Minimal and low-cost embedded Linux

I don't strictly need a full Linux OS, but I have to use a third-party SDK released only for this OS (it is a commercial TTS engine solution).

What is the minimal hw platform that runs a full Linux (not uClinux)? Is there a single-chip (integrated Flash and RAM) solution? I don't think. What is the simplest and lowes cost solution for a medium volume production (1000pcs)?

I don't need TCP/IP, USB, Ethernet, WiFi, Filesystems and so on.

I'm not sure, but I think the TTS library doesn't use Linux services,, but only C library call. How do I understand which function calls are present in the pre-compiled library included in SDK?

If the library doesn't use specific Linux services, is it possible to convert a pre-compiled library for ARM Linux to a pre-compiled library for a bare-metal (no OS) ARM hw platform? Of course, the same ARM core.

Reply to
pozz
Loading thread data ...

The only thing that comes to mind is the Raspberry Pi Zero. It is a small board with the CPU and RAM using a microSD card for storage. It has HDMI and USB but no Ethernet. A 0.1" centers pin connector provides I/O. Do you need I/O?

At a price of $5, I don't think you will find anything cheaper even if you build it yourself!

--

Rick
Reply to
rickman

Raspberry Pi Model Zero ?

I don't think so either. You want a few megabytes of flash and a few meg of ram for this.

A thing I worked on had a Freescale 400 mhz ARM cpu and 64MB of ram, hw cost around $2. No flash since the board had an SD slot--add another couple bucks for the card. In this case we were logging a lot of data so needed the multi-GB capacity.

The Linux "nm" utility can figure it out (identify the undefined symbols, labelled U).

Hmm, maybe kinda. It would involve some reverse engineering. You'd need a good systems hacker to do it. Why not just call the vendor and ask them to make a build for your hardware?

Reply to
Paul Rubin

Yes, I know Raspberry PI Zero, but I thought it was for hobbyst market. Do you think it's possible to use on a serious application with a medium production volume (1000pcs/year)?

Reply to
pozz

See my answer to rickman above.

Do you have additional info? Which Freescale ARM MPU?

Already asked to them, but they aren't collaborative in this sense.

Reply to
pozz

.

Is

.

ed

.
s

the real question is if they will sell you 1000pcs/year. The first batch th ey had sold out in less than 24 hours.

Have you already checked the Beagle Bone (Black)? it has 4GB of flash onboa rd, so you don't need to use an external sd card.

Bye Jack

Reply to
Jack

What aspects are you concerned about? What about the board makes it "hobbyist", or maybe I should ask what that even means? Electronics is electronics. Unless you feel there is something wrong with the board or that it won't be made in a few years, I can't see a problem using it. I guess you might want to check channels to make sure you can buy 100 at a time or whatever quantity you will be needing.

I wanted to use a Beagle Bone in a project once and in the support forum the developer said they don't sell it for commercial work. What he meant was he wanted to be free to make mods to the board as he saw fit without worrying about compatibility. He recommended you get your own boards made. Now he is selling the BBB for commercial use at a slightly higher price for low quantities. Not sure where the price is for larger quantities, but far above $5.

The rPi has been in production for a couple of years now. They come out with new models, but I don't see where they have dropped any. I'd bet they make the zero for some time to come as I think it will be very popular. Even if they drop it, I bet someone else picks it up and offers it for a slightly higher price. Hard to do much of a board for $5.

--

Rick
Reply to
rickman

Right now its availability is too limited, but I do believe people are using the bigger Raspberry Pis in this way.

It also occurs to me that the TTS library might require a significant amount of file storage, since a lot of what it has to do amounts to natural language analysis to decide inflections etc., so it may need a database of English (or whatever language) vocabulary. The actual sound synthesis is simple by comparison. This means porting to a minimal bare metal system might be messy and not gain you much.

Reply to
Paul Rubin

Don't remember, probably never knew the part number. Another guy did the hardware-- I only wrote code. You might look at openwrt.org or some other site where they take apart home router applicances. Those things run Linux internally and are very cheap, so the hw should be minimal.

Reply to
Paul Rubin

The Renesas RZ comes close, up to 10MB on-chip RAM. But no flash, just add a tiny QSPI FLASH. Never used them, but they look interesting.

--
Stef    (remove caps, dashes and .invalid from e-mail address to reply by mail) 

He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT.
Reply to
Stef

You also need an MMU, and doing a Linux port if there's not already one is a substantial task. Plus it's a pretty expensive part IIRC.

Also the OP wants to use a binary-only library so it's unclear what CPUs it's available for. Might be ARM-only. If not, there are some cheap Ingenic MIPS-based chips that run Linux. See the hardware for the Ben Nanonote though it's dated by now.

Reply to
Paul Rubin

Il 10/12/2015 09:11, Paul Rubin ha scritto:

I don't understand why you arrived to this conclusion.

Reply to
pozz

Ah, yes no MMU, forgot about that, sorry. No not cheap IIRC as well. The RZ/G does have MMU, but than the on-chip RAM advantage of the RZ/A is gone.

The RZ/A is a Cortex-A9 so that should not be a problem.

--
Stef    (remove caps, dashes and .invalid from e-mail address to reply by mail) 

The American Dental Association announced today that most plaque tends 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Stef

It is available only as SDK (binaries) for ARM Linux/Android (and Intel, Windows, ...)

Reply to
pozz

There is a commercial arm (lower case) to Raspberry which will respin the PIs to your form factor etc so yes, they will sell into products.

Colin

Reply to
colin_toogood

scritto:

PIs to your form factor etc so yes, they will sell into products.

good to know.

Bye Jack

Reply to
Jack

Agreed wrt porting to a new architecture. However ...

On most supported architectures, the kernel runs fine without MMU. All you need to do to try it is rebuild with one setting change: CONFIG_MMU=n

However, this setting is hidden: it's not in the build config menu - you have to edit the .config file directly.

The kernel itself works ... the problem is that far too many other things are likely to break.

George

Reply to
George Neuner

The first thing coming to mind is mapping shared libraries.

You have to re-build a bunch of helper programs and end up with ucLinux.

--

-TV
Reply to
Tauno Voipio

if he only has a binary it might not work on a pi-zero, pi-zero is the old armv6

-Lasse

Reply to
lasselangwadtchristensen

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.