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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/4/2013 12:19 PM, Aaron J. Seigo
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:41936525.2HPGn8ryWb@freedom" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Monday, November 4, 2013 11:07:38 Christopher Havel wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">"Need" is a bit of a strong word... but I really really really really
want one ;)
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<pre wrap="">
first, what Luke says about poverty is completely true. and i feel you: i’ve
experienced poverty myself.
that all said, something i’ve learned with hardware is that if you give it
away 99% of people don’t do anything with it. i say that as someone who has
been involved with giving away more than a few devices in the past, 100s at a
single event even :)
we want these devices to be *used*, and by having people pay for them not only
do we help support production and development but it gives people a pretty
good reason to actually *use* them.
so that’s the “why i don’t plan on just giving these things away”.
however, i am very open to the idea of putting aside a limited # of these
devices for people who demonstrate not just need, but also a plan, and sending
earmarked devices to those people at our expense.
what i’d look for is:
* a short, written plan of what you are going to use the device for. it
wouldn’t have to be ground breaking / earth shattering in amazingness, just a
“here’s what i’ll be doin’ with it”. this will help us prioritize between
different kinds of projects
* a commitment to post regular updates (e.g. 1-3 times / month) online so
others can follow your progress. believe it or not, this is a *really* nice
way to give something back to the community and would be a way of supporting
the project with your time rather than your money.
for me, such a program would have to:
* be able to produce results everyone would identify with as “good”; put
another way: no losers, only winners
* be respectful to everyone involved; i would not want to initiate a
beg’n’grovel fest, for instance, so the application process should be focused
on positives: a description of my project(s), how i plan to document my
progress so the community can join in on my successes, etc.
would that work for you, or would you tweak something in there?
i can’t promise we’d have this program ready for launch, but i’d be willing to
make it happen in the mid-term.
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...maybe...<br>
<br>
What I want to do with it is run FatDogARM, which is a version of
Puppy Linux made for ARM processors and an offshoot of another
community version (more on that in a minute) of Puppy Linux called
FatDog (speaking as a member of the Puppy Community, FatDog is one
of our two 64bit offerings; the other is Lighthouse 64). FatDogARM
is in Alpha stage right now, and is being done by a fellow on the
Puppy Linux forum (well, the official one -- there's an official, a
backup-official, and one or two unofficials).<br>
<br>
Getting FatDogARM to run on an EOMA68 platform would contribute both
to EOMA68 and to FatDogARM, in providing an additional Linux OS
supporting EOMA68, and providing additional hardware compatible with
FatDogARM.<br>
<br>
FatDogARM can be made (at present) to run on all A10/A20 systems
with at least 512mb RAM (I'm told 1gb is hugely better -- at 512mb
the compiler memory-thrashes IIRC) with some gentle futzing.<br>
<br>
Regarding Puppy Linux itself (for x86 systems here)... Puppy is a
little different from most Linuces (as I like to say the word).
Puppy is a single root user Linux distro (it's safe to run Puppy as
root -- the distro is well built against any threats it might
otherwise be vulnerable to). The best way to install Puppy is also
different -- us Puppians call it a "frugal install" (we call a
conventional Linux install a "full install") -- basically it's a
process of copying over the vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and SquashFS file
(with the actual filesystem inside, along with optional additional
*.sfs's for additional programs and sometimes drivers), and tacking
a bootloader on top (I'm used to grub4dos, it's *almost*
idiotproof). It's also a community-oriented distro, and as a result
is more of a "distro family" than one single OS. There are a
tremendous number of Puppies and Puplets (a "Puplet" is a
community-created version of Puppy); we have a forum member who
collects as many versions as possible for archive purposes (and has
an account with archive[dot]org for that) -- and I've been told by
that member that the collection is well over 1000 Pups.<br>
<br>
The official Puppy Linux forum is at <a
href="http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php">http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php</a> <a
href="http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php"></a>, and the forum
member developing FatDogARM has the handle there of 'jamesbond' (w/o
quotes). Current thread (for FatDogARM Alpha-4) is at <a
href="http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89998">http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89998</a>
. I've spoken with jamesbond about EOMA68, briefly, in the FatDogARM
Alpha-3 thread (linked in the first post of the Alpha-4 thread). I
can post a link to the page with that discussion if needed, but the
general gist is that jamesbond thinks it'll be a cakewalk. I'm not
100% sure, mostly because of that EEPROM and the fact that I can't
compile.<br>
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