[ft] freetype on small embedded device

[Stuart Longland]

Hi all,

I did a search for this, but drew a blank.  I was wondering if anyone
has tried embedding FreeType into a bare-iron firmware image (using
newlib and FreeRTOS in my case)?

This is a pet project I'm working, so I'm not working to a deadline.  I
have here three STM32F103-based development boards (72MHz ARM
Cortex-M3).  The microcontrollers themselves have 64kB RAM, 512kB flash,
and the boards incoroporate a 320x240 pixel LCD panel, capable of 18-bit
colour (6-bits/channel).  The device also has a 2GB MicroSD card
installed.

The plan is to make a multi-function device that, amongst other things,
will hopefully be obtaining a GPS location and plotting that on a map.

I've managed to write some code that takes a fixed-width bitmap font and
draws that on the screen, but I was curious to see if I could achieve
something reasonable using FreeType.  Two reasons;

- Wide variety of good quality scalable fonts available
- Text could be anti-aliased for better clarity

I can get FreeType to build just fine (for arm-none-eabi CHOST), and it
even links into the project, but the moment I try to initialise the
library I get error 64 from FT_Init_FreeType, which best I can determine
is an "out of memory" error.  How would I best trace where the failed
malloc is happening?

Alternatively, do people know of a suitable open-source project that
would provide suitable functionality?

Regards,
-- 
Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL)      .'''.
Gentoo Linux/MIPS Cobalt and Docs Developer  '.'` :
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   .'.'
http://dev.gentoo.org/~redhatter             :.'

I haven't lost my mind...
  ...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.