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Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015

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  Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2015-09-14 16:10 +0200
    Re: [Debian-uk] Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Paul Waring <paul@xk7.net> - 2015-09-14 17:00 +0200
      Re: [Debian-uk] Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2015-10-07 19:30 +0200
    Re: Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Edward Lukacs <lukacsem@verizon.net> - 2015-09-14 18:10 +0200
      Re: Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2015-09-14 18:30 +0200
    Re: Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015 Marcelo Gutierrez <mmgc84@gmail.com> - 2015-10-12 15:50 +0200

#8259 — Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015

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Hi!

As so many people have been asking for it, I've decided to organise
another mini-DebConf in Cambridge this year. Again, my employer ARM is
going to host the conference for 4 days in November:

 * 2 days for a mini-DebCamp (Thu 5 - Fri 6), with space for dedicated
   development / sprint / team meetings for up to 40 people

 * 2 days for a more regular mini-conf (Sat 7 - Sun 8) with space for
   more general talks, up to 100 people

I'm also hoping to find sponsors again to cover some other costs for
the conference for things like food - please contact me if you can
help!

I'm expecting that we will end up discussing and working on the arm
ports and other ARM-related topics at the very least, but there's also
plenty of scope for other subjects for both sprint work and
talks.

For more details and to sign up to attend, please visit the wiki page
at

  https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/gb/2015/MiniDebConfCambridge

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
"We're the technical experts.  We were hired so that management could
 ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs."  -- Mike Andrews

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#8260 — Re: [Debian-uk] Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015

On 14/09/15 15:08, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> I'm also hoping to find sponsors again to cover some other costs for
> the conference for things like food - please contact me if you can
> help!

I probably can't justify the cost of attending, but I'm happy to chip in
£100 towards sponsoring the event and have it go towards whatever you
feel is appropriate (food, speaker expenses etc.)

Paul

[not on debian-project so please CC me if replying]

-- 
Paul Waring
Freelance consultant
http://www.pwaring.com

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#8285 — Re: [Debian-uk] Mini-DebConf in Cambridge, UK - November 5-8 2015

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 03:24:03PM +0100, Paul Waring wrote:
>On 14/09/15 15:08, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>> I'm also hoping to find sponsors again to cover some other costs for
>> the conference for things like food - please contact me if you can
>> help!
>
>I probably can't justify the cost of attending, but I'm happy to chip in
>£100 towards sponsoring the event and have it go towards whatever you
>feel is appropriate (food, speaker expenses etc.)

Hi Paul!

Thanks for your awesome offer of sponsorship! I've deliberately hung
back before replying to see what I could come up with in terms of
corporate sponsorship offers first. I'd rather spend company money in
preference, and leave Debian users with their money for important
things like beer if I can... :-)

As it happens, I *have* received enough offers to cover all the costs
we're expecting for the miniconf (see the page if you're interested!)
so you don't need to help us. But please accept my heart-felt
gratitude for the offer in any case - it's really appreciated!

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back

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#8261

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Dear Mr, McIntyre,

I would not normally waste your time, as I am far from an ARM developer,
but I am a retired UNIX/Linux/HP RTE-A sysop/lan/wan/IS manager since
1988.  I currently have two ARM devices, a Genesi Smarttop (running Kali
Linux at present) and a ENY EKB328 (quad-core Rockchip RK3288)  settop
box.  I am comfortable with the Smarttop and I have just begun to use
the settop box which, unfortunately is loaded with Android 4.4.

My problem is that while I understand the PC's BIOS very well, as well
as the equivalents in UNIX such as the 64 but Alpha's SRM, I can find no
reliable, readable information about the basics of the 32 bit ARM chips'
equivalent, if indeed it exists, or about any reliable method of loading
Linux or BSD to replace the really terrible Android without bricking my
new box. (Not that it would kill me, for it cost 80 dollars!) 
Apparentl;y, there is nothing like the open architecture model that made
IBM's PC such a universal success.

For people like me, it would be a huge service if ARM could publish some
more basic information about the fundamentals of booting.  I am learning
about uboot, but it is a generic bootloader and I have no idea how it
fits when working with an ARM-based system.

Once I understand how to load and hopefully, to unbrick my settop box, I
will happily work at it until I get a Linux distribution, probably
Slackware-based, and if not Deebian or Kali to boot and run, and to
debug it as much as possible.  I began with HP's RTE-A in 1986 and as a
sysop from 1987-2000. I instlled and ran QNX 2,x in 1988, the qnx4 and
QNX6.  I have run BeOS and Haiku, BSD, Kolibri, on PCs, and I am an
early Linux user (1994, Kernel 0.91), so I am not afraid of a bit of
struggle.

