I'd like to pick people's brains about aspects of different *suppliers* of Zynq boards. Avnet and Digilent are front-runners, but any info/opinions about other suppliers would be helpful too.
- ease of using their embedded linux. My needs are simple, requiring a shell and TCP/IP protocols over ethernet. GUI not required, but might be used if it didn't complicate the development.
- quality of online support. How easy is it likely to be to find the information so that I can (a) duplicate any supplied demo environment and (b) mutate it so that my code accesses my programmable logic
- board production longevity. I'm not concerned about decades, but I would be concerned if a board was unobtainable within months
- ISE or Vivado environment
Background and context...
I'm intending to develop something based around a small Xylinx Zynq device. Cost is an issue, but not to the extent that I will be developing a board containing the FPGA itself. I will, however, be developing a small simple add-on board containing my analogue circuits.
Now I can read a datasheet and schematic and outline to determine the extent to which a board is suitable. However, as we are all aware, those documents /don't/ cover all the important points when choosing a board!
I've created many stand-alone hardware and software embedded systems, but *not* based on linux *nor* on ARM
*nor* in the Xilinx ecosystem. Since Zynq devices represent a complex environment, I'll have a learning curve (good, I like challenges), and I'm interested in the quality of the resources and support that I'll need to overcome my misapprehensions.