From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 28 07:03:53 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDA8216C9E0; Sun, 28 May 2006 06:55:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (vc4-2-0-87.dsl.netrack.net [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6954943D53; Sun, 28 May 2006 06:55:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost.village.org [IPv6:::1] (may be forged)) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k4S6rv6P082558; Sun, 28 May 2006 00:53:57 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 00:53:59 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <20060528.005359.1708682317.imp@bsdimp.com> To: ports@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org From: "M. Warner Losh" X-Mailer: Mew version 4.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Cross building ports X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 07:04:03 -0000 Greetings, Many moons ago, I took a look at the ports system and concluded that doing cross builds on ports would be difficult. However, I have a need now to build FreeBSD/arm ports on a FreeBSD/i386 or FreeBSD/amd64 box. Before I dive into this problem again, I thought I'd see if anybody can share their experiences and thoughts on the matter. Thanks much... Warner From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 28 10:17:24 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0CA6516AC62 for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 10:05:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from james@wgold.demon.co.uk) Received: from anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.91]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97C1343D46 for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 10:05:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from james@wgold.demon.co.uk) Received: from wgold.demon.co.uk ([158.152.96.124] helo=thor) by anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 4.42) id 1FkI9G-00043w-9v; Sun, 28 May 2006 10:05:26 +0000 Received: from 127.0.0.1 by thor ([127.0.0.1] running VPOP3) with SMTP; Sun, 28 May 2006 10:20:26 +0100 From: "James Mansion" To: "marty fouts" Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 10:20:22 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <9f7850090605271000j524d6a35gfa3f6df1f0ed59f5@mail.gmail.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 X-Server: VPOP3 V1.5.0k - Registered Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , small@freebsd.org Subject: RE: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 10:17:29 -0000 >Experience suggests that wear leveling does matter in this market, but >that fairly simple wear leveling can be very effective. Can I ask why? I mmay be a very bed person to talk about phones, because I have a 6-year-old Seimens I chose for battery life and the first thing I did was disable IrDa and WAP. It doesn't have a camera. ;-) And I've never sent a text. I can see that you might want to store 'call missed' messages and incoming texts, and phone lists etc, and maybe store a photo or two, but these things are either low-frequency or user-driven and very low frequency. Where are all the updates coming from? My phone is the oldest of any of the people I've worked with in my last two contracts. Its well out of warranty, and I suspect its out of its design life too. If you take Linux as an example, even without physical wear- levelling you can run for a long, long time if you run with noatime and defer physical updates with laptop mode. Of course, laptop mode can leave you exposed, but I would hope that soft-updates can effectively help out here in terms of a strategy to write blocks in an order that's sane. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 28 13:59:22 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9A57716B0CB for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 13:59:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sfstmr@bluearrow.com) Received: from bluearrow.com (abjc141.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl [83.7.144.141]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5593043D55 for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 13:59:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sfstmr@bluearrow.com) Received: from localhost.localdomain (tqaWL82.mail3world.com [209.88.189.124]) by 209.88.189.124 (Postfix) with SMTP id 90d144cz660u for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 15:59:25 +0100 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 15:59:25 +0100 From: "fqvei ndgtsg" To: Content-return: allowed X-Mailer: phpmailer [version 1.41] X-Trailer: PHP Data URLENCODED 7 X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: apache set sender to sfstmr@bluearrow.com using -f X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at mail2world.