I ported over Angstrom's recipe for the sgx libraries into the beaglebox build this week.  It requires downloading the SGX sdk and unpacking it manually before you do the build.  Angstrom will unpack it for you.  And at the moment I'm not positive the layout I've created is completely correct since I don't include the demos or training stuff.  But for now this will do.  I'll work out the bugs after the board is running.

The SGX build requires a new environment variable, GM_SGX_DIR, so the environment setup script has been updated.

The build creates a temporary directory structure that will be copied into the root file system.  I'm not sure whether I should have this copied into the rootfs by the buildroot build or create ipkg packages and install them as part of the board setup process, but I”m leaning toward the latter.  Why?  Because the whole reason for putting SGX (re: opengl/ES) on BeagleBox was to support flash video playback via gnash, which can use OpenGL for this purpose.  But now there is a beta (or is it alpha?) release of adobe's flash player for arm so maybe this won't be necessary.  I haven't looked at the software requirements for it yet.  Anyway, I'm leaning toward ipkg's for the libraries.

So the royalty check for my last book arrived this week, making it possible to order my first beagleboard and associated parts.  The orders have been placed and it appears they've all shipped so I should have everything by Monday.  It's almost time to put the bits on the box. Of course, now I have to move the mega-TV in my daughter's room (who is now at college) into my office for testing purposes.  Definitely going to require some rearranging to get that thing in there.

One other thing:  this week I listened to a webcast from a fellow at montavista about speeding linux boot times.  There are a couple of issues to consider, like reducing the kernel size by making any compiled in drivers that are absolutely necessary when the kernel loads into loadable modules.  The init program could be rewritten to do parallel loads of drivers, configuration and starting the graphical interface.  Init scripts can be converted to C and compiled, making them faster.  And applications could be prelinked (assuming you can do this with Buildroot, which I haven't checked yet).  These are all valid ideas that I'll have to investigate further when I get past just bringing up the system and start to focus on performance issues.