Re: Experience with LH7A404 ?
Michelle Konzack wrote:
Hello Bill,
Am 2008-03-03 06:10:34, schrieb Bill Gatliff:
I haven't used the chip myself, but I don't see a whole lot of
discussion about it in linux-arm-kernel. Could be because the support
Is this list on <kernel.org>?
www.arm.linux.org.uk
The AT91RM9200 support in mainline is very good, as is the SAM9 stuff.
Also, if you'd like an inexpensive but high-performance chip, the AVR32
family is pretty nice. It isn't ARM, and the support is still maturing,
but so far I'm impressed and there's a US$79 evaluation board available.
If you say: "It isn't ARM", what it is then?
It's "AVR32", a completely different architecture designed by Atmel to
compete with ARM. So far, it looks like pretty good stuff.
Support for AVR32 chips still isn't fully into mainline, but they have a
pretty active user community and some hardware is pretty cheap. Google,
links aren't coming to mind right now...
I need something like arm or mips (or maybe sh) where I can
run Debian on it without running into bigger trouble...
There's no technical reason why Debian wouldn't run on AVR32, but I
don't know if anyone is doing that yet. It's not planned for Lenny
AFAIK. I've seen mention of some Debian packages for the cross
compilers, though.
The DS80C411 can be programmed usin SDCC but how,
if it crash all the time?
Ugh. Ethernet on an 8051 is... interesting. :) And I've never been
very happy with the few times I've played with sdcc either.
If you want little chips, Atmel's AVR8 stuff is pretty well supported by
gcc. But I don't think there are any with built-in ethernet. You'd
have to add a chip, like this guy apparently did:
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?module=Freaks%20Tools&func=viewItem&item_id=357
But the AVR8 chips will never, ever run Debian--- they just don't have
the firepower for Linux. They're 8-bitters, just like your 8051 example.
I was already thinking a a very small VIA CPU, but the
PCBs are much more complicate as the ARM/MIPS ones...
There's another problem--- design control. You'll probably never get
schematics for such a board, and if you do then it'll probably consist
of a bunch of "glue logic" hidden inside of undocumented boxes. That's
the case with a project I'm working on right now, and I dislike it
immensely.
ARM, PPC and MIPS platforms, due to their simplicity compared to
anything PC, are manageable even when you don't have schematics. At
least to me.
Recommend that you poke around with Atmel's AP7000 (AVR32) network
gateway evaluation kit (<$100). If you want an out-of-the-box Debian
ARM experience, try a Thecus n2100 or NSLu2. If you want to do kernel
hacking, poke around with some of the boards on linuxdevices.com.
Myself, I use Cogent Computer System's boards almost exclusively. I
like them, they're durable, and the company is nice to work with.
b.g.
--
Bill Gatliff
bgat@billgatliff.com
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