Totally unable to get either Cygwin or VMWare rockbox to compile

[jgrg1]

Hi,

I'm having real trouble getting either Cygwin 1.7.9.1 or the Debian 5.0.4.7 vwmare image to compile rockbox at all.

I have repeatedly tried installing cygwin (following the instructions posted on the wikidocs page) and the cross compiler will not compile using the the rockboxdev.sh script. It does a whole bunch of stuff for a very long time, and then gets to a mkdir error for gcc-build, which causes the build to fail.

The VM won't let me connect to svn - "Network unavailable". Yet from ETerm I can ping not only my router, but also www.google.com.

Any help/pointers would be appreciated. Maybe I'm using the wrong VM image - should I be using the rockbox.image.7z file instead? If so, what's the Debian 5.0.4.7 image for?

There really needs to be a foolproof way of setting a development environment up - it shouldn't be this difficult.

[gbl08ma]

I'm not sure about this, but I think I've read in forums or IRC some time ago that the VM images are outdated. Some time ago I tried to compile using the VM image and also using Cygwin. The VM image had some strange errors (perhaps those you were describing), and Cygwin would take days just to run the rockboxdev.sh script.
So, I gave up with Windows, rebooted with Linux and followed the compiling instructions for a Linux system. It worked well and I'm still building Rockbox, even though I already upgraded Ubuntu twice (10.04 to 10.10 and then to 11.04), the build tools didn't get affected and everything goes alright.

If you install a Linux distro on a separate partition or install it on a VM and then follow the procedure for setting a build environment as described on the wiki, you should be OK. (although I recommend installing on real hardware as you'll be able to take advantage of the full speed of the hardware when compiling)

[torne]

Yes, unfortunately the VM images are in need of updating. The foolproof way to set up a development environment is to just install a current Linux distribution on your actual computer

[saratoga]

While its a bigger download, the Ubuntu VM on this page should work:

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/DevelopmentGuide#Windows

You'll need to follow the rest of the instructions on that page too ('get the source', 'build  the cross compilers'). 

[jgrg1]

Arg. Just giving the rockbox.image.7z VM a try, then I'll try the Ubuntu VM... then I might give up; my enthusiasm for installing linux is minimal.

Thanks for the advice though.

[saratoga]

Arg. Just giving the rockbox.image.7z VM a try

That would be the debian image above.  It doesn't work right now.  Just use the ubuntu image I linked above, I'm using it now and it does work. 

[jgrg1]

Ah, ok. Discovered why I didn't have network access on the VMs. Had to click on the properties for the "VMWare Network Adapter VMnet8" in Windows network configuration and enable the VMware Bridge Protocol. Then rebooted the VM and it picked up an IP. Will give the Ubuntu VM a shot once it's downloaded.

[saratoga]

If you can upgrade perl, you can probably make the debian image work.  I tried for a little while, but so many of the dependencies are out of date that I couldn't get it to update.  And I didn't see much sense in screwing around with an ancient OS image when we have newer ones available. 

[nick_p]

You can revert the offending perl changes by creating a patch;

svn diff -r 30169:30168 > /tmp/revert_30169.patch
patch -p0 -i /tmp/revert_30169.patch

[seren]

That would be the debian image above.  It doesn't work right now.  Just use the ubuntu image I linked above, I'm using it now and it does work. 

As long as we are on the Ubuntu subject, I found that you can directly go to Ubuntu website, download their latest Unbuntu's Windows install that would create a dual boot for your machine.  Then boot it up to Ubuntu.  For me, it's cleaner this way.

[saratoga]

That would be the debian image above.  It doesn't work right now.  Just use the ubuntu image I linked above, I'm using it now and it does work. 

As long as we are on the Ubuntu subject, I found that you can directly go to Ubuntu website, download their latest Unbuntu's Windows install that would create a dual boot for your machine.  Then boot it up to Ubuntu.  For me, it's cleaner this way.

FWIW you can also just download the same Ubuntu install and load it in virtualbox.  It gets you the same thing, but that way you don't have to reboot into Linux, but rather just run it as a window inside Windows.

[jgrg1]

I downloaded Oracle VM VirtualBox, and the Ubuntu image. Seems VirtualBox doesn't recognise the .vdi extension. When I force it to load the .vdi file, I get an error saying:

Failed to open virtual machine located in ...../ubunto-9.10.vdi.
Extra content at the end of the document.

Location '.....ubuntu-9.10.vdi' line 1 (0), column 2.

E:   inderboxwin-relsrcVBoxMainsrc-serverMachineImpl.cpp [436] (Machine::init).

Expanding the Details gives:


Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: VirtualBox
Interface: IVirtualBox {c28be65f-1a8f-43b4-81f1-eb60cb516e66}

Any ideas?
Post Merge: August 11, 2011, 02:15:08 PMLet's try a different question, exactly what VM software should I be using to open the Ubuntu image?

[saratoga]

I downloaded Oracle VM VirtualBox, and the Ubuntu image. Seems VirtualBox doesn't recognise the .vdi extension.

VDI files are disk images.  Go into Virtualbox, create a new virtual machine (the "New" button), and then when prompted for a VDI file use the one you just downloaded.  If you have trouble, theres a very nice manual for virtualbox.

[jgrg1]

Ahhhh, you are a genius!

Next step... svn and compiling. Then world domination.
Post Merge: August 11, 2011, 04:22:02 PMJoy... it worked!

After following the instructions on http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/LinuxSimpleGuideToCompiling, and running the following command:

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libsdl1.2debian

to get sdl.

Now world domination.

[saratoga]

I made a new virtualbox image here if anyone wants to test it:

http://duke.edu/~mgg6/rockbox/rockbox_virtualbox.7z

475MB, full ubuntu experience, includes the ARM compiler and libsdl so sim building works.