Beginning Embedded Development

I want to develop something similar to the NSLU2 (

iki/NSLU2 ), but with more USB ports, and a few other tweaks. I dont mind spending ~=A3100 ($200)ish but would be very reluctant to spend more until I have decided its something I really enjoy.

I had looked at

as its very close to what I want but they only seem to sell in batches of 10+ and I really don't want that many..

Regards,

Ryan

wiki/NSLU2

Sorry, this is just to clarify, the board at

html can be bought in single units for about =A3150 so that would be within my budget.

g/wiki/NSLU2

Not really, I use dd-wrt at home & the dell switches we have I think have a version of embedded linux on them (although I haven't verified this). On the plus side I manage a corporate network containing alot of linux servers, so i have plenty of linux knowledge, I wouldn't have expected them to be vastly different.

I am not complaining about $20, as long as that will be the begining and end of the expense. What I don't want is "its $200 for X, $50 for y, and you'll need c at $100", thats why I had said about $200.

This is a show stopper !!

Do you mean a host port ??

Getting a SBC with a host port is easy, getting code to drive this host port is expensive.

There may be some Embedded Linux systems out there that can have this.

good luck

This is a huge project for a beginner.

donald

MONEY

$219.99 is ($200)ish.

Do you have any experience with embedded Linux ??

This is the wrong time to be complaining about $20.

Don't short change yourself before the project gets started.

donald

Perhaps a PC motherboard ....

-Michael

Ammiravo la mia cresta allo specchio quando Pvt Ryan ha detto :

Look here

--
Nuno on zx-6r '04 & CR 250 '98 working in progress...
E abbiam montato l'autovelox e fatto multe senza pietà
A chi passava sopra i 50 fossero pure i 50 di età 
*** www.gladio.org ***

g/wiki/NSLU2

Its the low power usage that attracts me or I would just use a PC..

The Ethernut could be for you!

Regards, Edwin

You could look at this :-

I have a couple here that I am going to use for something or other :-).

You can get them for £50 or so at the moment.

Andy

I am currently using a Glomation GESBC in a project, and am fairly pleased with how it is working out. I wrote a review:

Cost is around $100 for qty 1.

Cliff

=================

No words of encouragement for the hardy adventurer? Seriously, embedded development is _not_ light years away from what you have already mentioned having experience in. It is different, but not an entirely new world. To do it well, you of course need to have much more awareness of the hardware you are running on than you are probably used to, but nearly anyone who is willing to try it can knock out a quick 'hello world' on an embedded platform and move up from there. Give it patience and time, and you'll be great at it.

Others have already mentioned boards for you to use -- as far as online resources, the most required and useful skill for embedded development is cross-compiling.

is a brief review to get you started if you're unfamiliar with the concept. That has no practical "howto" information, but is a good base to start from. From there, assuming you have already picked up a working toolchain for the board you pick, I would pick a small app to start with and google that app plus 'cross compile' plus your particular platform. Other than that, have fun, and if you don't want to waste money, then don't mess with the bootloader or kernel until you have come a bit more up to speed! (If I had a nickel for all the boards I've semi- permanently killed -- well, I'd have a few more nickels. But that would at least be some consolation).

TS-7200

j

Thanks for all the replies.. I haven't had a chance yet to fully read all the links but I will do so later this evening or tomorrow. All tips/advice are welcome, so keep em coming..

Regards,

Ryan McLean

Hi all

I'm working with ryan on the project he mentioned, so I thought I'd make an appearance in the group and add my two pennies worth :)

We're looking for a SBC that runs a linux kernel ideally, that we can customise and to make a small, low-power and (eventually) reasonably inexpensive box that can perform a number of functions.

We've lots of programming, networking, database, smtp experience (the list goes on...) but simply no experience of embedded platforms. Of course, we *could* use a PC motherboard, but we're both the "in at the deep end type" and are quite excited about programming a completely for a completely different platform, instead of just tickling the surface by using PC parts.

So I'd second Ryan's questions....

In terms of development, what do we need to invest in? If someone can tell us what software and hardware we'd be needing to get, in order to program for, and compile on, these SBCs then we'd be very grateful.

The Kwikbyte boards (as Ryan mentioned) are the starting point for us

- but there simply isn't enough info about them on their website. I plan to call them next week, but I'd certainly rather know a bit more about what I was talking about before i do :)

So...a typical development setup consists of ___________________ (anyone?)

Thanks

Ben

^^apologies for the typos, i was cooking at the same time :p

A lot of people have said a lot of good stuff.

We're working with Mini-ITX boards (which are basically condensed PC motherboards) with ethernet, USB and the other expected PC peripherals. Current prices including DRAM and flash drive can be around $250, power draw in the 10 watt area. We install Debian Linux, and for now have been running compiles on the target, to avoid library confusion. At some point we'll have to consider a stripped-down release to install on the product, but that should only involve taking things away, not radically changing our methods.

We've also tried Technologics TS-7xxx ARM-based boards, successfully. With these we started with a toolchain under Cygwin, but latter moved to a native toolchain on the target board. All toolchains were free from the Technologics FTP site.

For native compiles, we get the target system to mount the source tree via NFS from a Linux desktop system.

Apart from that, the other outside tools we've depended on:

- a CVS server on the LAN for source code control

- the PuTTY package to handle SSH connections to the target/development system from our desktops.

Product press releases from the LinuxDevices.com RSS feed are a good read.

Mel.

You and ryan are application level programmer who like to use the term embedded to mean something other then what it use to mean.

All the functions you are asking for are only on PC level boards.

Some truly embedded system boards will contain some of these thing, but at a price.

So, if you are looking at getting a project/product done, then just get it done.

If you are looking to play around, start somewhere and figure out whats missing and move up from there.

These is _no_ perfect embedded board for application programmers.

You guys ask for a PC but don't want to pay for a PC.

Well, technology is not there yet.

donald

Take a look at OpenEmbedded linux distro. I think it has everything you need. It has support for a lot of small SBC:s and you can easily build your own customized distro which fits (kernel + rootfs) into the flash (no cf/sd-card needed). You can start with full-featured SBC and later on scale your application down if you need to (i think oe has support for really low end machines with 8Mb flash). Or you can do development on a regular desktop linux if your application relies on the standard linux stuff.