On Feb 14, 2007, at 1:17 PM, gerwin van der kruis wrote:

> Op woensdag 14-02-2007 om 12:53 uur [tijdzone -1000], schreef Jim
> Thompson:
>
>> And I'm willing to throw cash, hardware and time at this.
>>
>> Yes, we sell WRAP boards, but I'm not looking to get a bunch-o-free
>> development out of the process.  (We sell a Gateworks ixp42x board
>> too, just to be perfectly honest.)
>>
>> Years ago, I ran (and owned) 'musenki' (google for it or look here:
>> http://he-colo.netgate.com/~jim/Musenki/.  We had build a  set of
>> Motorola 8245/8241 boards, and I'd made linux run on them.  I
>> remember spending a horrific amount of time with a (very) early
>> version of "buildroot".  OE is so much more sophisticated that I'm a
>> bit taken aback.
>>
>> The OE learning curve is still quite steep, but I think it would be
>> less steep with a) a bit more documentation and b) an EZ way to start
>> creating "little distros" that
>> run on PCs using it.
>
> I remember we had this discussion before , the problem is the
> bootloader, for example grub requires some extra handlings to get
> installed probarly.

There appears to be a decent start on "here are the set of steps"  
here: http://kbarr.net/bochs

(I've only recently discovered this.)

> I also experimented a bit with disk on modules which were much
> faster than the compact flash and much cheaper as well.

Its hard to beat $9 (what we pay for 128MB CF), but if you know of a  
source, I'm all ears.

> I think if you write a script which automate the installation of for
> example grub and than copies automatically the files over to cf you  
> are
> finished , I did it once long time ago for an embedded voip pabx.

I once made 'lilo' work with a buildroot-based system.  The makefile  
is attached.

I never could get 'grub' to do the same thing, though I prefer grub  
to lilo.

> As Koen said I am working on x86 projects like wifi-radio (with a
> mini-itx board and some small additions) a set top box and a thin
> client.So we are working on it !!

Is the wifi-radio tree available anywhere?

> I will have a look if I still can find the software I made that time
> for putting the image directly on the flash (I wrote it to produce  
> some
> goods)

thanks

Jim