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <30235922112806.lri037nayd@XoYHkd> Subject: fwd: your pr man is back X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 13:59:26 -0000 CTXE***CTXE***CTXE***CTXE***CTXE***CTXE***CTXE Get CTXE First Thing Today, Check out for HOT NEWS!!! CTXE - CANTEX ENERGY CORP CURRENT_PRICE: $0.53 GET IT N0W! Before we start with the profile of CTXE we would like to mention something very important: There is a Big PR Campaign starting this weeek . And it will go all week so it would be best to get in NOW. Company Profile Cantex Energy Corporation is an independent, managed risk, oil and gas exploration, development, and production company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Recent News Cantex Energy Corp. Announces Completion of the GPS Survey Today and the Mobilization of Seismic Crews for Big Canyon 2D Swath, Management would like to report The GPS surveying of our Big Canyon 2D Swath Geophysical program is being completed today. The crew that has been obtained to conduct the seismic survey (Quantum Geophysical) will be mobilizing May 30 (plus or minus 2 days) to the Big Canyon Prospect. It will take the crews about 3 to 4 days to get all the equipment (cable and geophones) laid out on the ground and then another day of testing so we should be in full production mode on or around the 4th or 5th of June. Once the first of three lines are shot we will then get data processed and report progress on a weekly basis. Cantex Energy Corp. Receiving Interest From the Industry as It Enters Next Phase of Development Cantex Energy Corp. (CTXE - News) is pleased to report the following on its Big Canyon Prospect in West Texas. Recent company announcements related to the acquisition of over 48,000 acres of a world-class prospect has captured the attention of many oil & gas industry experts and corporations, who have recently inquired into various participation opportunities ranging from sharing science technology to support findings or expertise to drill, operate and manage wells. Trace Maurin, President of Cantex, commented, "Although we are a small independent oil & gas company, we have a very unique 0pp0rtunity in one of the last under-explored world-class potential gas plays with no geopolitical risks and the industry is starting to take notice. As we prepare to prove up the various structures within our prospect later this month, we are increasing our efforts to communicate on our progress to our shareholders and investors. Our intention is to provide investors with a better understanding of the full potential of this prospect as we embark on the next phase of operations." Starting immediately the company will undertake CEO interviews, radio spots (which will be recorded and published on the company website), publication placements, introductions to small cap institutional investors and funds all in an effort to optimize market awareness and keep our shareholder well informed. GET IN NOW Happy memorial day Raking in the dough. Up a tree. Under the weather. Walking on water. Sweet as apple pie. She's a mother hen. You never miss the water till the well runs dry. Want my place in the sun. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Weed out. Root it out. A snail's pace. Water doesn't run uphill. Stand your ground. Some like carrots others like cabbage. Raking in the dough. Rare as walking on water. A snail's pace. Walking on water. The scythe ran into a stone. We hung them out to dry. Putting it in a nutshell. Take time to smell the roses. Stand your ground. Walking on cloud nine. Through the grapevine. Spring forward fall back. Tools of the trade. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 28 14:29:21 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0522D16C24A; Sun, 28 May 2006 14:29:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from saturnero@freesbie.org) Received: from out.alice.it (smtp-out01.alice.it [85.33.2.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E613743D5D; Sun, 28 May 2006 14:29:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from saturnero@freesbie.org) Received: from FBCMMO01.fbc.local ([192.168.68.195]) by out.alice.it with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Sun, 28 May 2006 16:29:10 +0200 Received: from client.alice.it ([192.168.68.142]) by FBCMMO01.fbc.local with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Sun, 28 May 2006 16:28:57 +0200 Received: from [192.168.99.16] ([87.5.150.129]) by client.alice.it with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Sun, 28 May 2006 16:28:55 +0200 Message-ID: <4479B387.3080203@freesbie.org> Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 16:28:23 +0200 From: Dario Freni User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Macintosh/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "M. Warner Losh" References: <20060528.005359.1708682317.imp@bsdimp.com> In-Reply-To: <20060528.005359.1708682317.imp@bsdimp.