[Live-demo] Teaching Spatial Programming - Raspberry Pi

[Jim Klassen]

ARM is a completely different architecture from x86 similar to how PowerPC/SPARC/MIPS/m68k are different than x86. The biggest impact is that binary packages will need to be compiled for ARM.  There is also the very small chance that some project has x86 assembler somewhere that would need to be ported to ARM.  There is a mature Debian ARM port (and it looks like there is a Ubuntu ARM port now too) so most of the base packages should already be there, but the PPA stuff may need to be rebuilt for ARM.  Anyone building from source in the install.sh scripts would need to check if their build succeeded.  I don't know a lot about the state of Java on ARM so someone should check that there is a working JVM available (which will likely be OpenJDK based).

On May 31, 2012, at 5:56 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

> Jim,
> I'm unfamiliar with ARM, and what impact it will have on us as software developers. Anything we need to know about?
> 
> On 1/06/2012 8:47 AM, Jim Klassen wrote:
>> The other key spec to the Raspberry Pi is that it is ARM rather than x86 based.
>> 
>> On May 31, 2012, at 16:12, Cameron Shorter<cameron.shorter at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello all,
>>> I've been asked whether OSGeo-Live would run on Raspberry Pi, to be used as a teaching device a.
>>> Raspberry Pi is a $25 credit card size computer. It runs Debian and only has 256 Meg of RAM. http://www.raspberrypi.org
>>> 
>>> I've CCed the OSGeo-Live email list, as I expect there will be many on the list with an interest, and probably a few opinions too.
>>> 
>>> The challenge will be the size of RAM. Up to version 5.0, we ran OSGeo-Live with 512 Meg of RAM, but with version 5.5 we discovered that some of the Java applications required more RAM, and we recommend at least 768 Meg RAM, and preferably 1 Gig.
>>> The problem will be all the java based applications, which are RAM intensive.
>>> 
>>> You could potentially run OSGeo-Live, without invoking the java based applications and there are a C based applications for most, if not all the tasks you would likely to be teaching.
>>> You could test this be running OSGeo-Live in a Virtual Machine, and limiting the size of the RAM in the Virtual Machine to 256 Meg of RAM.
>>> You can see approximate RAM usage, and core language for many of our applications in the following spreadsheet:
>>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdGIzd0VLLTBpQVJuNVlHMlBWSDhKLXc#gid=13
>>> 
>>> OSGeo-Live is based upon Xubuntu (which is a small version of Ubuntu), and I note from the faq that Ubuntu is not supported by Ubuntu. That might be a problem.
>>> What you may need to do is start with a Debian Squeeze distribution, then execute the OSGeo-Live build process, probably with a few tweaks, to build a custom OSGeo-Live. In this process, you might also only select applications which will run within the 256 Meg limit.
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>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Cameron Shorter
>>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>> 
>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Live-demo mailing list
>>> Live-demo at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/live-demo
>>> http://live.osgeo.org
>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Solutions Manager
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
> 
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>