Re: Debian on Zaurus status?

On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 17:01, Major A wrote:
> > As it says on the page, I don't have time to work on it right now (even less
> > now than then), and volunteers are more than welcome.
> > 
> > I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use a different kernel; probably
> > any of the OZ kernels should work, and they give you a range of options for
> > dividing up your memory.
> 
> Just to keep you updated -- I've successfully installed your debian
> root image with a custom kernel on the Zaurus C750 (haven't tried 5500
> yet). The same can also be done on the other C7x0 models and the 5600
> because they have fundamentally the same bootloader/flash layout. The
> touchscreen doesn't work yet and X comes up in portrait mode, which is
> rather awkward, but that should be rather easy to fix.
> 
> One thing I'm wondering about: how did you actually create that root
> image? It seems to be that you somehow installed everything on the Z,
> then tarred it all up... the ssh host keys certainly make it look that
> way. Does Debian have a tool (or even just a HOWTO) for making root
> images? What I would ideally like to have is an apt-get and dpkg that
> run on a host computer but use a different architecture and have their
> own status and archive files in, say, /scratch/zaurus/root/var/ . That
> way I could gather and configure all the basic packages I need and
> then build a jffs2 image from that.
> 
> Another solution would be to get some ARM disk image and unpack the
> base package from there -- maybe that's even easier.

The Debian packages debootstrap, rootstrap, and pbuilder all support the
creation of chroot's or of disk images.  I've never tried any of them;
judging from the package descriptions, none sounds like exactly what you
want (either they build a chroot, rather than a disk image; or they
expect to run programs inside the image), but they might be a good
starting point.

Carl Witty