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 OpenPGP: url=http://www.saturnero.net/saturnero.asc Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enig9B5997BE46045B2C3AABEA42" X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 May 2006 14:28:55.0388 (UTC) FILETIME=[0CBF61C0:01C68263] Cc: ports@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org, gabor@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cross building ports X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 14:29:26 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enig9B5997BE46045B2C3AABEA42 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable M. Warner Losh wrote: > Greetings, >=20 > Many moons ago, I took a look at the ports system and concluded that > doing cross builds on ports would be difficult. However, I have a > need now to build FreeBSD/arm ports on a FreeBSD/i386 or FreeBSD/amd64 > box. Before I dive into this problem again, I thought I'd see if > anybody can share their experiences and thoughts on the matter. > Thanks much... I've no experiences with ports cross compiling, but it is one of the goals of a SoC project from gabor@: http://wikitest.freebsd.org/G%C3%A1borK%C3%B6vesd%C3%A1n --=20 Dario Freni (saturnero@freesbie.org) FreeSBIE developer (http://www.freesbie.org) GPG Public key at http://www.saturnero.net/saturnero.asc --------------enig9B5997BE46045B2C3AABEA42 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (Darwin) iD8DBQFEebOKymi72IiShysRAhtkAJ4gU991xsrEcdfTLoHKoTTTAL9+4wCfU+dC 5oKHDqwy+8yt28UNPOqERNk= =b2pX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enig9B5997BE46045B2C3AABEA42-- From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 00:44:03 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 839A016A9D5 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 00:44:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from anonymous@crowe-shop.com) Received: from crowe-shop.com (crowe-shop.com [199.237.206.146]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CA3443D62 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 00:43:57 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from anonymous@crowe-shop.com) Received: (qmail 63674 invoked by uid 20114); 29 May 2006 00:39:59 -0000 Date: 29 May 2006 00:39:59 -0000 Message-ID: <20060529003959.63673.qmail@crowe-shop.com> To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org From: CajaMadrid.es Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Nuevo medio de seguridad X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: "CajaMadrid.es" List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 00:44:06 -0000 Inicio | Accesibilidad | Boletines | Atención al cliente | Ayuda | Oficinas y cajeros | Mapa Web | Portales Caja Madrid _________________________________________________________________ [SB_08_IMG.GIF] [SB_08_CLAIM.GIF] Oficina Internet Debido a los tentativas recientes de fraude Caja Madrid ha introducido un nuevo medio de seguridad. Debes conectar en tu cuenta de Caja Madrid usando tu ordenador personal o del lugar y ordenador que has utilizado en el pasado. Tu dirección IP será colocada a nuestra base de datos. Cualquier tentativa de conexión de un diverso dirección IP necesita confirmación sobre el el teléfono. Puedes corregir su detalles personales y su dirección IP principal usando el panel de control en cualquier momento. Por favor dar un plazo de 5 minutos a partir del momento que has llenado el formulario nuestro y darnos su dirección IP principal pulsa [1]aquí o usando la dirección. [2]https://oi.cajamadrid.es/CajaMadrid/oi/pt_oi/Login/login_IP_conf=tr ue Información Legal | Seguridad | Privacidad | Tarifas | Tablón de Anuncios _________________________________________________________________ References 1. http://www.markrolph.com/ 2. http://www.markrolph.com/ From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 11:03:22 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 27A3B16A425 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@freebsd.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [216.136.204.21]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DEA2C43D46 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:21 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@freebsd.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (peter@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k4TB3LlY097567 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:21 GMT (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@freebsd.org) Received: (from peter@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) id k4TB3KxE097563 for freebsd-small@freebsd.org; Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:20 GMT (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@freebsd.org) Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:20 GMT Message-Id: <200605291103.k4TB3KxE097563@freefall.freebsd.org> X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: peter set sender to owner-bugmaster@freebsd.org using -f From: FreeBSD bugmaster To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.org Cc: Subject: Current problem reports assigned to you X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 11:03:22 -0000 Current FreeBSD problem reports Critical problems Serious problems Non-critical problems S Submitted Tracker Resp. Description ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o [2000/01/04] misc/15876 small PicoBSD message of the day problems o [2001/06/18] misc/28255 small picobsd documentation still references ol o [2002/09/13] kern/42728 small many problems in src/usr.sbin/ppp/* afte o [2003/05/14] misc/52255 small picobsd build script fails under FreeBSD o [2003/05/14] misc/52256 small picobsd build script does not read in use 5 problems total. