Messages in this thread |  | | | From | "christophe leroy" <> | | Date | Tue, 20 Oct 1998 19:10:03 MET | | Subject | Re: Linux on 386 EX SBC Card |
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> From: Carlos Morgado <l39801@alfa.ist.utl.pt> > Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 02:25:07 +0100 > Subject: Re: Linux on 386 EX SBC Card > > > On Sun, Oct 18, 1998 at 05:09:57PM +0100, christophe leroy wrote: > > I'm about to buy a 386 EX SBC Card from universal developers > > (www.universal-developers.com). > > This card has a Intel 386EX with 2Mbytes DRAM, 2 serial ports, > > 1 paralele port, 1 interupts controler, 1 timer, 1 Watchdog timer > > 1Mbytes flash PROM with BIOS and DOS in it. > > > this is for what ? embeded controlers ?
It is called "applications card" > > > Do you think I could run linux on it ? > > can't see why not ... :) > > > Do I need the BIOS, or can Linux do all initialisation alone ? > > Usually Linux uses the BIOS to boot (via lilo or some other thing) and to do > some basic hardware detection. Since your hardware won't change you can > hardcode it into the kernel. Also 1M ROM is large enough to fin an > uncompressed kernel so you might do a autobooted kernel hack ehhe :) > I only need about 250K for a compressed kernel. Remaining 750K is for a filesystem with compression (something i've developed around ROMFS)
> Now remember you will run some programs on it too no ? :)
Little programs, thats why I dont want to lose memory with ramdisk
> > > Is there a driver to access ROM as a block device ? If not can I use > > /dev/rom device MAJOR defined in devices.txt for my driver? > > > > Hum there is a a ROM fs developed by the PDA port people i think. You might > want to look into that.
ROMFS is a filesystem, not a block driver. It needs a block driver to access ROM memory. And it has been called ROMFS because it's readonly.
> > Some time ago i asked around and the last kernels to run on such tight > memory where 1.0. I was told someone did a patch for 2.0 to boot on a > ridiculous amount of RAM. > > I would try to keep the kernel on ROM. That can be achieve with some > sensible linker map .. to make the kernel live well with text on ROM and > data on ROM.
I prefer kernel on RAM, files on ROM
> > What exactly are you going to do with linux on this ? I'm curious eheh :) > Does this have any way of talking to the world other then serial/parallel ?
It also has a PC/104, 8bits BUS (compatible with ISA) Note that paralelle is useful for a zip drive (even if it doesnt support EPP)
dims are 12.7 cm * 9.4 cm I think about using it for a robot, or something like that. Could also be used as a router and firewall on a slow link. Also for the fun of making Linux run on every computer in the world. Linux must run everywhere a Micro$oft OS runs
christophe
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