[Cuis-dev] VectorEnginePlugin: parts in motion

[ken.dickey at whidbey.com]

On 2021-08-07 15:58, Joseph Turco wrote:

> You were able to get Cuis to start without windowing and use it?
> Meaning booting into a console and starting Cuis? Kinda like using
> Cuis as "the" operating system?

Yes.

I like simplicity and think about "value added".  Where can I add value?

Doing device drivers, setting up page tables, interrupt code, writing 
file systems and network drivers and testing them et cetera is _not_ 
where my interests and abilities reside.

So why not use a minimalist Linux "OS shim".  Like using Git.  Leverage 
other people's work and do fun things in Smalltalk!

As Smalltalk pre-dated _other_ window systems, there is a FrameBuffer 
display option, vm-display-fbdev.

So one can use a minimalist Linux, like Alpine Linux, which uses BusyBox 
for basic utilities and MUSL in place of libc.  It was made to be a 
clean & secure router solution.  You can also "startxfce4" if you 
install XFCE, but it boots into a console.  Armbian Linux in another 
good, reliable solution for SBCs.

I will write something up in the wiki after my latest fix gets released.

Basically, one used command line arguments or shell variables to set up 
for mouse/keyboard/framebuffer and things just work.

In the OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm/platforms/unix/vm-display-fbdev 
there are notes on how to set things up.

E.g. in my .bashrc

# to allow    'squeak <image>"
# rather than 'squeak -vm-display-fbdev -fbdev /dev/fb0 <image>'
export SQUEAK_KBDEV=/dev/input/event0
export SQUEAK_VM=display-fbdev
export SQUEAK_FBDEV=/dev/fb0
export SQUEAK_MSDEV=/dev/input/event1

Depending on your hardware, mouse and keyboard may be bound to different 
input devices.  If the default keyboard is not right, you have to get me 
to help or to wait until my fix for this is released into 
opensmalltlk-vm.

You need libevdev and framebuffer support libraries.  Again, check the 
notes in the text files.

ls -lasth /dev/fb*
ls -lasth /dev/input/*

Should tell you if these libs are already installed.  Again, see the 
*Notes.txt in the vm-display-fbdev directory.  If available, teach your 
system to boot into console mode and have a go.

Good on ya,
-KenD