Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:51:42 +0000 ( ) | From | Claude Robitaille <> | Subject | Re: Suitable chipset for a pocket linux box |
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On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Gabriel Paubert wrote:
> > > On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, J.D. Bakker wrote: > > > At 5:17 PM +0000 26-01-1998, Jason McMullan wrote: > > >Adam Wiggins (madman@zip.com.au) wrote: > > >> Myself and a few other comp sci/eng studnets at the Uni of NSW, > > >> australia want to do a little pocket linux box project. To get the ball > > >> rolling we have to decide on a suitable chipset. I'm writting to ask what > > >> the best arcitecture for this project would be. We need a low cost, low > > >> power usage chip with a bit of grunt and with a solid nitch in linux > > >> support. Mips comes to mind though i'm not sure of the power usage of > > >> these. We'd rather not deal with intel though we may have to. > > >> As well as the cpu we need a support chipset for standard i/o > > >> using the laptop based interfaces like pcmcia or other popular standards. > > >> The focus is nice cheap low power consumption hardware while maintainning > > >> good software support from linux. > > >> Please relay your comments. > > > > > > ARM. Low power consumption varieties available, reasonably > > >good support from the manufacturer(s), As of 2.1.79 mainlined > > >kernel support, etc. And cheap, too. > > > > Don't rule out the PowerPC chips, though. IBM has some nice inexpensive > > embedded versions, like the PPC403 series, with cache, DRAM interface, > > multiple DMA and more goodies. Do a search on the IBM website; there's > > pretty complete documentation on all chips. > > > > Or the 860 from Motorola, which includes a 100Mb Ethernet in some > versions. And Linux was being ported to this chip recently (don't remember > who was doing it). > > Gabriel. > > > Or the ColdFire serie, again from Motorola. They just announced a new version, the MCF5307 which has cache, 2 serial port, DRAM controler, IO, debug port, some internal ram, timer, etc. It is cheap (15-20$) and very performant for the price (70 MIPS). Finally, GNU C compiler is ported.
The ColdFire serie a basically a 68000 with some instructions removed to make the chip much smaller and much more performant (like 20X for the 5307).
Claude
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