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                  Obtaining and installing a Midipix distribution
                   Last update: Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:42:40 +0000

A Midipix distribution consists of the following:
a) the native Midipix toolchain, consisting of perk, gcc, its dependencies,
   and binutils,
b) musl, a lightweight, fast, simple, and free libc[1] used by Midipix,
c) the Midipix runtime components that bridge the gap between the libc and the
   executive subsystems of all Windows NT-derived Windows OS starting with and
   including Windows XP, and
d) a steadily increasing number of 3rd party open source packages, as expected in
   any modern POSIX-compliant *nix environment, including GNU coreutils, shells,
   libraries such as ncurses, libressl, as well as Perl and Python.

Compressed Midipix distribution tarballs and, separately, source tarballs are,
at present, produced every four (4) hours UTC after each successful build and
subsequently signed. This process is fully automated by a portable Bourne shell
script; all of the above mentioned components are cross-compiled.

Thus, the most hassle-free way to get started with Midipix is to simply download
the most recent distribution tarball and follow the instructions below. It is,
however, recommended to anyone intending to use Midipix as a development platform
to familiarise themselves with the build process. Other reasons to prefer building
a Midipix distribution yourself include integrating new 3rd party software or local
runtime component patches. At present, a full build from scratch takes about 30
(thirty) minutes to finish on an 8-core host with eight simultaneous make jobs,
minus the generation of the tarballs. The build script can be obtained from the
following GitHub repository: <https://github.com/lalbornoz/midipix_build>.

If you obtained a Midipix distribution tarball, extract it into a directory and
drive of your choice, henceforth referred to as target directory; the drive can
be a network drive. Do _not_ use anything but a true UNIX environment tar(1), as
e.g. WinRAR or WinZip handle extracting hard links incorrectly.
If you built Midipix yourself, the target directory is equivalent to the ${PREFIX}
configured in build.vars, which defaults to ${HOME}/midipix.

At present, providing an interactive Midipix environment still requires the Cygwin
terminal emulator Mintty and a shell; this does not include pseudoterminals, which
are entirely handled by Midipix. Both can be installed via the 64-bit Cygwin setup
program at <https://www.cygwin.com/setup-x86_64.exe>.

Once installed, launching a Midipix shell is accomplished by the `midipix.sh' shell
script provided in the target directory from within a Cygwin shell prompt in Mintty
and the target directory. This may either simply be done manually each time, or
automated by a shortcut. As shortcuts cannot be distributed, it can be created by
either:
a) Opening (executing) the VBScript script in the target directory from within the
   latter cscript.exe, providing the fully qualified pathname to Mintty, if it differs
   from the default value of C:\cygwin64\bin\mintty.exe or
b) manually creating a shortcut to Mintty with `Start in:' set to the target directory
   and the following command line:
   [ ... ]\mintty.exe -i /Cygwin-Terminal.ico -e sh midipix.sh, or

References:
Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:04:08 +0000 [1] musl FAQ <http://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html>

                  Midipix status report
                   Last update: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 10:16:16 +0000

The following build status codes are defined:
C -- Complete build w/ at least the default configuration,
B -- Broken, e.g. doesn't work at all or only minimally,
I -- Integrated (e.g. linked against) with other packages,
E -- Extensively tested and confirmed to work by multiple sources, possibly via a testsuite,
P -- Patches needed to build that haven't been committed upstream yet, and
U -- Update to latest stable version or HEAD pending.

