This past weekend I made the 0.4.0 release of beaglebox.  This is a major milestone for the project because it establishes the baselines for two of the core software componets, the bootloader and the kernel.  I made a public release on sourceforge and updated the source and build pages on the wiki to reflect the current state of the project.

Speaking of the wiki, the source code page had a bunch of broken links.  I cleaned those up and added the link to the 0.4.0 release.  I also updated the release process section.  That will evolve over time to be more disciplined.

The Build page for BeagleBox was nearly completely rewritten.  The build is much more stable now that u-boot and the kernel are baselined.  There are documents and helper scripts in the source tree now, and these are documented on the wiki.  The build also has more of a recipes-style design to it, though not in the form that you might see in OE/angstrom.  Since BeagleBox is targeted at specific hardware and a specific use it's a lot easier to keep the recipes to a minimum to avoid confusion.  All of this should make use of BeagleBox much simpler for anyone who wants to try it.

Which leads me to this:  please try it!  I'm itching to have someone else try to do the build and let me know what's broken for them.  Issues related to building on other linux distros (other than fedora) will be of most interest though I highly encourage use of Fedora as the development host system.

Granted, the build doesn't bring up an X server yet but it does get you to a serial console with a useful root file system and s-video output works (though there are serious overscan issues on my TV at the moment).  I'd also like someone to tell me if the dvi output looks clean.  I don't have an extra monitor to check that with yet.  I'm hoping Santa brings me a USB monitor but that won't tell me how the dvi is working.  But mostly I just want to make sure the build works for other people.  I need it to work for others or it will be difficult to encourage others to help out on the project!

The online documentation should be sufficient to get started though I may need to be more clear on how to set up the sd card.  But without some feedback I won't know where to place my efforts.  So please, give it a try!

Next up:  make definitive plans for where I want to head next.  I suspect fixing the overscan problem is high on the list.  Perhaps updating the wiki to discuss use of the boot script on the SD card (and how to build it manually – it's very easy to do).  And of course getting X working.  There is still a lot left to do on this project.