Embedded boards and OS

The question you should ask yourself is: how much time do I have. If time is limited, go for a x86 based board and Linux.

If you have the money.

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Programmeren in Almere?
E-mail naar nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)

Nico Coesel ha scritto:

Development time is not a key point. It could be quite long.

The customer has. I don't know QNX yet. Better, I'm learning about it's architecture and how it works. But I'd like to know what I can do with it. Shall I think at it as a robust Linux system? So I can use graphical UI and manage all board peripherals such as SDIO, ethernet, USB, PS2 etc?

I'm looking through

searching for a FAQ or a first steps tutorial.

Bye Marco / iw2nzm

It has been a few years since I used QNX, but I don't like it much. Uses synchronous messaging between processes. This causes deadlocks, which can be fairly hard to prevent in complex systems. Our app needed to invent 'asynchronous messaging' on top of the synchronous crap.

You could use a beagleboard with linux (see beagleboard.org).

Regards, Bob Monsen

when you say Processor > 1 GHz what do you really mean?

If you want to customise it heavily go for something that stays close to the standards. slack, debian, fedora

eeepc? (might be too slow?)

Bye. Jasen

Closest thing I found with a two minute search is this board from Arcom

Compact flash for program storage. Dosn't have an SD reader but you could attach a USB one.

Bob

As in several years? Getting a board up & running with all the bells and whistles takes an experienced person a couple of months. It will take some kernel / driver hacking.

I'd stick with something well documented & supported through internet. In other words: Linux or Windows.

--
Programmeren in Almere?
E-mail naar nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)

Nico Coesel ha scritto:

Argh! For "quite long" I mean months :)

Linux, of course.

Thanks! Marco / iw2nzm

Jasen Betts ha scritto:

It's hard to define what I mean :) Because it will run a navigation GPS software I think about a laptop with the same features... Ok, I know that an embedded system is far from a notebook... but I prefer to select a board with higher performance than the opposite...

I need some graphical stuff (QT I guess) for 2D drawing and no other bells or whistles... All of them could be customized to remove any process not needed?

It will be embedded into a larger system: so the screen and the keyboard will be far away from the board.

Marco / iw2nzm

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com ha scritto:

Doesn't matter if it has CF or SD. Anyway, it's very interesting! Thanks

Marco / iw2nzm

There aren't many MCUs faster than 1 GHz. One with a very low price ($10 in quantity|) is the XMOS chip:

Each core has 32 threads implemented in hardware, it doesn't need an RTOS.

Leon

Googling for "pico itx" may also find potential boards, might need a car PC power supply for the required voltages and/or a compactflash to SATA adaptor.

FWIW IIRC it was originally targeted at real time and SCADA like systems. Licensing costs may well be significant.