Getting Started With Linux on ST40 Linux Installation on the Host

The first thing you must do is install Linux on standard desktop PC. We do not currently support ST40 Linux development using Windows or Solaris hosts. In the future we will probably support some versions of Windows as hosts, for certain limited activities (primarily user level application development), but others will others will only ever be possible when using a Linux host.

First a bit of terminology. Linux is an operating system kernel, it is the code which puts a higher level programming interface on a collection of hardware, and arbitrates access to those resources. To turn this into a usable system a vast array of other programs are required, many of which can be obtained from many different places, for example:

• Development tools such as compilers, linkers and debuggers, and run time libraries. These mainly come from the GNU project run by the Free Software Foundation.
• Fundamental utilities such as file and text utilities, network and file system configuration tools, shells etc. Many of these also come from the GNU project, but there are numerous other sources and lots of choices.
• Not to mention things like the windowing system (the most common one being the X Window System and user interfaces (such as KDE and Gnome).

As you can tell, there are a vast number of programs which are needed to assembled to form a useful system. This collection of programs is called a distribution, and there are numerous companies and organisations putting together distributions.

We personally use distributions from a US company called RedHat, which is the market leader in the US. We are using version 6.2, which offers maximum compatibility, however version 7.0 is also known to work. Many other distributions would also be suitable, but you may find you need to adjust the following descriptions if you are not using RedHat.

You can now buy boxed copies of Linux distributions in most computer retail shops, by mail order or direct from the distributer. If you buy a boxed copy of any of the main Linux distributions, then you should get ample printed installation instructions, and usually phone support for any installation problems.

Alternatively you can download a distribution from numerous web and FTP servers, most of which will have installation instructions on-line. In general it is easiest to download the image of a CD-ROM (also called a ISO file), which you can burn directly into a CD - tools such as cdrecord under Linux or EasyCD under Windows can handle these files.

For anything but the most basic Linux distribution installation, you will need to have a couple of free partitions on the PC's hard drive. If your PC is already running Windows, you may find there is no unallocated disk space, and some will need to be freed up. Most distributions include some instructions and basic tools to do this, but if you are not happy making low level changes to your disk, you may wish to use a tool called Partition Magic. This has many more safeguards and and easy to use GUI. Again this is widely available from stores. If you have any doubts, back up you disk before installing.

When you install the Linux distribution, make sure you choose to enable networking. Most installation processes will do this automatically if they detect a network card is installed.