Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:46:00 +1100 (EST) | | From | Adam Wiggins <> | | Subject | Re: Suitable chipset for a pocket linux box |
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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.
I'd love to use powerpc but i'm sure they are a very expensive option. If they have a cheap portable series then ok but unless they are cheap they are a no go. We can put some money in now because its been assigned as a thesis project to one of the undergrads. > > Jan-Derk Bakker. > > PS: Without trying to revive the Netstation, is anyone interested in > helping development of a cheap modular multiprocessing engine with these > (or similar) chips ? I'll have to design some bare-bones boards for my > daytime job anyway, and a simple message passing interface isn't too hard > to add. All fs/network/UI functions would be carried out by a 'normal' > Linux frontend. > I'd be very iterested as this is the sort of thing i want to do for my own undergrad thesis in a few years :)
Cheers Adam
> -- > "... I've seen Sun monitors on fire off the side of the multimedia lab. > I've seen NTU lights glitter in the dark near the Mail Gate. > All these things will be lost in time, like the root partition last week. > Time... to die...". - Peter Gutmann in the scary devil monastery > >
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