Can linux kernel be built on smartphones just as on Desktops??
 

Hi..!!!

Well ... I have to do some research on smartphones linux and before buying any particular smartphone I need to know the difference in the environment I should expect!!!!

First of all can linux kernel be built on a smartphone in the same way as in desktops or is it more difficult or (GOD forbid) impossible??

I would also like to know other major differences in environment if there are any (in maybe gcc etc or something).... :)

Plus I would like to get some suggestions about smartphones that are particularly good for development (at kernel level) :(

Thanx in advance...

Linux is used in a number of mobile devices.

Whether you can use Linux on any device (and this goes for ANY device, not just phones) depends only on the architecture of the phone. The kind of cpu that it uses.

Lots of mobile devices use and ARM chip at their core. Some consoles use a PowerPC or a MIPS cpu. Those are all supported. But you will have to check the concrete architecture of the cpu that your device has.


This department will be mostly conditioned by the memory of your system and the cpu power (but mostly the size of the memozy). In systems where the memory is a critical factor, uclib can be used instead of glibc. There are also specific toolkits that are used in these kind of devices, like qtopia, which is based on qt (the toolkit that serves as a foundation for kde). You can read about qtopia in the trolltech home website.

No idea about these. I've never programmed in these platforms.

Thanx ... I think I am going for OpenMoko .. it has ARM architecture
and promises to be good for development...

Thanx a lot