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In lugnet.robotics.rcx.legos, John Hansen writes:
> First off, I'd like to say that I had ZERO problems installing, building,
> and testing BrickOS on my PC. That's even with the BrickOS name change
> release and the pre-built Hitachi tools. You guys do good work!
The brickOS team thanks you for mentioning this. It is our
goal to continue to simplify this experience. We always enjoy
hearing that we are making progress.
> There are a few issues I have come across while fiddling around with BrickOS
> which the maintainers of BrickOS might consider fixing.
We hear you and have addressed some of them...
> 1. The code in the makefiles to set BRICKOS_ROOT only works when you run
> make from the BrickOS root.
This is intentional for those of us who want to work on the
brickOS kernel itself. However, we have not had an 'install' model
for those of us who simply want to work on robot code not brickOS.
We have added install support in 0.2.6.08 to be avail. in the next
couple of days.
We have also moved to a ./configure script to be run before attempting
to make the code. This does the onetime calculation of paths which
solves your needing to uncomment BRICKOS_ROOT determination. It will
just be correct when you go to build.
> 2. Using the pre-built Hitachi tools requires renaming them with a -hitachi
> added to the filenames.
I'm surprised by this. Are you sure that they are not installed
under two names -or- under a cross compiler specific path?
What you are seeing appears to be different from other environments.
Please download and test our new configure in your environment, when
it is available. Let's watch this closely to make sure we've covered
this. I'll roll changes in to account for this environment as soon as
you identify the need if it doesn't work.
> 3. The makefiles do not correctly determine a cygwin environment running on
> Win98 (probably not Win95 and WinME also).
The new configure mechanism gets rid of the whole OSTYPE mechanism.
The results of configure is then recorded in the makefile system.
No overlapping checks, simply single variables with needed values.
> 4. The makefiles in the demo directories below the BrickOS root are written
> in a manner which requires that they live below the BrickOS root
The demo makefiles are now more consistent with the rest of the
system. configure now places good values which they see. In addition,
the install now gives you well formed makefiles which can be copied
from the installed location to your own location (new project directory).
These can be used without modification for single file projects and with
little modification for multi-file projects. These copied makefiles are
completly aware of the installed brickOS location and the tools available
on the machine.
> 5. On a Win32 system with a cygwin install it is extremely easy to use
> BrickOS without ever entering a unix shell. All that is required is putting
> the cygwin bin directory on the PATH, along with the directory containing
> the hitachi tools. Setting BRICKOS_ROOT as an environment variable at the
> normal Win32 command prompt also simplifies things considerably. Setting
> OSTYPE to cygwin32 also simplifies things (when running with the pre-built
> Hitachi tools). Describing how to use BrickOS with cygwin but doing
> everything at a standard command prompt would (imho) attract many more users
> to BrickOS because it removes the Unix mystique.
I'd like to explore this more with you after you've seen and
tried 0.2.6.08. Let's then see what we still need to do to further
simplify this experience.
> 6. From a BricxCC perspective, it would be extremely nice if the BrickOS
> firmware would respond to some of the standard firmware op-codes (like Ping,
> for instance). That would make it possible for BricxCC (without
> modification) to search for and find an RCX with the BrickOS firmware
> installed. The more op-codes BrickOS supports the more BricxCC can
> immediately provide diagnostic interaction with an RCX running BrickOS.
Please provide some technical pointers and we will respond to this.
This sounds like the right thing to do. Which messages would you like
to see, etc.
> Anyway, those are a few ideas/comments/suggestions from this happy BrickOS
> user. Keep up the good work!
John, this feedback has been wonderfully helpful in motivating some
of the changes we've needed to make. Thank you for taking the time
to write this up and send it.
I hope these latest changes we've made will be seen as positively.
Regards,
Stephen - brickOS release manager
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | BrickOS issues
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| First off, I'd like to say that I had ZERO problems installing, building, and testing BrickOS on my PC. That's even with the BrickOS name change release and the pre-built Hitachi tools. You guys do good work! There are a few issues I have come (...) (22 years ago, 11-Oct-02, to lugnet.robotics.rcx.legos)
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