changeset 1321:4c0a2018502c

Clean up old references to impactlinux.com, add a FAQ explaining why that site went away, and start the long and winding process of redoing documentation.hmtl.
author Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
date Fri, 07 Jan 2011 01:15:01 -0600
parents c93eb8e54015
children 39830acaaf90
files www/FAQ.html www/about.html www/documentation.html www/news.html
diffstat 4 files changed, 82 insertions(+), 73 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/www/FAQ.html	Mon Jan 03 02:08:33 2011 -0600
+++ b/www/FAQ.html	Fri Jan 07 01:15:01 2011 -0600
@@ -38,6 +38,8 @@
 <li><p><a href=#ubuntu_mispackaged_qemu>Q: ./run-emulator.sh says qemu-system-mips isn't found, but I installed qemu.  Why isn't this working?</a></p></li>
 
 <li><p><a href=#windows>Q: Do you care about windows?</a></p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=#impactlinux>Q: What happened to impactlinux.com?</a></p></li>
 </ul>
 </ul>
 
@@ -87,9 +89,9 @@
 
 <p>To grab the latest development version of the build scripts out of the
 source control system, go to the
-<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal>mercurial archive</a>.
+<a href=/hg/aboriginal>mercurial archive</a>.
 If you don't want to install mercurial, you can grab a
-<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal/archive/tip.tar.bz2>tarball</a> of the current code at
+<a href=/hg/aboriginal/archive/tip.tar.bz2>tarball</a> of the current code at
 any time.</p>
 </li>
 
@@ -574,7 +576,16 @@
 act involving ceremonial headgear and animal sacrifice just to get it to
 fail the same way twice.</p>
 
+<hr /><a name=impactlinux /><h2>Q: What happened to impactlinux.com?</h2>
 
+<p>In 2007 Mark Miller and I set up a small Linux consulting company,
+but after a couple years (and the recession at the end of the second
+Bush administration) we went on to other things.</p>
+
+<p>I kept the project hosted on the impactlinux.com website (which was
+higher bandwidth than landley.net), but Mark shut down the website in
+2010 when the corporation expired.  Due to a miscommunication, this caught
+me by surprise, and the mailing list archives and subscribers were lost.<p>
 
 <!--#include file="footer.html" -->
 </html>
--- a/www/about.html	Mon Jan 03 02:08:33 2011 -0600
+++ b/www/about.html	Fri Jan 07 01:15:01 2011 -0600
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
 
 </blockquote>
 
-<b><h1><a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal>Development</a></h1></b>
+<b><h1><a href=http://landley.net/hg/aboriginal>Development</a></h1></b>
 <blockquote>
 
 <table border=1><tr><td bgcolor="#c0c0ff">
@@ -183,15 +183,14 @@
 dependencies.  Each layer can be either omitted or replaced with something
 else.  The list of layers is in the <a href=README>source README</a>.</p>
 
-<p>The project maintains a <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal>development repository</a>
+<p>The project maintains a <a href=http://landley.net/hg/aboriginal>development repository</a>
 using the Mercurial source control system.  This includes RSS feeds for
-<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal/rss-log>each checkin</a>
-and for <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/aboriginal/rss-tags>new releases</a>.</p>
+<a href=http://landley.net/hg/aboriginal/rss-log>each checkin</a>
+and for <a href=http://landley.net/hg/aboriginal/rss-tags>new releases</a>.</p>
 
 <p>Questions about Aboriginal Linux should be addressed to the project's
-<a href=http://lists.impactlinux.com/listinfo.cgi/firmware-impactlinux.com>mailing
-list</a>, or the IRC channel #edev on irc.freenode.org.  The project
-maintainer's <a href=http://landley.net/notes.html>blog</a> often includes
+maintainer (rob at landley dot net), who has a
+<a href=http://landley.net/notes.html>blog</a> that often includes
 notes about ongoing Aboriginal Linux development.</p>
 </blockquote>
 
--- a/www/documentation.html	Mon Jan 03 02:08:33 2011 -0600
+++ b/www/documentation.html	Fri Jan 07 01:15:01 2011 -0600
@@ -1,41 +1,44 @@
 <!--#include file="header.html" -->
 
-<h1>Documentation for Firmware Linux</h1>
+<h1>Documentation for Aboriginal Linux</h1>
 
 <ul>
-<li><a href="#what_is_it">What is Firmware Linux?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#what_is_it">What is Aboriginal Linux?</a></li>
 <li><a href="#how_system_image">How do I use system images?</a></li>
 <li><a href="#how_build_source">How do I build my own customized system images from source code?</a></li>
-<li><a href="#how_implemented">How is Firmware Linux implemented?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#how_implemented">How is Aboriginal Linux implemented?</a></li>
 <li><a href="#why">Why do things this way?</a></li>
 <li><a href="#new_platform">Adding a new target platform</a></li>
 </ul>
 
