The BalloonBoard is designed to use "free" software (free as in freedom, and often but not necessarily free-of-charge). Wikipedia has a lot to say on the subject (search-words: Linux, Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, Debian, GNU). Being an Open Source venture, other developers may make programs available to you (almost always free-of-charge). You will find useful URL's on the Links page. We use the Debian Linux distribution, and the Yaffs filing-system.

YAFFS

YAFFS uses journaling, error correction and verification techniques tuned to the way NAND typically fails, to enhance robustness. It works within the constraints of, and exploit the features of, NAND flash to maximise performance. The result is a file system that exploits low-cost NAND chips and is both fast and robust. 

Source code 

We are currently in the process of moving all our code into a centrally-organised sub-version repository. You can browse this online using viewcvs, or get direct svn read-only access at svn://balloonboard.org/, e.g. svn checkout svn://balloonboard.org/balloon/trunk/ to check out the mainline code. Currently the working bootldr is under balloon/branch, and everything else under trunk. If you have a developer account then read/write access is available over ssh at svn+ssh://balloonboard.org/home/balloon/svn/.

Binaries

Binaries for the various boards and releases are available by http or using rsync from balloonboard.org::balloon

The current Balloon3 debian-based release is available here. The easiest way to download just the binaries is by doing rsync -av --compress balloonboard.org::balloon/balloon3/distro/test-v0.3/binaries

BalloonSoftwareLoading is the place to start with info on how to fill you balloon with the latest code.

BalloonArmLinux has an overview of the distribution.

Toolchains

Most developers are using the cross toolchains provided by Emdebian. Some tarballs suitable for developers on non-debian machines will appear on the balloonboard.org site shortly.