Re: Debian ARM success story: Debian desktop on a TS-7300
Dustin:
Dustin Harriman wrote:
Hi all,
I wanted to post an ARM success story here, in case anyone searches
this list seeking a particular, current, viable example of a
Debian-compatible ARM machine on the market right now that might
actually interest home users. Here is a summary of my experiences so
far:
Congratulations!
I've been using various Cogent Computer Systems boards as "desktops"
running debian-arm for some time. They're a little more expensive than
Technologic's stuff (which I also own, tho not the TS-7300), but they
definitely get the job done. See in particular the CSB625 and CSB637.
As ppc disappears, there needs to continue to be a diversity of
architectures (and no, amd64 and ia64 don't count as "diverse" IMHO).
I wouldn't call the PPC architecture "disappearing". In terms of units
sold, the chips that went into Macs constituted about 0% of PPC
production volumes (the overwhelming majority go into automotive and
telecom applications as far as I can tell). Apple and Motorola poured
development dollars into the high-end G4/G5/etc chips which are mostly
used in Macs, tho, so I'm thinking those chips may stagnate for a
while. Which will be a shame.
<http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts7300-spec-h.htm>
Plus, here are a couple of photos and a desktop screenshot:
http://ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dustinharriman/slideshow?.dir=/af59scd&.src=ph
<http://ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dustinharriman/slideshow?.dir=/af59scd&.src=ph>
Dig the cheesy cardboard case I made out of a PCI card box. It has
penguins on it. :D
Yea, but did you include the price of the PCI card in your final cost
numbers? :)
One minus: even though the TS-7300 has a "Maverickcrunch" FPU, in
practice it doesn't get used by Debian because maverick support is not
compiled into the stock arm Debian packages yet. This means the odds
of getting any multimedia goodness (like sound), which requires FPU,
are bad.
If the USB host controller will do isochronous transfers, you can use a
USB audio device. And an FPU isn't mandatory: madplay is integer-only,
and sox seems to work pretty well too. I have used both on my FPU-less
systems (AT91, PXA) with no problems.
Again, congrats on your success story!
b.g.
--
Bill Gatliff
bgat@billgatliff.com
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