[MiNT] RPM based distro, cross-tools

[Paul Wratt <paul.wratt@gmail.com>]

I have finally got around to creating Vincents cross-tools for PCLinuxOS.

(after a lot of needless fuss), since they are straight .deb->.rpm
convertions of the i386 binary packages, they will work with any other
Mandiva based distro, and probably with most RPM based distros as
well..

Due to the limitations of the servers I use, I am unable to host the
required repo (that make it easier to get the rpm's). Vincent has
offered room on his server. The repos has been tested, so it is just a
matter of getting it over to the server..

However, this does bring up a couple of questions and issues.
1) Vincents bandwidth is throttled (the ubuntu repos is large
particularly gcc source package)
2) the RPM conversions does not contain a set of .SRC.RPM packages (to
keep the size of the repo down)
3) most distros now default to i686 (not i386, which means there
should be specific packages available
4) I intend to supply a set of "cross-libs" RPM's to compliment the
"cross-tools"
5) I also intend to build the cross-tools for Slackware, the OS used
by AFROS LiveCD

1st off, are there many people who would use the RPM based cross-tools
(PCLinuxOS is a Mandriva based distro)

2nd, are there any other distros that are supplying either Vincent's
or there own cross-tools

3rdly, a need to test the cross-tools and their associated packages is
need by compiling some C code (mintlib, pml, etc), and running a
script to test the binaries (mintbin, etc)

In part answer to the last point, there are already a few items
available that can be used to test the gnu parts, but there is nothing
for the lib and atarist/mint specific parts. A test suite would have
greatly helped out with the recent (christmas) fixes to mintlib, and
would allow better quality control of other MiNT/GEM specific
libraries

As for the first two point, if the is yes, then it begs the question:
"should there be a place on the current servers to these and future repos"

If there is seen no need for that specifically, I still think that
there is a need for at least a web presence specifically to deal with
cross-tool (and by extension, cross-lib) specifics. Then there is the
use of certain tools and emulators that can allow those cross-tools to
be used natively (or similar)

With v4e support just around the corner, the above makes even more
sense (to me any way)

The amount of dead links on the internet, related to Atari ST, MiNT,
and other bits and pieces, have been building in number over the last
few (10) years, and I have managed to source some old web sites, plus
some other (newer) sites that have also gone from existence in the
last 12 months

This just means that I could kept some stuff on my servers, Vincent on
his, etc, but at any moment, one or more could disappear without
notice, and since the above pertains to the future of MiNT, and Atari
ST based development, it makes sense to have it placed on the servers
that have the other parts already there..

So, speak up, some ideas would be good, maybe even resurrecting the
freemint.de site and URL would be the right way to go..



Paul