coLinux is back.

[soap]

(though it never really left)
First of all I want to thank JdGordon for all the work he did in the initial creation not only of the coLinux image, but of the wiki page.  I would still be waiting for cgywin to do something this century if it wasn't for him.

Seeing as VMWare wants more from a computer than mine can give and cygwin isn't really Linux (and is dog slow) I decided I needed a better way to compile Rockbox from my Windows machine.
In the wiki I fould JdGordon's coLinux page, followed his excellent instructions, and within the hour had a functional (and speedy) build environment.  JdGordon has a proper Linux box now, and well, his coLinix image was a bit long in the tooth.  
coLinux IS Linux.  Linux which runs from Windows.  It doesn't run in a virtual machine (for good and bad) like VMWare.  It isn't simply *nix tools like cgywin.  Once launched working with coLinux should be exactly like working with the VMWare image.

I have (I believe) updated all that needs updating.  All the cross-compilers should be fresh, cvs has been replaced with subversion, and the aliases have been adjusted accordingly.  I also decided (personal preference) to install a samba server, as I find this an easier way to move files between WindowsWorld and LinuxWorld, but you are free to SSH/sftp to your heart's content.

I will be maintaining the coLinux image and wiki to the best of my ability, and welcome any comments, tips, or questions.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CoLinuxDevelopmentPlatform is where you can get it all.

[crowdofone]

interesting!

never heard of this before.

[ryran]

Ditto. Sweeeet! I look forward to playing with it Soap! :-)

[Mad Cow]

Tried it twice, both times I completely failed on the networking part and gave up. It sounds really nice but never worked for me.

[ColdSphinx]

thanks soap, nice work!

coLinux IS Linux.  Linux which runs from Windows.  It doesn't run in a virtual machine (for good and bad) like VMWare.  It isn't simply *nix tools like cgywin.  Once launched working with coLinux should be exactly like working with the VMWare image.

CoLinux runs on a Cooperative Virtual Machine (CVM).

As my english isn't god enought to descripe:

The term "cooperative" is used to describe two entities working in parallel. In effect Cooperative Linux turns the two different operating system kernels into two big coroutines. Each kernel has its own complete CPU context and address space, and each kernel decides when to give control back to its partner.

However, while both kernels theoretically have full access to the real hardware, modern PC hardware is not designed to be controlled by two different operating systems at the same time. Therefore the host kernel is left in control of the real hardware and the guest kernel contains special drivers that communicate with the host and provide various important devices to the guest OS. The host can be any OS kernel that exports basic primitives that allow the Cooperative Linux portable driver to run in CPL0 mode (ring 0) and allocate memory.

so yeah! it is Linux

[disorganizer]

nice wiki, helped a lot with installation of colinux..

just some minor things:

1) in newer colinux versions you are not prompted whether you want to download a root image, but you have to deselect the appropriate option in the installation selection

2) toporesized root_fs files dont work with my copy of colinux. either its my dumbness or some general error. colinux gives out several fs errors on boot and denies any repair. but the original image is far enough space.

3) swapfile needs to be at least 128MB according to the colinux wiki

4) colinux does not use xml-files any more.
but the example config file can be easily edited to match out needs

5) command syntax is now:
colinux-daemon.exe -t nt @nameofconfigfile.conf

6) ICS is propably a bad option for internetting a vm.
many people use firewalls which disable the firewall service, which also disables ICS.
making a bridged adapter is propably the best solution for xp.
how to do?
easy... after installation of colinux there is the tap-adapter in the network connections with whatever name. (i will call it tap-adapter from now on).
the real network adapter will be called real-adapter.
so just do the following:
a) note ip-config of real-adapter connecting pc to internet
b) mark real-adapter and tap-adapter
c) right click and activate bridge
d) right click on new bridge adapter, properties
e) then ensure both the real-adapter and the tap-adapter are selected
f) put your ip setting noted in a) in the ip settings of the bridge adapter
g) in the config file of colinux activate eth0 to be a tap (eth0=tuntap)
h) inside the colinux machine give eth0 a ip of your normal network


7) when using common dir with windows
use
"cofs0=C:\coLinux\shared" (example)
in config file, then
"cofs0:/    /mnt/win   cofs    defaults,fmask=0777,dmask=0777 0 0"
in fstab to have access to it

WARNING: could be dangerous for the filesystem :-) so be careful. but when used for device-access thats propably ok.




but i also have a question:
simulator building is obvuously still broken
is anyone trying to fix this? or is the reason known?

will it be possible to build a WINDOWS simulator with coLinux? that way we could compile with colinux but test in windows *g*

[AlexP]

Hi,

Thanks for your detailed feedback - could you put it on the wiki page to help future co-Linux adventurers?

will it be possible to build a WINDOWS simulator with coLinux? that way we could compile with colinux but test in windows *g*

I don't see why not.  However, if you just want a SVN sim with no patches, take a look at http://www.rasher.dk/rockbox/simulator/

[soap]

When you edit the wiki - please make it a new section on the same page.  Outside SDL issues / Sim building the older version of coLinux works.  Perhaps it is time for an interested party to create a fully working distro of a newer version?