Which ARM Linux "distro"?

[Mark at Virtera <mark@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm currently running ARM Linux on an SA-1100 platform and to date I've 
been using stock 2.6 series kernels and Nico's ramdisk_ks with lots of 
success. However, I'd like to move to a more modern "distro" with recent 
tools and root file system structure. I did look at the Wearable Group's 
ramdisk but that's pretty long in the tooth as well. Does anyone have 
any suggestions? It doesn't have to be ramdisk based and I'm flexible on 
the hardware platform.

I've been able to run OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded built kernels and images 
with considerable success, but booting the OPIE desktop adds a lot of 
bloat. This is fine when I want a PDA desktop, but often I'm just 
testing or doing command-line stuff and don't need the GUI at all. Also 
I don't want to be stuck forever with the archaic 2.4.18 kernel used on 
the Zaurus.

What I'm looking for is a simple modern ARM distro which I can run more 
like a (headless) server. There's Debian for ARM but that doesn't seem 
to be so active these days. I could also start from the Netwinder 
distribution though that platform also seems rather dated now.

I'm wondering whether to go with the GumStix software distributions from 
www.gumstix.org. The advantages are that its reasonably up to date and 
actively maintained. But I'd prefer something that was based on RPM/APT 
(or something similar) with a decent library of pre-built software, 
rather than just a collection of files randomly thrown into a root file 
system. Also I'm not sure if I'll have to upgrade to a PXA-series 
processor to run the gumstix software or whether there's sufficient ARM 
user-land binary compatibility to run it on an old SA-1100. Of course I 
can download the sources and rebuild everything if it comes to, or 
upgrade my platform to PXA (which is overdue really).

There are plenty of choices. I'd really appreciate some ideas and 
advice. Thanks!

Mark.
--
mark@xxxxxxxxxxx


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