ARM64

The build system supports building for multiple CPU architectures in the same directory tree. Building for i686 or aarch64 only requires that you set the ARCH environment variable to the correct value. Normally, you would do this in .config, but you can also do this temporarily with the make ARCH=aarch64 command, in the shell environment (export ARCH=aarch64) or with the build.sh script.

(ARM64 has limited support)

First Time Build

Bootstrap Pre-Requisites and Download Sources

Follow the instructions for running bootstrap.sh to setup your environment, read the Building Redox page or the Podman Build page.

Install QEMU

The ARM64 emulator is not installed by bootstrap.sh. You can add it like this:
Pop!_OS/Ubuntu/Debian)

sudo apt-get install qemu-system-aarch64

Install Additional Tools To Build And Run ARM 64-bit Redox OS Image

sudo apt-get install u-boot-tools qemu-system-arm qemu-efi

Configuration Values

Before your first build, be sure to set the ARCH variable in .config to your CPU architecture type, in this case aarch64. You can change several other configurable settings, such as the filesystem contents, etc. See Configuration Settings.

Add packages to the filesystem.

You can add programs to the filesystem by following the instructions here.

Advanced Users

For more details on the build process, please read the Advanced Build page.

Compiling Redox

Now we have:

  • Downloaded the sources
  • Set the ARCH to aarch64
  • Selected a filesystem config, e.g. desktop
  • Tweaked the settings to our liking
  • Probably added our recipe to the filesystem

We are ready to build the a Redox image.

Building an image for emulation

cd ~/tryredox/redox

This command will create the image, e.g. build/aarch64/desktop/harddrive.img, which you can run with an emulator. See Running Redox.

time make all

Give it a while. Redox is big.

Read this section to know what the command above does.

Cleaning Previous Build Cycles

Cleaning Intended For Rebuilding Core Packages And Entire System

When you need to rebuild core-packages like relibc, gcc and related tools, clean the entire previous build cycle with:

cd ~/tryredox/redox/

rm -rf prefix/aarch64-unknown-redox/relibc-install/ cookbook/recipes/gcc/{build,sysroot,stage*} build/aarch64/*/{harddrive.img,livedisk.iso}

Cleaning Intended For Only Rebuilding Non-Core Package(s)

If you're only rebuilding a non-core package, you can partially clean the previous build cycle just enough to force the rebuilding of the Non-Core Package:

cd ~/tryredox/redox/

rm build/aarch64/*/{fetch.tag,harddrive.img}

Running Redox

To open QEMU, run:

make qemu kvm=no vga=no

This should boot to Redox. The desktop GUI will be disabled, but you will be prompted to login to the Redox console.

QEMU Tap For Network Testing

Expose Redox to other computers within a LAN. Configure QEMU with a "TAP" which will allow other computers to test Redox client/server/networking capabilities.

Join the chat if this is something you are interested in pursuing.

Note

If you encounter any bugs, errors, obstructions, or other annoying things, please send a message in the chat or report the issue on GitLab. Thanks!