New ldc d compiler + tango packages for Ubuntu Karmic!
Yesterday Arthur Loiret announced on the #d.tango channel on Freenode.net that he did some work in packaging ldc and tango. I’ve been working on it for a while, but when i started developing gdc i didn’t maintain that work anymore.
Since Arthur gave me all the needed files to reproduce the packages, i’ve updated the PPA for ldc + tango set. New packages are of revision 1586 of ldc and 5027 of tango.
Detailed instructions in how to install those packages can be found at the Ldc Ubuntu packages page. Let me know if you have troubles with those packages!
Funds for gdc ;)
Today i received a very good mail which stated that what we are doing in developing gdc is appreciated.
The mail is from Tomasz Stachewicz, the developer of RuDy project to enable and ease writing Ruby native extensions in D programming language.
After congratulating for the work we are doing, he stated something new: “Is there a book wishlist or donation account I could use to word my appreciation in a more material way?“
If i’m not wrong (sorry i’m not a native English speaker), he is asking for an account for a donation. I think that maybe he is not the only one which wants to give some founds to the gdc project…
Well… If everybody agrees (well for now me, Michael and David Friedman, the ones which did work for gdc) i can get this moneys with paypal (or with one of the pay-for-feature websites). Moneys will be reserved to develop gdc in a issue/task basis (for porting gdc to lastest gcc you take X, for updating to dmd version Y you take Z and so on)
Of course i don’t think that gdc is so famous to make a lot of people contribute to it, but i think that we should decide about this issue to allow
people to support the gdc project.
This message is on the news.digitalmars.com NG too.
Gdc D2 with GCC 4.3.4 sees light
I’ve been working with ldc for a long time. I enjoyed it, i helped the development with tickets and hacking ldc a bit. I even tried to compile Tango as shared library but i got an error, probably caused by the compiler since people reported that in gdc they were able to do it. I then started guessing if llvm is so stable as it seems and if it can substitute the gnu compiler collection. Then i came to these llvm vs gcc benchmarks. Well the result is that llvm is not so fast and reliable as promised. In the same days, a message posted on the D newsgroup got me. I started thinking that resurrection gdc is the only way to make a stable and reliable compiler accepted in the FOSS community for the D programming language. But it should resurrect it should implement the D2 specs: there are no other compilers than dmd which support D2 around. So, me and Michael joined to the challenge to work on gdc 
We got the lastest working branch of gdc, the one who relies on gcc 4.3.1. We then copied in our repository in bitbucket and applied some changes, after two days of works, gdc for D2.014 worked under gcc 4.3.4 (there were some problems in the default version when compiling the Phobos library). As a proof that it works look at it
goshawk@earth:/tmp/test/usr/local/gcc-4.3/bin$ ./gdc ~/test.d
goshawk@earth:/tmp/test/usr/local/gcc-4.3/bin$ ./a.out
Hello World, Reloaded
goshawk@earth:/tmp/test/usr/local/gcc-4.3/bin$ ./gdc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../configure –prefix=/usr/local/gcc-4.3 –enable-languages=c,d,c++ –disable-multilib –disable-shared
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.3.4 (GCC)
Nice, isn’t it?
Now while Michael is focusing in fixing the D1 part, i started merging the lastest dmd D2 compiler in gdc. Making a diff against dmd2.014 and gdc2.014 i’m applying all the necessary patches in gdc for D2 2.032.
We opened a dedicated IRC channel in irc.freenode.net #d.gdc. Feel free to join!
You can find full instructions in how to compile gdc in our wiki page.
Any help, documentation, word on this challenge is appreciated. See you soon
How to set up worldcommunity.org grid on your pc
World Community Grid logo
If you have never heard about worldcommunity project it’s a good time to learn about it. it’s a project to create the largest public computing grid in the globe. With his client based on the boinc project, you can share your unused cpu cicles to compute data for this project. The data your computer will compute is for the growing of the culture, medicine and science.
