Rockbox Utility on Linux

[LeoTheLion89]

I run Ubuntu 12.04 on my PowerMac G4. Is there a version of Rockbox Utility that will work on PPC Linux? The fact the Rockbox Utility works on PowerPC Mac and Work on Linux how come there is not a combined PPC code in the Linux Utility so that Rockbox Utility will run in PPC Linux? The fact the Linux and OS X are both UNIX dont see how its not possible.

[[Saint]]

"Not implemented" is very, very different to "not possible" (from my understanding it should "Just Work", but, apparently...it does not, as you report).

I am absolutely positive that a correctly formatted patch from yourself would be welcomed, be proactive!
Failing that, be patient.


[Saint]

[gevaerts]

I'm fairly sure rockbox utility will build just fine on PPC. I don't think it's reasonable to expect us to provide binaries for all architectures linux runs on.

[bluebrother]

(from my understanding it should "Just Work", but, apparently...it does not, as you report).

I don't read this report as Rockbox Utility not compiling on PPC Linux but rather simply as the fact that we don't provide a binary for it. Since it builds fine on PPC OS X I expect it to "just work" on PPC Linux. However, since the architecture is rather rare there is no point in us providing binaries for it -- and (AFAIK) there is no developer working on such a setup at all. (Testing on PPC OS X is rather limited but somewhat works on 10.6 using Rosetta, but testing / developing on PPC Linux without owning PPC hardware is really hard, if possible in a viable way at all).

Generally speaking I wouldn't mind stopping to distribute binaries for Linux at all -- there are too many differences to easily create a binary that runs on all distros.

[LeoTheLion89]

the linux version does not run on ppc linux it simply does not run

[AlexP]

Correct, as it isn't built for PPC.  You need to build it.  We can't provide binaries for every minority architecture.

[bluebrother]

the linux version does not run on ppc linux it simply does not run

Well, the wiki page explicitly states "x86" for the Linux binaries. I wouldn't expect an x86 binary to run on PPC ... Is this unclear? If yes, how can we make it clearer?

As said before I expect it to "just work" on PPC -- but for it to "just work" you need a binary, and we don't provide any. In other words: "just work" means "it works without modifications to the source code when building it."

[LeoTheLion89]

well mac osx version is compiled for PPC Linux and Mac are both UNIX couldnt the Mac OS X ppc code just be "added" to the Linux code?

[torne]

Linux and OSX are not the same thing.

The *code* should already work perfectly fine on PPC Linux systems; you just need to download the code yourself and compile it.

[LeoTheLion89]

im not a programmer i dunno how to compile

[LambdaCalculus]

You don't have to be a programmer to compile. It's just running a few commands in a terminal.

Have a look here: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RockboxUtilityDevelopment#How_To_Compile

Also, to note, Rockbox Utilty compiles just fine in PPC Linux; you just need to make sure you have all of the required packages (Qt for sure, any others? Can't remember off the top of my head). I managed to build RBUtil in Debian 6.0.6 PPC on an iBook G3 with no issues.

[LeoTheLion89]

You don't have to be a programmer to compile. It's just running a few commands in a terminal.

Have a look here: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RockboxUtilityDevelopment#How_To_Compile

Also, to note, Rockbox Utilty compiles just fine in PPC Linux; you just need to make sure you have all of the required packages (Qt for sure, any others? Can't remember off the top of my head). I managed to build RBUtil in Debian 6.0.6 PPC on an iBook G3 with no issues.

then y not release it for everyone to use? im sure itll work with Lubuntu 12.04 on a PowerMac G4

[gevaerts]

then y not release it for everyone to use? im sure itll work with Lubuntu 12.04 on a PowerMac G4

The source is released. You can build working binaries thjat will work for you.

Do you really expect us to build and test binaries for unusual systems we don't even have?

[bluebrother]

then y not release it for everyone to use? im sure itll work with Lubuntu 12.04 on a PowerMac G4

Do you actually understand what you're asking for?

I've done quite a couple of Rockbox Utility releases. Currently we provide binaries for 4 different systems (Windows, OS X, Linux x86 and x86_64). Doing a release takes quite some time -- it's not only building binaries. But even if it would be just building binaries I need to have a working build environment for all those setups available, and maintain those. The binaries we provide are linked statically against Qt (to minimize dependencies and thus make it easier for users). This requires rebuilding Qt from source, which is a lenghty process (depending on the configuration this can easily take a couple of hours). And it needs to be done for each platform. I also need to have the hardware available to do this (virtual machines help a lot with this, but f.e. I wasn't successful in virtualizing OS X, so I'm doing that on a real machine).

So once the build setup is running rolling a release takes at least two hours. And then there's the other things like updating the wiki (which musn't be done before the binaries are available on the download server, as otherwise people will file us bug about those files missing). So in the end creating a release means an evening full of work. And this is for platforms I do have physically available.

While it might be possible to emulate a PPC machine such a virtualized build would be extremely slow. Nothing one is keen on doing on an evening that's already full of work, and nothing one is keen on doing for a platform almost nobody is using. Plus, if we provide a binary for your case, how long will it take until people want binaries for BSD? Linux on Itanium? Raspberry Pi?

We provide binaries for the most common platforms. If you're on a different platform you already have the problem that a lot of projects don't provide binaries (and on Linux most projects don't provide binaries at all!). You need to compile quite a bit of software yourself anyway, so what's your problem? If you want more convenience use an OS that is widely used -- install Windows. And if someone else wants to provide binaries for other platforms, provide distribution packages or whatever they can -- but that's not of interest for us. I don't mind listing such packages in the wiki but you'll hardly find a Rockbox developer that is willing to look after them. Oh, and creating proper binaries for Linux that run on a lot of systems isn't trivial. It's much easier on Windows and OS X.