Hi,
I am a beginner to be embedded world, and I have been looking around to purchase a simple development board to experiment on. Since I am doing this as a hobby, I am restricted to low-cost options. I came across the following board while I was doing a google search.
It is based on the Virtex II Pro FPGA that contains a PowerPC processer and a bunch of reconfigurable logic cells. It costs about $195 for the board alone (I had a limit of $200). I have access to any necessary test equipment in the lab in which I am working. I am planning to use this board to learn things like cross-compiling the Linux kernel, installing the kernel and device drivers (if they are available), developing simple programs, etc., It looks like a good option because I can also experiment with Verilog/VHDL programming.
Has anyone already worked with this board before ? Is it a good investment for a beginner hobbyist ? Are there better/cheaper (beginner) alternatives out there ?
I am familiar with the Linux OS and I have been developing applications in C/C++ for a while. I have just started reading about Kernel internal, device drivers, etc., and I looking forward to beginning my journey into Embedded Linux.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in Advance, Vijay.