reference for building x window system

[LBdgWgt]

hi all,

i am making a project concerning building small linux system on a CF card.
so far i made the basic system until terminal console based on the book "Building Embedded Linux System" by Karim Yaghmour.

Now i must continue with building the X windows system. has anyone tried this before for small embedded system? any suggestion for a good reference?

thanks,

 

[Anno]

never tried it before. but you'll need to read up an using the basics.
read up on xserver, how it is initialised and how it communicates with the standard input and output and other hardware. then look for a GUI that will suit your CF needs. I would recommend looking into WMaker or Xfce or other small interface, not KDE or gnome.

 

[LBdgWgt]

thanks for the reply.

do you mean X from X.org or Xfree86? which one is more common? if i'm not mistaken those two are the most common one right? do you have any suggestion for a book about it?

i am thinking also to use the icewm window manager. what do you think?#

thanks again,

 

[Anno]

As far as I know Xfree is fasing out and Xorg is taking over. So if you use one of the two, use Xorg.

There exist monochrome xservers as well and other less supported xservers.

Icewm is a good one to use. it uses a less cache than the big guns.

And remember to enable your system to have full access to port 6000 since xserver reads and writes to it by default.

 

[LBdgWgt]

thanks for the tips

actually i dont have experience at all for this graphical computer things on linux.
can anyone give some suggestion for a good book/reference for it? i looked at amazon for books about x windows. most of them are about 10 years old. are these book still a good option to start?

thanks before

 

[Anno]

how the system operates and its connectivity with the rest of the system is still the same. So those books are still good. but read the man pages first.
look at the man pages for xserver, xinit, X and anything relating to it.

on a normal system it would be installing the xserver, making it run as deamon. install icewm and edit its config files to your liking, edit the .xinitrc file in the user's home directory to start up icewm. and start X with startx or xinit

good luck

 

[LBdgWgt]

hi,

so i downloaded X.org version X11R6.8.2.

the only installation guide i can found is from the site.
it seems that when i run "make world" it compiles everything, and anyway it ended with error. maybe i should try another version of the source.

how can i configure the installation, so the size will be quiet small? from an article found in the internet :

https://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9202043619.html

it says that it is possible to create X windows system with the size 5MB RAM and 16MB disk. and clues how to do it?

thanks for the help.

 

[louisnells]

Hi,
You have to use the X.org interface for graphics. Because as far as I know most graphic utilities uses them as the base.

So you have to set the runtime environment for X.org utils on CF. Then you can program with the X.org libraries. This will be a difficult thing to do. I have seen media players like MPlayers using these X.org interface and it seemed too low level to me.

So you may use a layer above X.org interface. For example try with SDL libraries. This will be a better option because you will able to use many things other than just graphics though SDL (mouse, CD-Drive, Network, ...). Check with www.libsdl.org.

So you have to compile X.org inteface and SDL library on PC. Then remove all development stuff like header files. And use only runtime support files on to CF.

 

[LBdgWgt]

I am using the X11R6.7.0. and I am planning to do:
- make the shadow directory build using lndir command
- configure the host.def file
- build the X windows:

make CROSSCOMPILEDIR=<PATH_TO_CROSS_COMPILER> World

- install to the CF card (supposed it is mounted on /mnt/cf):

make install DESTDIR=/mnt/cfcan i do this?

i read the BLFS guide, but one question is that which documents should i refer to, if i want to configure the host.def file? where can i find the complete options for this configuration file to tweak my application (the options of configuration that i can put inside the host.def file)?

thanks,