Working with i686
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
Make variable to the correct value. Normally, you would do this in .config, but you can also do this temporarily with the make ARCH=i686
command, in the shell environment (export ARCH=i686
) or with the build.sh script.
First Time Build
Bootstrap Pre-Requisites And Download Sources
Follow the instructions for running bootstrap.sh to setup your environment - Building Redox or Podman Build.
Install QEMU
The i386 emulator is not installed by bootstrap.sh
. You can add it like this:
(Pop!_OS/Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt-get install qemu-system-i386
Configuration Values
Before your first build, be sure to set the ARCH
variable in .config to your architecture type, in this case i686
. 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 Advanced Build.
Compiling Redox
Now we have:
- Downloaded the sources
- Set the
ARCH
environment variable toi686
- Selected a filesystem configuration, e.g.
desktop
- Tweaked the settings to our liking
- Probably added our recipes to the filesystem
We are ready to build a Redox image.
Building an image for emulation
cd ~/tryredox/redox
This command will create the image, e.g. build/i686/desktop/harddrive.img
, which you can run with an emulator. See Running Redox.
time make all
Building A Bootable Redox Image
cd ~/tryredox/redox
- The following command will create the file
build/i686/desktop/livedisk.iso
, which can be copied to a USB device or CD for testing or installation. See Running Redox on real hardware.
time make live
Give it a while. Redox is big.
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/i686-unknown-redox/relibc-install/ cookbook/recipes/gcc/{build,sysroot,stage*} build/i686/*/{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/i686/*/{fetch.tag,harddrive.img}
Running Redox
Running The Redox Desktop
To open QEMU, run:
make qemu
This should open up a QEMU window, booting to Redox.
If it does not work, disable KVM with:
make qemu kvm=no
or:
make qemu iommu=no
If this doesn't work either, you should go open an issue.
Running The Redox Console Only
We disable to GUI desktop by passing the vga=no
option. The following disables the graphics support and welcomes you with the Redox console:
make qemu vga=no
It's useful to run the console in order to capture the output from the non-GUI programs.
It helps to debug applications and share the console captured logs with other developers in the Redox community.
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!