Host-based development with Xoo and Xephyr

Revision as of 10:17, 25 June 2007

Please see Getting OpenMoko working on host with Xephyr which might contain more up-to-date information.

What is Xoo

Xoo is a GTK2 based graphical wrapper around a ‘Windowed’ X Server. The X server is typically Xnest, the nested X server, or Xephyr. It is intended for embedded developers that want to simulate a target device (with an accurate display size, working hardware buttons, etc) on a desktop machine.

Currently only getting Xoo working with Xnest is discussed here. Instructions for running Xoo with Xephyr are planned.

Xoo is not required to simulate OpenMoko hardware - it just improves the presentation

Install Xoo on your host

For gentoo users run just

# emerge xoo

Debian/Ubuntu

# sudo apt-get install xoo xnest

For Fedora (package has been submitted to Fedora for approval, see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=236297):

# ftp://ftp.xelerance.com/xoo/

for any other find a way how to do it in your distro.

Build an OpenMoko Image (Getting rootfs)

First, you'll need to build an openmoko-devel-image and get rootfs. One good way to get started developing is getting rootfs working on host machine, since most of us don't have real hardware.

You should use Building OpenMoko using the MokoMakefile to build an openmoko-devel-image for your host architecture.

Prior to running make openmoko-devel-image to get rootfs (before step 5) run :

# sed -i 's/fic-gta01/x86/' build/conf/local.conf

then just run make openmoko-devel-image. After a while (half a day) the build should complete.

Build issues

Please see this bug tracker issues if you have problems getting libelf compiled (do_stage fails).

Setup the Image Filesystem

The filesystem of the image can be found at build/tmp/rootfs . It is that image that we want to run in a chrooted environment.

This image should also be packed/compressed as the file openmoko-devel-image-x86-$(DATE).rootfs.tar.gz in build/tmp/image/ - mine is here [1].

Making X cooperate

• Make sure your iptables do not prevent you from connecting to port 6000(x11) on localhost

• Make sure your X is listening on port 6000(X11) on localhost (netstat is friend)

• Enable conection from localhost

# xhost localhost

Preparing rootfs

Unpack the rootfs file and copy the contents into a directory called /home/moko/mokobox. This will be our chrooted environment.

make sure /dev of the host machine are visible from within mokobox

# sudo mount --bind /dev/ /home/moko/mokobox/dev

Start/Move into the protected mokobox environment

# sudo chroot /home/moko/mokobox /bin/sh

Starting the nested X server

Launch Xoo

In another terminal (not related to mokobox), start Xoo. Download [2] and run for a nice neo 1973 theme.

# xoo --device neo1973.xml

Start X Client

Now, back in chroo'ted environment, start X client:

Export display to connect to started xoo

# export DISPLAY=localhost:1.0

Start window manager.

# x-window-manager

By this time you should have Xnest & Xoo running OpenMoko in a window.