After deal with Alpha and PA-RISC in my daily work and seeing what the
Genesi Smarttop cand do, I am convinced that ARM is the desktop of the
future,  and that Intel and similar complex instruction sets are
dinosaurs waiting to disappear.   In  fact my next laptop will hopefully
be a 64 bit ARM system with a 15> screen, when and if they become available.

Once again, I want to apologise for taking up your time, bu/t /I really
feel that those of us in the middle ground, between skilled developers
and know-nothing users, need some basic data and support if we are to
migrate to ARM.

Sincerely,
Edward Lukacs
Georgetown, Delaware, USA

On 09/14/2015 10:08 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> Hi!
>
> As so many people have been asking for it, I've decided to organise
> another mini-DebConf in Cambridge this year. Again, my employer ARM is
> going to host the conference for 4 days in November:
>
>  * 2 days for a mini-DebCamp (Thu 5 - Fri 6), with space for dedicated
>    development / sprint / team meetings for up to 40 people
>
>  * 2 days for a more regular mini-conf (Sat 7 - Sun 8) with space for
>    more general talks, up to 100 people
>
> I'm also hoping to find sponsors again to cover some other costs for
> the conference for things like food - please contact me if you can
> help!
>
> I'm expecting that we will end up discussing and working on the arm
> ports and other ARM-related topics at the very least, but there's also
> plenty of scope for other subjects for both sprint work and
> talks.
>
> For more details and to sign up to attend, please visit the wiki page
> at
>
>   https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/gb/2015/MiniDebConfCambridge
>

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#8262

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Edward Lukacs wrote:

> For people like me, it would be a huge service if ARM could publish some
> more basic information about the fundamentals of booting.  I am learning
> about uboot, but it is a generic bootloader and I have no idea how it fits
> when working with an ARM-based system.

The basics of booting on ARM is that the CPU has a bootrom that loads
further stage bootloaders that eventually load an OS. The details of
these are dependent on the CPU and the device in question. Some
devices will have locked bootloaders, others will not. Some devices
use u-boot, some more recent devices use UEFI and others have a custom
bootloader.

For devices that by default run Android, the best you can get is often
some form of chroot running under the Android version of the Linux
kernel, although this is changing as more ARM devices become supported
by Linux mainline, some info about that was at the recent Android
microconference at the Linux Plumbers Conference. With more skills you
can hack up ways to run Debian without the Android userland but with
the Android version of the Linux kernel still.

https://wiki.debian.org/ChrootOnAndroid
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/656324/fb12154c77eb3125/
http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2012/12/03/debian-mobile/

All this will probably improve as the ARM hardware community
transitions to standardising on UEFI and ACPI, though there will
probably always be devices using other things I guess.

For specific help with your ARM-based devices I'd suggest joining the
debian-arm mailing list and or IRC channel.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#8286

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2015-09-14 8:08 GMT-06:00 Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>:

> Hi!
>
>
Hi peeps!

> As so many people have been asking for it, I've decided to organise
> another mini-DebConf in Cambridge this year. Again, my employer ARM is
> going to host the conference for 4 days in November:
>
>  * 2 days for a mini-DebCamp (Thu 5 - Fri 6), with space for dedicated
>    development / sprint / team meetings for up to 40 people
>
>  * 2 days for a more regular mini-conf (Sat 7 - Sun 8) with space for
>    more general talks, up to 100 people
>
> I'm also hoping to find sponsors again to cover some other costs for
> the conference for things like food - please contact me if you can
> help!
>
> I'm expecting that we will end up discussing and working on the arm
> ports and other ARM-related topics at the very least, but there's also
> plenty of scope for other subjects for both sprint work and
> talks.
>
> For more details and to sign up to attend, please visit the wiki page
> at
>
>   https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/gb/2015/MiniDebConfCambridge
>
> --
> Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.
> steve@einval.com
> "We're the technical experts.  We were hired so that management could
>  ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs."  -- Mike
> Andrews
>

I'm really hooked up with ARM embedded devices, please announce the talks
early on time. Maybe I can suggest a noobie talk :)

Regards

-- 
Marcelo Gutierrez
Team POSOL http://podcast.softwarelibre.org.ni
Linux User: 448194
http://mmgc84.taygon.com

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