 <hr />
-<a name="what_is_it"><h1>What is Firmware Linux?</h1></a>
+<a name="what_is_it"><h1>What is Aboriginal Linux?</h1></a>
 
-<p>Firmware Linux is a toolkit for building custom virtual machines.
+<p>Aboriginal Linux is a toolkit for building custom virtual machines.
 It lets you boot virtual PowerPC, ARM, MIPS and other exotic systems
 on your x86 laptop, and do development in them.</p>
 
-<p>The name "Firmware Linux" reflects FWL's origins as a tool for
-embedded development. It provides an easy way to get started with
-that, building your own code against uClibc and testing it on various
-hardware platforms. But it has other uses as well, including
-cross-platform regression testing, portability auditing, and toolchain
-debugging.</p>
+<p>The name "Aboriginal Linux" describes the project's goal of bootstrapping
+a new Linux for a new target, doing all the cross compiling necessary to
+transition to fully native development in the new environment.  This new
+Linux system can then be upgraded or replaced in-situ.</p>
 
-<p>This documentation uses the name "Firmware Linux" (or abbreviation
-"FWL") to refer to the <a href=downloads>build system</a>, and calls
-the output of the build a "<a
-href=downloads/binaries>system image</a>".  The build
-system is implemented as a series of bash scripts and configuration
-files which compile a Linux development environment for the specified
-target system and package it into a bootable binary image.</p>
+<p>Aboriginal Linux provides an easy way to get started with embedded
+development.  It also lets you build your own code against uClibc and
+test it on various hardware platforms, and even perform
+cross-platform regression testing or portability auditing.</p>
+
+<p>This documentation uses the name "Aboriginal Linux"
+to refer to the <a href=downloads>build system</a> consisting of a series
+of bash scripts and configurationo files which download and compile software.
+The output of that build system is referred to as a "<a
+href=downloads/binaries>system image</a>".  The build system
+compiles a Linux development environment for the specified
+target system, and packages it into a bootable binary system image.</p>
 
 <p>The base development environment is built from seven source
 packages: busybox, uClibc, gcc, binutils, make, bash, and the Linux
-kernel.  This is the smallest environment that can rebuild itself
+kernel.  This is the smallest and simplest environment that can rebuild itself
 entirely from source code, and thus the minimum a host system must
 cross compile in order to create a fully independent native
 development environment for a target.</p>
@@ -46,28 +49,28 @@
 commodity PC hardware.  You can then build and install additional
 packages (zlib, bison, openssl...) within the virtual machine's native
 development environment, without having to do any additional cross
-compiling.</p>
+compiling.  Several <a href=downloads/binaries/control-images>build control
+images</a> are provided to automate this task, and you're welcome to
+create your own from those examples.</p>
 
-<p>FWL currently includes full support for arm, mips, powerpc, x86,
+<p>Aboriginal Linux currently includes full support for arm, mips, powerpc, x86,
 x86-64 targets, and several other more exotic platforms; see the <a
 href=screenshots>screenshots page</a> for a complete list.  The goal
-for the FWL 1.0 release is to support every target QEMU can emulate in
-"system" mode.</p>
+project is to support every target QEMU can emulate in "system" mode.</p>
 
-<p>Firmware Linux is licensed under GPL version 2.  Its component packages are
+<p>Aboriginal Linux is licensed under GPL version 2.  Its component packages are
 redistributed under their respective licenses (mostly GPL and LGPL).</p>
 
 <h2>Optional extras</h2>
 
 <p>Intermediate stages of the build (such as the cross compiler and the
-unpackaged root filesystem directory) may also be useful to Linux developers,
+the raw root filesystem directory) may also be useful to Linux developers,
 so tarballs of them are saved during the build.</p>
 
-<p>By default the build cross-compiles some optional extra packages (toybox,
-distcc, uClibc++) and preinstalls them into the target filesystem.  This is
+<p>By default the build cross-compiles some optional extra packages (distcc
+and uClibc++) and preinstalls them into the target filesystem.  This is
 just a convenience; these packages build and install natively within the
-minimal development system image just fine.<!-- TODO: experimentally confirm
-that, make it configurable, add genext2fs and strace to the list? -->)</p>
+minimal development system image just fine.</p>
 
 <hr />
 <a name="how_system_image"><h1>Using system images</h1></a>
@@ -81,14 +84,14 @@
 <h2>system-image-*.tar.bz2</h2>
 
