Re: Configuring foreign packages without qemu in order to boot a system

On Sun, 2 Sep 2012 01:07:11 +0200
Paul Boddie <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I've recently been looking into using Emdebian on the Ben NanoNote, which is 
> typically supported by an OpenWrt-based kernel and distribution, and I've 
> reached the point where I can persuade the system to boot Emdebian directly 
> from an SD card.
> 
> However, to get to this point, I have to rely on the existing OpenWrt 
> distribution to boot the device, log in, and then enter the Emdebian system 
> root using chroot in order to run "dpkg --configure -a". Once this has been 
> done, the device will boot into the Emdebian system.
> 
> This configuration step appears to be the necessary measure to permit the init 
> mechanism and various related activities to function. I suppose that not all 
> packages need to be configured, but some configuration seems to make the 
> difference between a functioning and non-functioning system.
> 
> The general advice about package configuration...
> 
> http://wiki.debian.org/EmDebian/CrossDebootstrap
> 
> ...seems to be mainly divided between booting into a device and running dpkg 
> (or performing a second-stage debootstrap if that is the tool of choice) or 
> using qemu. Obviously, in my situation, I can't boot into Emdebian without 
> having first performed the configuration step, so this supposedly leaves me 
> with the fairly undesirable option of using qemu.
> 
> I did wonder, however, whether there are any known techniques for configuring 
> just enough of a system on the build host so that the init mechanism can 
> complete its work on the target system and then allow the proper 
> configuration to occur. Previously, I had hoped that multiarch installations 
> might alleviate the problem of package configuration really wanting to run 
> native programs, but I imagine that readers of this list would be aware of 
> more elegant solutions to this problem.
> 
> Alternatively, I wondered whether there might be any way of deploying a "first 
> boot" script to perform configuration on the target system. I see a script 
> apparently suggested for this kind of thing...
> 
> http://wiki.debian.org/Multistrap#Debconf_and_pre-seeding
> 
> ...but I'm not sure whether the author of that suggestion intended such 
> scripts to be deployed in such a fashion.
> 
> I would certainly appreciate any advice on this topic. Emdebian promises to 
> make a lot of things easier when developing for embedded devices like the 
> NanoNote - just the availability of numerous packages for different 
> architectures is a real time-saver - and I'd like to be able to offer some 
> concrete documentation to help people start using it without there being too 
> many complications involved.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
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> 


-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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