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On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:01:57 +0000 Grant Sewell <dcglug@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> You may be able to get the MIPS version of Debian running on it, > > > > No. I did ask the Elonex people about obtaining precisely this machine > > so that some work could be done on it to derive the particular kernel > > configuration and toolchain tweaks to build a free OS for the machine. > > Linux does run on the machine but only using their own configurations > > which are not being released at the moment. > > > I'm a little confused. They have taken a GPLed bit of software, made > changes to it (presumably - if not, then what have they done to get > Linux working on it when the Debian lot would struggle for a year?), are > releasing those changes to the public (by way of having it on the > device) but are not releasing the source-code? Surely that's a > violation of the GPL? Lots of people make modules for the kernel without releasing those changes. The kernel itself is GPL but the use of the kernel with proprietary modules (think nVidia) is all too common. TBH I can't remember what the licensing was for the modules concerned (it wasn't discussed in much detail, we didn't have that much time), it's more that the almost-MIPS CPU is likely to be hard to fold into the Debian-MIPS subsystems. I don't think the changes themselves aren't that large - what is a problem is tying those changes into the slightly-different Debian MIPS port without creating a whole new almost-MIPS port just to suit a single CPU. It's nowhere near as hard as creating a whole new port but it needs some specialised knowledge. Sadly, the MIPS team in Debian has recently suffered a notable loss: http://www.uk.debian.org/News/2008/20081229 Once you factor in that the kernel config being used is very different to the config likely to be required of a Debian kernel and that the architecture meta-data for Debian-MIPS isn't quite what the CPU can actually handle, leading to further changes in critical modules and maybe a few new proprietary (or at best in-house) modules to fix the idiosyncrasies of the CPU, it does get complex. I am estimating the time period but it isn't likely to be weeks. The guys I met at Expo regarding the Elonex netbook did seem quite open about trying to get the changes sorted out but that was October and I haven't heard anything since. I don't think there is anything as problematic as nVidia but just hassle and work. I'm no kernel hacker but there is more to this than meets the eye. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ http://e-mail.is-not-s.ms/
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