[LetuxOS] LetuxOS: some recent updates

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hello everyone!
here are some news that happened in the last week regarding LetuxOS
development:

a) kernel features

there was a fix for the Pyra (and OMAP5432EVM) device
tree files that prevented booting. It affected the Palmas
power controller. It has now been distributed to all kernel variants
and has been submitted to upstream for review.

b) Letux kernel packages for Debian

You may know that there are Letux specific kernel packages,
e.g.:

linux-image-letux_5.13.0.20210702151650_armhf.deb
linux-modules-letux_5.13.0.20210702151650_armhf.deb
linux-rootfs-letux_5.13.0.20210702151650_armhf.deb
linux-headers-letux_5.13.0.20210702151650_armhf.deb

The first file installs the kernel binary, while the second one
installs the kernel modules. If the stable versions
are installed, a kernel update can be easily done via
apt-get update + upgrade.

Otherwise you need to download the .deb files
https://download.goldelico.com/letux-kernel/?C=M;O=D
and run dpkg -i.

The rootfs package contains all the scripts and tools that we
want to have in /root. This also includes the X11 setup
for most devices.

The linux-headers-letux.deb package has been reworked and
now includes "generated" header files. Previously it contained
only a copy of the include directory of the source
tree, but the kernel make process adds some important
files (e.g. include/asm/unistd-eabi.h).

And another fix adds packages for the x86 architecture, although
LetuxOS does not yet support such systems.

c) GPS on Pyra

I found some time to test the /root/gps-on script on
the Pyra and it still activates the modem and gives NMEA
records. I haven't tested anything else yet.

d) QuantumSTEP images for Stretch, Buster, Bullseye

A long pending plan is to update QuantumSTEP to be
no longer be bound to Debian Jessie.

The reason is that some packages link to basic libraries
like libjpeg and there were significant version number
increments between Debian releases.

So it is not possible to compile the packages compile
for Jessie on, say, a Buster system.

We need some specially compiled ones. Since QuantumSTEP
is to be compiled for different processor architectures,
we need cross-toolchains.

Building toolchains is quite tricky and requires magic tweaks
here and there, but it now almost works for Stretch for
armel, armhf and arm64.

x86 and mips architectures have problems cross-bootstrapping
the Linux headers for the toolchain.

This is how a modern QuantumSTEP setup comes within reach....

BR,
Nikolaus