[QtonPi] To people receiving their devices and hungry to build their own Qt5 for it

[Donald Carr]

> I recall meeting you and discussing in length the joys (-pains) of
> cross compilation and bootstrapping  we shared in last MeeGo
> conference in San Fran.

We are trying to diminish the pains for general Qt compilation; I
think the standing instructions are as quite painless, feel free to
suggestion improvements :)

>> QtOnPi is more than just Qt 5, it is a Linux distribution which has
>> larger ambitions/intents than simply getting Qt 5 running on the
>> Raspberry Pi. Me, I am just a simple man and someone you can complain
>> to if Qt 5 on the Raspberry Pi behaves in a fashion you consider
>> broken or limited. This is Qt 5 on any of the Linux incarnations
>> coming out of the Pi (Arch, Debian etc etc)
>
> That means you are the guy who adapted debian for the Pi?

Nein, I am the dude responsible for establishing/testing Qt 5 on the
Raspberry Pi and filling in any glaring holes/inadequacies. I am also
the dude responsible for packaging Qt 5 for the default Debian image,
but Broadcom have someone actively improving/releasing these images. I
am well impressed with the rate of image generation/testing on their
part, and I also intend to start building/maintaining packages for the
Arch distribution since that is my poison of choice.

> What are the
> technical issues with webkit and snowshoe ? (surely cross building is
> not..?)

Webkit 2 is out of process. The eglfs driver is single process. Now,
this might simply work out of the box, but my Pi is missing in action
and getting Qt Webkit built has been thwarted by a host of build
issues, such as a QScript dependency etc etc. I also hit a cross
compiler crash in one module, and hence need to drop in to -O1 for
that one object file, which is glorious to attempt to automate without
dropping down to -O1 for all of webkit, which entirely trashes
Javascript performance on the target.

This is just a matter of time and polish, but I look forward to (Qt)
Webkit being shown in all its glory on the Pi.

>> Qt 5 on the Pi should be pain free and banging. It is right now, as of
>> today, and has been for the past 2 weeks since the last major
>> contribution landed. If you experiences woes/problems, please let us
>> know.
>>
> I wonder how do you attach a touch display to it, excuse my ignorance! :-p

You plug it in! The touch screen clearly needs to have kernel drivers
and be conformant to whatever multi-touch evdev level standards exist.
We then need to establish whether any of the existing multi-touch
drivers drag us any portion of the distance towards usability, or
whether we have to effectively write these lighthouse plugins from
scratch.

Any suggestions as to affordable standards compliant
touchscreens/input devices will be met with gratitude and possibly
even with device support.

>> I look forward to the upstream torrent of banging relavant changes
>> fueled by the broad dispersal of these boards to enthusiastic
>> developers.
>>
> With power comes great responsibility ;)

Thanks for the nudge; we are tapping exactly the right crowd here and
I hope to see some insanely cool off beat projects bloom out of this.

Cheers,
Donald

-- 
-------------------------------
 °v°  Donald Carr
/(_)\ Vaguely Professional Penguin lover
 ^ ^

Cave canem, te necet lingendo
Chasing my own tail; hate to see me leave, love to watch me go