[fpc-pascal] Is Delphi7 on Windows to FPC on embedded Linux possible?

[Bo Berglund]

This may be a stupid question, but I just discovered FPC so please bear with me...

I have been writing Delphi programs since 1996 or so (when Delphi 2 was released), so I am rather comfortable with that.
Now I need to write for the Linux platform because we are trying to make a Linux front end to a piece of equipment we make that only has a pitiful character based LCD screen (8 x 20 characters).

The front-end would consist of a small board with Embedded Linux and a graphical LCD screen (possibly with touch surface so the mouse can be dispensed with).

Since I was told that Java is the way to go to get stuff working on several platforms I started to read up on Java but it is taking forever to get anywhere. :-(

So then I found FPC and now I am looking for advice concerning if it would be possible to use FPC/Lazarus to program for an embedded Linux board with a graphics LCD screen. I want to be able to do the following:

1) Communicate via RS232 to the equipment core to control it and retrieve data. We already have a serial interface protocol for sending and retrieving data and commands, which would be the gateway into the core. So the first question is if there exists some class/component in FPC that can be used to communicate.

2) Display control screens in a GUI way with standard controls (buttons, text boxes, radio buttons etc). This would be the new user interface for the instrument.

3) Display data graphically (curves, pie charts etc). We need to improve on the on-board datat display a lot....

4) Store data on a file system, either SSD or flash memory.

Can this be done?

Is it possible to program on a standard Linux distribution but compile for the embedded linux?

Are there any traps to look out for?

What is the best way to get started?

Can I even re-use my Delphi7 classes from the windows environment?

TIA

BosseB