Debian for mips: installing socat (and related problems)

SomeIdiot · 03-24-2009, 04:26 AM

I am the proud owner of a Popcorn Hour(PCH), a NAS-like device which runs a strange native linux version. On top of this I have installed a chrooted debian etch, where I am trying to install the tool socat. The PCH has a mipsel processor.

Just to cover my bases, this is what I did to install debian (just in case there is something to be derived from that).

I should mention that while I am not a complete linux newbie, I am far, far away from being a power user.

The first thing I did to get socat, was to try 'apt-get install socat' to get it, but it is not part of the packages for mips apparently.

Then I used wget to get the source code. The problem now is that gcc doesn't seem to be installed, or it not properly registered somehow. When i do a 'aptitude search gcc' i get

Code:

i   gcc-4.1-base                    - The GNU Compiler Collection (base package)
i   libgcc1                         - GCC support library

which i think means it is installed? However I get this when trying to install socat:

root@PCH-A100:/home/socat-1.7.0.0# ./configure
checking which defines needed for makedepend...
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.

So I am guessing this all means that gcc is there somewhere, but not configured in the $PATH variable, but I don't know where it is, not how to setup it up, so it works properly.

Hope someone can give some tips for this

paulsm4 · 03-24-2009, 08:55 PM

Hi -

1. I'd suggest trying

Quote:

apt-get install gcc

and see what happens.

2. Two commands that might help you find gcc are:

Quote:

whereis gcc

... or ... (brute-force)

Quote:

find / -name gcc -print 2>/dev/null

3. Once you're sure you got it, you can quickly verify with Ye Olde "Hello world":

Quote:

vi hello.c

Quote:

#include <stdio.h>

int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf ("Hello world!\n");
return 0;
}

gcc -g -Wall -o hello hello.c
./hello

4. If you have any problems, please post back. Please cut/paste the output from your "apt-get install", and anything else you think is relevant.

'Hope that helps .. PSM

SomeIdiot · 03-25-2009, 07:07 AM

Thanks for the reply.

I already tried (but of course forgot to mention it) 'apt-get install gcc' and it yields:

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package gcc

I also tried some variations like 'gcc-boot-4.1-mipsel' (though i think that one might be for cross compiling for mipsel, not for using on mipsel itself), with no results.

'whereis gcc' gives:

Code:

gcc:

'find / -name gcc -print 2>/dev/null' gives no output.

I am not entirely sure that I haven't messed up my apt-get. The content of my /etc/apt/sources.list files is

Code:

deb http://debian.speedblue.org ./
deb-src http://debian.speedblue.org ./

This isn't what was originally there (I am not sure what was in there originally actually :S). Is this correct, or could you tell me how fix it?

I did try to apt-get install, both socat and gcc before rumaging around in files i didn't understand like a blind person.

paulsm4 · 03-25-2009, 01:17 PM

Hi -

Two suggestions:

1. You should be able to download the package directly:
EXAMPLE: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/gcc

2. I'm not sure why the "apt-get gcc" isn't working. Perhaps we should change the default configuration, to use a different repository?

In any case, please read up a little on "aptitude" and "dpkg": that will help
a) find the GCC you need
b) install it correctly

Here are a couple of links:

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/1...r-for-new.html
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/de...l/ch-dpkg.html

Specifically, please check your /etc/apt/sources.list file, and see if there are any sites worth adding by looking here: http://www.apt-get.org/. Here's one site that might be worth adding:

Quote:

deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ etch main

'Hope that helps .. PSM

PS:
You might also want to post to Popcorn-specific forums, for example:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/sh....php?tid=16317