Windows Host Considerations

To install and use a Timesys LinuxLink Classic reference distribution on a Windows host, it must meet the following requirements and include the appropriate services.

Important: Follow the instructions in Configuring Your Windows Host to correctly prepare your Windows machine for embedded Linux development.

System Requirements

The recommended system configuration for a Windows host is the following:

  • Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system
  • An NTFS or FAT32 filesystem (FAT16 filesystems are unsuitable)
  • 1.5 GBytes available disk space
  • The Cygwin UNIX emulator, with cygwin1.dll version 1.5.16 or later

    Note

    If you already have Cygwin installed, you can use the uname -a or uname -r command to determine the Cygwin DLL version.

You will need Administrator privileges to complete the installation. Refer to Cygwin Installation for details about the installation process.

Cygwin Services

Hosting a Linux distribution from TimeSys on Windows requires the Cygwin versions of the following services:

  • nfsd – NFS services daemon
  • portmap – RPC portmapper daemon
  • mountd – NFS mount daemon
  • tftpd – TFTP server daemon
  • xinetd – The Extended Internet Services Daemon, which controls the TFTP daemon
  • dhcpd – DHCP server daemon

Refer to Configuring Your Windows Host for more information about these services.

Installed Components

By default, all reference distribution components will be installed in the C:\Cygwin\opt directory, but the installation script will give you the opportunity to relocate most of these. Additionally, C:\Cygwin\etc\timesys and C:\Cygwin\etc\timesys.conf contain some configuration files that are used by TimeSys’ TimeStorm Tools, included with LinuxLink Pro.

It is advisable to delete existing components if you are re-installing or upgrading a reference distribution. TimeSys especially recommends this for toolchains, because new toolchains often have the same installation paths as old ones. Installing a new toolchain over an existing one can result in a mixture of old and new files, which can impact the operation of the toolchain.