[texhax] Crosscompilation of TeX

[Torsten Wagner]

Dear TeX-Friends,

I am wondering whether it is possible to compile TeX and LaTeX for a 
different platform. In particular I like to port TeX & Co. to a 
Linux-based PDA (Zaurus). The clamshell versions of these PDAs includes 
a full keyboard and would be perfect for TeX-on-the-road.
The PDAs are based on ARM processors.

However, I don't know whether this is possible or not. Maybe someone did 
it already ?!
As far as I know, TeX and LaTeX are not very ambitious. Since there 
where running already before most people get aware of what is a PC, I 
assume the hardware requirements are very low.

As far as no GUI is needed portation should be more or less easy. 
DVI-viewer, PDF-viewer as well as a TeX-Editor are already available.

Is there any special requirement for TeX & Co. in terms of hardware. 
E.g. the ARM-processor does not contain a floating point unit. (It will 
be emulated, which takes really long time). Therefore heavy use of 
floating point calculation would limit the practical use on the Zaurus 
due to speed issues.

More critical is the size of a complete environment. Therefore, a 
package manager would be perfect, to install just what is required for 
the task.

Is there any special needs of software (kernel, libaries etc.) which 
would be difficult to obtain for ARM processors or where sources are not 
available resp. cross-compilation is not possible.
 
I believe that TeTex would be perfect to start with since it runs with 
Linux already and it claims to be 100% open source.

Any ideas and comments are welcome.

Keep in mind if this works, you can have a money-wallet sized full TeX 
machine. :)))

Greetings

Torsten





-- 
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Dipl.-Ing. Torsten Wagner, MSc 
University of Applied Sciences Aachen Campus Juelich
Laboratory for Chemo- and Biosensors
Ginsterweg 1, D-52428 Juelich, Germany
Tel.: +49 2461 993215 or 612466
Fax: +49 2461 993235
Email: torsten.wagner at fh-aachen.de
and
Research Centre Juelich GmbH
Institute of Thin Films and Interfaces (ISG-2)
D-52425 Juelich
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