Development platform setup

DSLinux can be compiled on most of the modern Linux distribution including FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Redhat Linux Enterprise and Fedora Core.

For convenience, it is better to compile DSLinux with virtual machines. We have tested and compile DSLinux with Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 installed under VMWare Workstation 6.5 which is hosted on a Vista Business 64-bits platform.

Please find the checklist of tools you have to prepare.

  • VMWare Workstation 6.5.0 (Optional)
  • Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 / Fedora Core 9
  • DSLinux Source Code
  • Subversion 1.4.2 or above (SVN)
  • Toolchain

First you have to prepare your VMWare virtual machine. We use RHEL4 as our development platform which is hosted on Windows Vista Business 64-bits with VMWare Workstation 6.5.0.

We assigned 2MB memory to the virtual machine such that we have to assign 4MB as swap during the installation of Linux.

Besides RHEL4, Fedora Core 7/8/9 can be used as development platform also.

Login as root and get ready to prepare the environment to compile DSLinux.

Prepare the environment with following steps:

  1. Extract DSLinux snapshot source archive to the home directory of root.
    • #cd /root
    • #tar zxf dslinux-snapshot.tar.gz)

  2. Copy pre-built toolchain to /root/toolchain.
    • #tar -C /root/toolchain -jxf dslinux-toolchain-2006-11-04-i686.tbz
  3. Edit profile to add toolchain to search path.
    • #vi /root/bash_profile (Edit /root/bash_profile)
    • Add $HOME/toolchain/bin before $PATH

  4. Update the source tree with subversion anonymous checkout.
    • #cd dslinux
    • #svn update

  5. It is recommended to compile DSLinux with non-root user for the sake of security. However, we have prepared a dedicated platform for the development. So, it is more convenient to compile the source with root. However, it is strongly recommend to follow the offical website recommendations straightly. If you would like to continue compiling DSLinux with root. You have to edit the Makefile in order to by-pass the root check. (Optional)
    • #cd /root/dslinux
    • #vi Makefile
    • Comment out lines below no_root: (Line 28 to 33. Add # at the beginning of the line.)