Component type      Name              Version          Status  Comments
Host toolchain      binutils          2.24.51          C--EPU
Host toolchain      file              5.28             C-----
Host toolchain      gcc               4.6.4            ---EPU  Excludes libstdc++
Host toolchain      musl              1.1.12           C-IEPU
Host toolchain      perk              HEAD             C-IE--
Host toolchain      pkgconf           0.28             C--E--
Host toolchain      slibtool          0.5.7            C--E--
Native toolchain    binutils          2.24.51          C--EPU
Native toolchain    gcc               4.6.4            ---EPU  Excludes libstdc++
Native toolchain    gmp               5.1.3            C-IEPU
Native toolchain    libelf            0.8.13           C-IEP-
Native toolchain    mpc               1.0.1            C-IE-U
Native toolchain    mpfr              3.1.2            C-IE-U
Native toolchain    musl              1.1.12           C-IEPU
Native toolchain    perk              HEAD             C-IE--
Native toolchain    pkgconf           0.28             C-IE--
Runtime components  dalist            HEAD             C-IE--
Runtime components  ntapi             HEAD             C-IE--
Runtime components  ntcon             HEAD             C-IE--
Runtime components  ntctty            HEAD             C-IE--
Runtime components  pemagine          HEAD             C-IE--
Runtime components  psxscl            HEAD             C-IE--  Excludes clone(2) and dlopen(3)
Runtime components  psxtypes          HEAD             C-IE--
3rd party libraries gdbm              1.12             C-I---
3rd party libraries glib              2.46.2           C-I-P-  Shared object not built
3rd party libraries gzip              1.2.4            C-I---
3rd party libraries libarchive        3.1.2            C-I-P-
3rd party libraries libevent          2.0.22-stable    C-I---
3rd party libraries libfetch          2.33             C-I-P-
3rd party libraries libffi            3.2.1            C-I-P-
3rd party libraries libpipeline       1.4.1            C-I---
3rd party libraries libressl          2.2.6            C-I-P-
3rd party libraries libz              1.2.8.2015.05.20 C-I---
3rd party libraries ncurses           6.0              C-IEP-  ncurses, ncursestw, and ncursesw built
3rd party libraries pcre              8.39             C-I---
3rd party libraries xz                5.2.2            C-I---
3rd party X11 libs  inputproto        2.3.2            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  kbproto           1.0.7            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libICE            1.0.9            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libSM             1.2.2            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libX11            1.6.3            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXau            1.0.8            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXaw            1.0.13           C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXext           1.3.3            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXmu            1.1.2            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXpm            3.5.11           C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libXt             1.1.5            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libpthread-stubs  0.3              C-----
3rd party X11 libs  libxkbfile        1.0.9            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  renderproto       0.11.1           C-----
3rd party X11 libs  xcb               1.12             C-----
3rd party X11 libs  xcb-proto         1.12             C-----
3rd party X11 libs  xextproto         7.3.0            C-----
3rd party X11 libs  xproto            7.0.29           C-----
3rd party X11 libs  xtrans            1.1              C-----
3rd party X11 libs  Xrender           0.9.9            C-----
3rd party packages  ag                0.32.0           C-----
3rd party packages  apk_tools         2.6.6            C---P-
3rd party packages  bash              4.3              C-I-P-  Linked against ncursesw
3rd party packages  bzip2             1.0.6            C-----
3rd party packages  coreutils         8.23             C---P-  Needs extensive testing
3rd party packages  curl              7.47.1           C---P-
3rd party packages  dash              0.5.8            C-----  Provides /bin/sh
3rd party packages  diffutils         3.3              C-----
3rd party packages  ed                1.13             C-----
3rd party packages  file              5.28             C-----
3rd party packages  findutils         4.5.14           C---P-
3rd party packages  gawk              4.1.3            C-----
3rd party packages  git               2.7.1            C-----
3rd party packages  grep              2.22             C-----
3rd party packages  hexcurse          1.60.0           C-I-P-  Linked against ncursesw
3rd party packages  htop              2.0.1            C-I-P-  Linked against ncursesw
3rd party packages  inetutils         1.9.4            C-----
3rd party packages  irssi             0.8.18           CB--P-  DNS and /EXEC require clone(2) due to pthreads (see psxscl;) no Perl support
3rd party packages  less              481              C-I---  Linked against ncursesw
3rd party packages  lua               5.3.3            C---P-
3rd party packages  lynx              2.8.8rel2        C-----
3rd party packages  make              3.81             C-----
3rd party packages  man_db            2.7.5            C-----
3rd party packages  mc                4.8.17           C-----
3rd party packages  mksh              R52c             C-----
3rd party packages  nano              2.5.3            C-I---  Linked against ncursesw
3rd party packages  netcat            110              C---P-
3rd party packages  openssh           7.1p2            C-I---  Linked against libressl
3rd party packages  pacman            5.0.1            C---P-
3rd party packages  patch             2.7              C-----
3rd party packages  perl              5.22.1           ------  No dlopen(3) (see psxscl,) modules missing
3rd party packages  pkg-cron          HEAD             C---P-
3rd party packages  procps-ng         3.3.12           C-----
3rd party packages  python            3.5.1            -B--P-  No dlopen(3) (see psxscl,) modules missing
3rd party packages  rsync             3.1.2            C-----
3rd party packages  rxvt-unicode      9.22             C-I---  No Perl support
3rd party packages  sed               4.2.2            C-----
3rd party packages  tar               1.28             C-----
3rd party packages  tcsh              6.19.00          C-I-P-
3rd party packages  tmux              2.2              C---P-
3rd party packages  util_linux        2.27.1           C-----  Needs extensive testing
3rd party packages  vim               7.4.1952         C-----  Provides /bin/vi
3rd party packages  which             2.21             C-----
3rd party packages  whois             5.2.12           C-----
3rd party packages  xeyes             1.1.1            C-I---
3rd party packages  xwd               1.0.6            C-I---
3rd party packages  zsh               5.2              C-I---  Linked against ncursesw

                  Midipix roadmap/TODO list
                   Last update: Fri, 03 Jun 2016 12:47:13 +0000

midipix alpha release: the final stretch
========================================

my.own.tasks@midipix.org
------------------------

* ofd tables: additional bucket allocation as needed.
* `ls -R //c`: check for the cause of individual failures.
  (might be related to the above ofd bucket allocation).
* integrate clone and the initial ldso implementation.
* integrate the signal queue, check signal implementation for
  semantic completion, especially in the context of multi-threaded
  applications.
* implement /dev/random and /dev/urandom, as well as other virtual
  folders needed by core applications.
* implement the scheduler functions.
* implement (possibly as stubs) missing system calls, fix existing
  system calls as needed by the core applications.
* toolchain: provided the few interfaces missing for C++ support.
* porting of mintty.


porting and other release-related tasks
---------------------------------------

* testing of ncurses.
* testing of bash and dash when built with ncurses.
* testing of all of the coreutils, seeing which ones fail due to
  a missing virtual file or folder, which ones fail due to a missing
  system call (crash), and which ones fail due to an incomplete or
  incorrect system call.
* porting of gdb.

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