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 17:38:14 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AFE416A434; Mon, 29 May 2006 17:38:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: from amd64.ott.parse.com (ottawa-hs-206-191-28-202.s-ip.magma.ca [206.191.28.202]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08F6143D46; Mon, 29 May 2006 17:38:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: from amd64.ott.parse.com (localhost.parse.com [127.0.0.1]) by amd64.ott.parse.com (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k4THaPcr012015; Mon, 29 May 2006 13:36:27 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: (from root@localhost) by amd64.ott.parse.com (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id k4THaOGc012014; Mon, 29 May 2006 13:36:24 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from root) From: Robert Krten Message-Id: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> To: phk@phk.freebsd.dk (Poul-Henning Kamp) Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 13:36:24 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <2538.1148556253@critter.freebsd.dk> from "Poul-Henning Kamp" at May 25, 2006 01:24:13 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL6] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 17:38:14 -0000 Poul-Henning Kamp sez... [snip; getting into this late due to some weird mailing list delays] > FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over > the world use this to their advantage. Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development, *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded market. WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners of that marketplace. [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks; I've heard they're a big BSD shop] > At the developer summit in Ottawa this month (right before the > wonderful BSDcan conference) we spent a lot of time talking about > what we as developers can do to further this market segment. It's got to be as simple and well-supported as the OSs mentioned above. It's got to have success stories, PR, etc. It's got to have a base of experts that *know* embedded. There must be a commonality between the "embedded edition" and the "desktop edition" -- self-hosted development is ORDERS of magnitude more efficient than cross platform development, so the "desktop" version should present itself as a really "fat" embedded system... [snip] > Overall Focus > ------------- > > I think we found three main areas where we need to do some work: > platforms, packaging and evangelism. Agree 100%; I'd also seriously add: d) port kits What I mean by that is creating a set of libraries, tools, documentation, whatever it takes, that will help someone coming from a VxWorks or QNX or whatever environment to get started and become productive in a FreeBSD environment ASAP. [snip] > What can you do ? > > If you work with embedded FreeBSD, I think the best you can do is to > chime in to small@freebsd.org, tell us what you are doing (as far as > company policy will allow you), and if you have any ideas, wishes, > problems, let us hear about them. Well, my current project is QNX-based, but I've been asking myself, "why can't we use FreeBSD on this one?" Apart from the fact that it's a medical device, and we are 2 years into it :-) Let me describe it briefly -- it's a 500MHz Celeron processor, 16 MB CF, 64MB RAM, VGA, Ethernet, and a 48 digital I/O card + serial ports. The OS and all applications are on the order of 3MB. The CF is used for logging of "interesting internal software events" as well as a database of irradiated products. The software controls two motors, monitors a dozen inputs, and communicates with the user via a 4 x 20 Vacuum Fluorescent Display and a 14 button keypad over a weird Datapac 3201-like serial protocol (ETX/STX/ACK/NAK/ENQ type of stuff). It accepts an IBM-PC/AT compatible keyboard, with a barcode scanner. There is 50kLOC divided into half a dozen major processes, all communicating via IPC. I'm not going to take up more list space with details, see the top entry of my resume at www.parse.com/resume.html for more info. There you'll also see the kind of stuff I've been working on for the last 20 years. What if we were to port this to FreeBSD, or if we were to have started the project in FreeBSD in the beginning? Well, the following things are "critical" for our system -- FreeBSD addresses some of them, and is "at the edge" for others: a) fast boot time -- there's a stupidly-designed