Getting the sources

Daily snapshots are available from this website. If you start doing some serious work and want to stay in sync or contribute changes back, mail blt@openblt.org and we can discuss access to the perforce server.

Building OpenBLT

Once you have the sources you'll need the GNU C/C++ Compiler setup to build for i386-unknown-elf or something similar (they may call it i386-unknown-gnu now). You'll also need GNU Make since we rely on extensions for including make config files, etc. If you want to rebuild the netboot rom you need NASM (the net-wide assembler). OpenBLT builds "out of the box" on BeOS R4.x and some Linux distributions.

The entire system is buildable by typing "make" in the top-level directory. The "make.conf" file may be used to adjust the name of the compiler, assembler, linker, etc (should you be using a cross-compiler setup).

Getting a bootable image

The "all" target for top-level make causes the image "boot/openblt.boot" to be created. This is an SBBB (SigOps Bitchin' Boot Block -- don't ask) image which is bootable with the netboot system we use or the boot.com util.

"make floppy" will also create "boot/openblt.boot", but it will be a floppy disk image (not bootable with netboot). Use dd, rawrite, etc to copy this to a floppy disk.

The file "boot/openblt.ini" determines which parts of the system are included in the generated boot image. There are comments that explain what's what.

Booting OpenBLT

Network booting is probably the easiest way to do things. Two machines will make things much easier -- one to edit, compile, etc, and one to test on. You *could* work on BLT with just one machine, but it will be painful.

If you have an ISA or PCI NE2000 Card, grab netrom.hex.gz and burn a 16K EPROM. Your ISA card must use iobase 0x300. The D-Link DE-528 and Kingston ??? PCI NE2000 cards work (others may as well).



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