Need some advise to begin programming on ARM (with linux) platform

Question

Hi everybody, I will have (maybe) to work soon on ARM platform hosting a linux distribution (I don't know which distribution ..).

I know the project concerns video streaming, but I can't tell you more. Actually I only received the announe, and meet nobody yet.

I've never worked on such platform. So the idea for me is to test before the project starts.

What would you advise me to undestand how works such platform ? Internet links? Tutorials? Tools

Morevover, as I don't have any ARM processor at home (well only my iPhone ..) Which virtual machine would you advise me? (I clearly don't want to lose time installing and testing every one of them.)

I am aware of this page on wikipedia. Which one is the more appropriate running on a MacOS X 10.5/intel platform? Which linux distribution to install on the virtual machine?

I know the topic is quite wide, so any idea is welcomed! :-)

Answer 1

I can't answer all of your questions, but there's a full port of Debian GNU/Linux on ARM. Works fabulously in my experience (I've tried it on a QNAP). Everything that's available in Debian works on QNAP now! So it's probably easiest to first try Debian tools and packages that come close to your project, and then continue from there.

Answer 2

For a virtual machine that can emulate a ARM platform try QEMU. You can install a ARM-based Debian Linux distribution and tinker around with it. A google search on ARM, QEMU and Debian will get you started.

Also: Don't worry to much about the ARM CPU. You will use linux, so all the low-level stuff is already done for you. It's much more important to learn how the linux boot process works. How to install stuff ect. You will rarely (if ever) notice that you're running on a ARM device. The big difference to a PC running linux is, that the ARM will be a lot slower.

If you're looking for a real piece of hardware to play around with I suggest that you take a look at the beagleboard (www.beagleboard.org). It's cheap (around $150) and runs (among other things) various linux distributions.

With the beagleboard you'll get the whole linux cross compilation experience if you want (be warned: you'll pull your hair out).