for their needs or building appliances). > In my company, we always cross-build our .deb packages for ARM. We do this > also, if we need to recompile official Debian packages (local backports or > patched packages). We don't have any armel hardware, that would be fun to > build packages with. Is cross build generally supported for Debian? My impression was that it was not and a native arch build vehicle was requires such that host == target. If cross builds were actively supported by the project for even a subset of distro content, that would have simplified matters in our case. Another rub mixing a native-built distro and cross built application is the toolchain which must be generated from the same source for both native and cross versions. At least doing so sidesteps a number of issues including agreement of dynamic library content between the native/cross toolchains such that mixing the distro and application bits happens under effectively the same runtime libraries.