 <p>System images boot a complete linux system under an emulator.  Each
-system-image tarball contains an ext2 root filesystem image, a Linux kernel
-configured to run under the emulator <a href=http://bellard.org/qemu/>QEMU</a>,
-and scripts launch the virtual system under the emulator in various
+system-image tarball contains a squashfs root filesystem image, a Linux kernel
+configured to run under the emulator <a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a>,
+and scripts to launch the virtual system under the emulator in various
 configurations.</p>
 
 <p>The steps to test boot a system image under QEMU are:</p>
 <ul>
-<li>install QEMU 0.12.4 or later</li>
+<li>install QEMU</li>
 <li>download the appropriate <a href=downloads/binaries>prebuilt binary tarball</a>
 for the target you're interested in</li>
 <li>extract it: <b>tar -xvjf system-image-$TARGET.tar.bz2</b></li>
@@ -100,18 +103,23 @@
 the emulated Linux's /dev/console hooked to stdin and stdout of the emulator
 process.  (I.E. the shell prompt the script gives you after the boot messages
 scroll past is for a shell running inside the emulator.  This lets you pipe
-the output of other programs into the emulator, and capture the emulator's
-output.)</p>
+the output of other programs into the emulator, capture the emulator's
+output with "tee", cut and paste in the terminal window, etc.)</p>
 
 <p>Type "cat /proc/cpuinfo" to confirm you're running in the emulator, then
 play around and have fun.  Type "exit" when done.</p></li>
 
-<p>Inside a system image, you generally wget source code from some URL and
-compile it.  (For example, you can wget the FWL build, extract it, and run it
-inside one of its own system images to trivially prove it can rebuild itself.)
-If you run a web server on your host's loopback interface, you an access it
-inside QEMU using the special address "10.0.2.2".  Example build scripts
-are available in the /usr/src directory.</p>
+<p>Inside a system image, you generally wget a source code package from a URL
+and compile it.  (You can even wget the Aboriginal Linux build scripts and
+run them inside one of the system images to trivially prove the project
+can rebuild itself.)</p>
+
+<p>Inside QEMU you can access the host system's loopback interface using the
+special address "10.0.2.2".  The build control images use this to run
+busybox's FTP server on the host's loopack address, allowing the system
+image to upload its results to the host at the end of the build.  You can
+also run web servers and ssh servers on the host's loopback, and the system
+image can connect to them.</p>
 
 <h3>Extra space and speed</h3>
 
@@ -478,16 +486,7 @@
 
 <li><p><b>PREFERRED_MIRROR</b> - Tells download.sh to try to download
 packages from this URL first, before falling back to the normal mirror list.
-For example, "PREFERRED_MIRROR=http://impactlinux.com/fwl/mirror".</p></li>
-
-<li><p><b>USE_TOYBOX</b> - Tells the host-tools.sh and mini-native.sh to
-install the <a href=http://impactlinux.com/code/toybox>toybox</a> implementation
-of commands (where available) instead of the busybox versions.  This is an
-alternate (simpler) implementation of many commands.</p>
-
-<p>Currently FWL always uses the toybox "patch" command, because the busybox
-version can't apply patches at offsets.</p>
-</li>
+For example, "PREFERRED_MIRROR=http://landley.net/aboriginal/mirror".</p></li>
 
 <li><p><b>USE_UNSTABLE</b> - Lists packages to build alternate "unstable"
 versions for.</p>
@@ -727,7 +726,7 @@
 source package to fetch.  If this source tarball cannot be fetched from this
 location, the download function tries to download the file from a series of
 fallback mirrors (stored in the variable MIRROR_LIST, set in include.sh).
-The primary mirror is http://impactlinux.com/firmware/mirror
+The primary mirror is http://landley.net/aboriginal/mirror
 which should have every source tarball used by the build.</p></li>
 
 <p>The package name is the filename at the end of URL minus any version
--- a/www/news.html	Mon Jan 03 02:08:33 2011 -0600
+++ b/www/news.html	Fri Jan 07 01:15:01 2011 -0600
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 <p>It's a month late, but
 <a href=downloads/aboriginal-1.0.1.tar.bz2>Aboriginal Linux 1.0.1</a> is
 finally out,
-based on <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/1318>hg commit
+based on <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/1318>hg commit
 1318</a>, using Linux 2.6.36, uClibc 0.9.31, and BusyBox 1.18.0.</p>
 
 <b><h3>Automated native build control images</h3></b>
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@
 out to do.  And thus:</p>
 
 <p><a href=downloads/aboriginal-1.0.0.tar.bz2>Aboriginal Linux 1.0</a> is out,
-based on <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/1238>hg commit
+based on <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/1238>hg commit
 1238</a>, using Linux 2.6.35, uClibc 0.9.31, and BusyBox 1.17.2.</p>
 