If you have an Ubuntu server somewhere it’s very easy to set up the worldcommunity client there. Just open a terminal and write:
sudo aptitude install boinc-client
After you have installed the client, you can create an account in the worldcommunitygrid.org website. When you set it up you can do login and go to the My profile page. In that page you will read the BOINC Account Key. Take note of it. Now open a terminal and type
boinccmd –project_attach www.worldcommunitygrid.org [BOINC Account Key]
And that’s all, boinc will connect to worldcommunity and download data to compute. When you don’t use your cp, it will start computing for the grid and when you need your cpu cicles, it will stop computing.
D programming language reaches Intel
Andrei Alexandrescu, one of the people behind the development of the D programming language, have been interviewed by Intel in a 10 mins interview. He introduces the D programming language and shows the path which has been followed in designing the language.
You can also read the full article.
How to install Eclipse+Descent+Ldc D programming language compiler and configure auto completition
Hi, i’ve just done a small video in how to being productive with the D programming language.
The video is actually on YouTube and shows, step by step, how to set up a perfect and complete IDE for the D programming language.
Hope you enjoy… See you!
D programming language recension by Andy Glew
Here is an important review by a skilled programmer ad Andy Clew.
The result is simple:
D is definitely interesting. Whether or not it will take off, I do not know. But it certainly has some nice features. If irt were ubiquitous, I would use it.
Busy with university exams
Hi all,
It has been a long time that i don’t write. Well. I’m in my exam and thesis period now so i didn’t have time to work on Mer and Freerunner anymore.
I’ll sign my thesis at the end of July, so from August i’ll keep you informed about Mer on Freerunner again!
In the meantime, some progresses have been done. You can install Mer 0.14 for Freerunner and you can also have a look to the Freerunner page on Mer.
See you!
Eshopen alpha image for the Freerunner
As i said in my recent post, the sapwood issue with the freerunner have been solved. And the Mer project is ready to release a first tarball which contains the rootfs and the kenrel for the freerunner.
The tarball is hosted by eshopen.com, a freerunner reseller i work with, and can be downloded from here. You need at least a 512 MB microsd to install it. Your Freerunner must have qi installed, to install it just download qi, power on the freerunner pressing the AUX button, connect your freerunner with usb cable and run:
sudo dfu-util -d 0x1d50:0x5119 -a u-boot -R -D qi-s3c6410-andy_8589b40295653557.udfu
After that you can take a microsd, plug on your pc, mount it and do:
cd MOUNTPOINT
sudo tar -xvzf PATH/OF/THE/TARBALL/mer-freerunner-20090603-alpha.tar.gz
You can now plug the microsd and Mer should start.
Known Issues:
- No phone stack ATM
- Keyboard is not usable
From a recent talk in #mer on irc.freenode.net it seems that a keyboard engine has been found and we are working on layouts for this engine, you can find more specs at the mer forum.
I’m working to speed the development setting up a x86 virtual image of Mer having the same screen resolution and space of the Freerunner one, so there will be no need to have a Freerunner to develop anymore (and you can use hardware acceleration for tests and rapid development.)
The image will make you able to connect via ssh via the usb link. To do so just boot Mer and then do:
sudo ifconfig usb0 192.168.2.1
ssh root@192.168.2.2
Password is rootme. You will have a full ubuntu system in your hand afterwards…
To start surfing the web from Mer just do these commands in your linux box:
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
sudo iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 192.168.2.0/24
And you will be able to share your network connection via the usb cable which connects the Freerunner with your pc.
Screenshot of Maemo/Mer on Freerunner
Finally Maemo/Mer desktop screen on the Freerunner.
A huge milestone have been reached, the sapwood issue, that blocked the development of Mer into Freerunner until now seems to be fixed with recent updates.
The only opened issue is the keyboard. We are looking for a good gtk based virtual keyboard that renders good in the tiny Freerunner screen. If you know one, please tell me.
Soon we will publish some rootfs to test with, stay tuned!
