gnupic: Thread: Re: [gnupic] best OS for gnupic

> I'm having trouble getting started. gentoo is causing me mucho frustrations.
> FWIW go to bugs.gentoo.org and have a peek at #132141. Something's broke and
> no-one seems to be able to fix it. It's like this: the new kernel
> 2.6.16zimage is installed and booted to but no modules will load and
> uname -a or
> modprobe -v <some_module> point to the _former_ kernel 2.6.12 !? I showed
> them the evidence but I think they think I'm making it up
> 
> Is it something to do with my gcc version 3.4.5?
> an example from dmesg:
> <...>
> May  7 10:55:38 localhost forcedeth: version magic '2.6.12-gentoo-r6 586
> gcc-3.4' should be '2.6.12-gentoo-r6 586 gcc-3.3'
> May
> <...>
> 
> I'm ready to chuck it and try something else. Got to get into micros!

I just read the whole bug report and they're doing a very good job of 
helping you.  Just take a few moments to follow the advice they are
giving you.  Building your own kernels isn't the easiest thing on the
planet and will take some getting used to--especially the way gentoo
likes to do it.

As a guess--looking at all of the errors--you are rebuilding the old
kernel (2.6.12-gentoo-r6) with the new gcc, but you didn't copy all of
the Symbols or the modules (or didn't rebuild the modules and install)
into the apropriate directories (/boot for the kernel and the symbols
and /lib/modules/$version for the modules).  Now the Gentoo guys can
walk you through how to do that 'the gentoo way' and it looks like they
are being really patient and helpful in resolving this with you.  

I'd suggest you just stick to their advice.

Either way, it's way off topic for this group.  I don't know any PICs 
that run linux (or even uClinux).

Cheers,
David

>
> Either way, it's way off topic for this group.  I don't know any PICs
> that run linux (or even uClinux).
>
> Cheers,
> David



Thanks David. I didn't mean PICs running linux. I meant as a flavour of
linux running on a box used for developing PIC applications using picprog
etc. Is there such a thing as a better or worse one?

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On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 09:46:39AM -0600, Maxim Wexler wrote:
> Hi group,
> 
> I'm having trouble getting started. gentoo is causing me mucho frustrations.
> FWIW go to bugs.gentoo.org and have a peek at #132141. Something's broke and
> no-one seems to be able to fix it. It's like this: the new kernel
> 2.6.16zimage is installed and booted to but no modules will load and
> uname -a or
> modprobe -v <some_module> point to the _former_ kernel 2.6.12 !? I showed
> them the evidence but I think they think I'm making it up
> 
> Is it something to do with my gcc version 3.4.5?
> an example from dmesg:
> <...>
> May  7 10:55:38 localhost forcedeth: version magic '2.6.12-gentoo-r6 586
> gcc-3.4' should be '2.6.12-gentoo-r6 586 gcc-3.3'
> May
> <...>
> 
> I'm ready to chuck it and try something else. Got to get into micros!

As a gentoo user and lover I must admit that it is a difficult to use and
administer distribution for new GNU/Linux users. I really would
encourage you to start with Debian or Ubuntu distributions if you want a
working gputils/gpsim/sdcc/gcc development suite for Microchip PICs and
haven't administered Linux systems before. 

If you need some gentoo help, I can try off-the-list to help you get
your kernel working and your system booting. I dislike the gentoo modded
kernels (in general I run the vanilla-sources) and the genkernel tool,
but am familiar with these. I'm available to help by email
####@####.#### by Yahoo! chat (jonfox) or IRC (drfox on freenode).
You might try running genkernel on one of the vanilla-sources. 
Again, using a generic kernel in a Debian distro is much easier than
doing everything the gentoo way. 

Best of luck, 
Jon
 

-- 
.*. Dr. Jon R. Fox KC2ODW 
..* http://www.drfox.com
*** ####@####.####

On Thu, 11 May 2006 13:03:13 -0400
Jon Fox ####@####.#### wrote:

> 
> As a gentoo user and lover I must admit that it is a difficult to use and
> administer distribution for new GNU/Linux users. I really would
> encourage you to start with Debian or Ubuntu distributions if you want a
> working gputils/gpsim/sdcc/gcc development suite for Microchip PICs and
> haven't administered Linux systems before. 

If your aim is to use GNUPIC tools then I'm struggling to see why you'd want to compile a custom kernel.And if all you're doing is building the "stock" Gentoo kernel then I've always found it to be a smooth process, even on the machine I converted to GCC3.4.5

One thing I would mark against Gentoo for PIC development - the ebuild for gputils 0.13.3 is _STILL_ marked unstable, despite this having been the official current release for quite some time. The gpsim ebuild is probably even more out of date, but since I've been using the CVS/SVN version since before I discovered Gentoo that's not so visible to me.

If you're a sufficient newbie that you need the gnupic stuff to be packaged for your distro, then DON'T use Gentoo. Ubuntu is probably more to your tastes.

If you're experienced enough to be happy rebuilding kernels, you'll probably want to use the latest versions of gnupic tools, so it really matters not which distro you're on.

There is one particular tool, Manuel Bouyer's ptyUsart gpsim module, that I'd like to use, but it only works on BSD :(