 <p>Yes, it's been over five months since the last release.  I didn't want to
@@ -389,7 +389,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name="05-02-2010" />May 2, 2010</h2>
 <p>The name of the project is changing from Firmware Linux to Aboriginal
-Linux.  The new URL is "http://impactlinux.com/aboriginal".</p>
+Linux.  The new URL is "http://landley.net/aboriginal".</p>
 
 <p>Some reasons to move away from the old name are
 <a href=http://lists.impactlinux.com/pipermail/firmware-impactlinux.com/2009-October/000374.html>listed here</a>,
@@ -402,7 +402,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name="03-29-2010" />March 29, 2010</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.11.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.11</a> is out,
-based on <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/1020>hg commit
+based on <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/1020>hg commit
 1020</a>.  We're closing in on a 1.0 release, but not quite there yet.</p>
 
 <p>This version upgrades to Linux 2.6.33, uClibc 0.9.30.3, and BusyBox
@@ -515,7 +515,7 @@
 <h2><a name="02-02-2010" />February 2, 2010</h2>
 
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.10.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.10</a> is out,
-based on <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/966>hg
+based on <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/966>hg
 commit 966</a>.</p>
 
 <p>Yeah, I know 1.0 is overdue for a release, here's a resync point
@@ -551,7 +551,7 @@
 time and instead autodetecting the presence of libgcc_s.so vs libgcc.a
 and behaving appropriately.  A largeish cleanup/refactoring of the compiler
 build (described in
-<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/944>commit 944</a>)
+<a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/944>commit 944</a>)
 added a new "native-compiler.sh" script, which handles building the
 improved "cross-compiler" tarball that includes thread support and
 uClibc++ and is statically linked against uClibc on the host.
@@ -579,7 +579,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name="12-08-2009" />December 8, 2009</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.9.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.9</a> is out,
-based on <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/921>hg commit 921</a>.</p>
+based on <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/921>hg commit 921</a>.</p>
 
 <p>Just a checkpoint on the way to 1.0, which is still planned for
 around new years, but there's been some schedule slippage already.</p>
@@ -649,7 +649,7 @@
 <h2><a name=11-07-2009 />November 7, 2009</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.8.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.8</a> is out,
 based on hg commit 876.  (If you want to see all the changes in this release,
-look at <a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/shortlog/876>commits 810 through 876</a>.)</p>
+look at <a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/876>commits 810 through 876</a>.)</p>
 
 <p.The current plan is to cut one more release at the end of the month, and
 then have the 1.0 release around new year's.  This could be considered a
@@ -823,7 +823,7 @@
 release notes are a bit long.</p>
 
 <p>This release is based on
-<a href=http://impactlinux.com/hg/firmware/log/807>mercurial version 807</a>
+<a href=/hg/firmware/log/807>mercurial version 807</a>
 of the build scripts,
 and includes <b>Linux 2.6.30.4</b> and <b>BusyBox 1.14.3</b>.
 No new uClibc release is out since last time.</p>
@@ -1179,7 +1179,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name=08-06-2008 />August 6, 2008</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.9.0.tar.bz2>Version 0.9.0</a> is out
-(<a href=http://landley.net/hg/firmware/shortlog/378>changeset 378</a>)
+(<a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/378>changeset 378</a>)
 and can rebuild itself under itself.  (The packaging step still requires User
 Mode Linux to create ext2 images, which only works on x86 and x86-64 hosts.
 The next release should replace that with something more portable.)
@@ -1232,7 +1232,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name=06-06-2008 />June 6, 2008</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.4.0.tar.bz2>Version 0.4.0</a> is out
-(<a href=http://landley.net/hg/firmware/shortlog/345>changeset 345</a>),
+(<a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/345>changeset 345</a>),
 with kernel 2.6.25.4 and the "distcc trick" working out of the box.</p>
 
 <p>The distcc trick accelerates a native build by calling out to the
@@ -1265,7 +1265,7 @@
 <hr>
 <h2><a name=01-29-2008 />January 29, 2008</h2>
 <p><a href=downloads/firmware-0.3.1.tar.bz2>Version 0.3.1</a> is out
-(<a href=http://landley.net/hg/firmware/shortlog/275>changeset 275</a>), with
+(<a href=/hg/firmware/shortlog/275>changeset 275</a>), with
 kernel 2.6.24.  The <a href=downloads/images>images</a>
 are now tarballs each containing the ext2, zImage, and run script files.
 The run scripts now run qemu-setup.sh by default so /proc, /sys, /dev