HI, I am student, and I am interesting in using Linux to do a embedded project. I have not decided the project topic, but the processor I am looking for is either x86, ARM, or MIPS. The memory is around 32 MB. I have tried to look online, but most of them are too expensive for a student. Is there any development kit that is around $300 and fit my description?
There's something to be said for just taking an old PC and treating it like an embedded system! Putting the entire kernel and userland on a floppy is a pretty good simulation of what you have to do with a flash-based embedded system.
And to make the simulation more realistic, you can use a real embedded distro, e.g.
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Once you have things working on the PC, you can even just recompile for a different processor type, and port fairly easily to a real embedded system.
By the way, last month I bought a WRT54G for $95 or so and was able to load Linux programs on it (see
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It only has 16MB of RAM, though, and nobody has yet dared to replace the kernel, which is in flash. If you happen to have one of those around, you can try building apps for it using a cross-compiler. For info about how to build cross-compilers, see
I've been tempted to do that myself. The main unit's pretty cheap, and the ethernet card isn't too expensive if you can find one. Problem is, the darn thing only has 16 (or 24MB, if you count the framebuffer) of RAM, whereas the original poster wanted something with 32MB RAM. And I can't blame him; 16MB is awful cozy.
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