13 August 2008

This is the source distribution for RTEMS 4.8.1 source, add-ons,
and documentation.  The primary development platforms supported are
GNU/Linux distribtions which use RPMs.  MS-Windows is supported as a
secondary platform.

The 4.8.1 release is the second release in the 4.8 series.  In addition
to addressing problems in 4.8.0, it includes all bug fixes found in the
4.7 series along with a number of enhancements and bug fixes since the
4.7 release branch was made.  Some of the enhancements included between
the 4.7 and 4.8 release series are listed at:

http://www.rtems.org/rtems-4.8/index.html

For Fedora users, loading the prebuilt tools should be very easy and
something like this:

(1) Load the appropriate Yum repository configuration
    information.  This example is for Fedora GNU/Linux.
    RPMs are also provided for RedHat Enterprise Linux
    and SUSE.

    # Replace NNN with your 1-8 to reflect the Fedora version
    # Replace ARCH with your i386 or x86_64 to reflect your host architecture
    rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.rtems.org/pub/rtems/linux/4.8/fedora/NNN/i386/rtems-4.8-yum-conf-0.10-1.fcNNN.noarch.rpm

(2) Load cross development RPMs for your RTEMS target architecture
    along with the RTEMS 4.8 specific version of GNU autoconf
    and automake.

      # Replace CPU with the name of the CPU architecture you
      # want to use RTEMS on.  Choice are: 
      #   arm bfin h8300 i386 m68k mips powerpc sh sparc 
      yum -y install "*4.8*CPU*" "*4.8*auto*"

That's it.  You should be able to configure and build RTEMS at this
point.  If targeting a simulator BSP included with GDB (sparc/sis,
powerpc/psim, or mips/jm43904), you should be able to generate and run
target executables in a matter of minutes.  Configuring qemu so that it
will boot an RTEMS application for the i386/pc386 takes a bit longer but
is still quite straightfoward. Normally it takes longer to download the
tools via ftp than to build RTEMS.

Comments, feedback welcomed.  See the instructions at http://www.rtems.org
on joining the users mailing list.

--joel sherrill
joel.sherrill@OARcorp.com