microcontroller on one of the systems (legacy; can't change) that needs to be tickled within 13s of power up. Using the current Celeron processor, with a special "fast boot" bios from the manufacturer, and having customized the kernel, and hacked the OS bootloader, we're down to 10s. b) small sizes -- this is less of a constraint than it used to be, but the size of everything affects bootup time. c) realtime response d) certified for use in medical devices The last requirement is peculiar to this device and can probably be omitted from the "general list" of embedded requirements. There's been a lot of discussion on this list about filesystems and flash adaptation layers and all that. The CF cards that we're using are M-Systems 32 MB EIDE "plugs" (they plug right into the motherboard's EIDE connector) and we did extensive life-cycle testing on them with no apparent degradation. (This could be a misleading statement -- we don't write to the flash that often, so our simulation of "5 years worth of life cycle" consisted of on the order of 1 million open/write/close cycles on a few files). Since it's almost impossible to get any "real" answers from M-systems (or any other vendor, most likely) about what they do for wear-leveling etc, we simply said "Fine, how does a representative sample of their devices compare over our expected lifecycle?" Another serious issue to consider with wear-leveling is that some of the algorithms are patented, so there's a whole nasty IP issue to contend with. In another life, I did data acquisition for an aluminium smelter, worked on a control system for a chlorine plant, conveyor controls, embedded telecoms work, etc, etc. An "embedded edition" of FreeBSD is definitely required... [snip] As far as PR goes, maybe what someone needs to do is make a checklist against the other market leaders in the embedded marketplace. Something that PHB types could look at and go "Golly, this has everything!" -- POSIX compliance, realtime support, drivers, protocols, development tools, support, etc. Someone should look at the other embedded players and see how they handle BSPs -- Board Support Packages. These are the "take these ten things and mix them together and voila, you have a working reference board". [snip] > It would be great if we could park a couple of developers full time > on embedded FreeBSD in the future, but that would take some serious > financial support from the user community, if you think your company > could be persuaded to help with this, get in touch with the FreeBSD > foundation. I would love to work on embedding FreeBSD; unfortunately, doing what I do, I have a money-driven scheduling algorithm. This means I'd either need to convince a "sugar daddy" employer that this would be a "Good Thing(TM)" or there'd have to be a sufficient infrastructure in place that it would be a no brainer, or someone would have to pay for development... Anyway, just sharing some random thoughts :-) Cheers, -RK -- Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices Realtime Systems Architecture, Consulting, Books and Training at www.parse.com Looking for Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1 through PDP-15 minicomputers! From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 18:15:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B4BC916A7F0 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 18:15:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.190]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 03B0543D53 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 18:15:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id d4so326507nfe for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 11:15:34 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=mRg2euK347jC+vTpoMIMHCTHnzbfiBL4lY8iDZzPVXkLJTOAV/8pK5rOTInjclNCu01Ht4tlgXr2aBqggaUY1w6hoimkGH2NJvbjCWml2n03LOXNq8MwQO4EqPfvhCIb67k9HfVzQvhGxiMXbZjszBuWweeHg1UfPAf6mpczOC4= Received: by 10.49.28.5 with SMTP id f5mr1909441nfj; Mon, 29 May 2006 10:49:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.49.17 with HTTP; Mon, 29 May 2006 10:49:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f7850090605291049j2d6c6e41wff1330e114fa91a7@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:49:28 -0700 From: "marty fouts" To: "James Mansion" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <9f7850090605271000j524d6a35gfa3f6df1f0ed59f5@mail.gmail.com> Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 18:15:38 -0000 On 5/28/06, James Mansion wrote: > >Experience suggests that wear leveling does matter in this market, but > >that fairly simple wear leveling can be very effective. > > Can I ask why? I mmay be a very bed person to talk about phones, > because I have a 6-year-old Seimens I chose for battery life and > the first thing I did was disable IrDa and WAP. It doesn't have > a camera. ;-) And I've never sent a text. > Two reasons: First, NAND devices have a complicated wear behavior. The more frequently you hit the same block, the lower the life expectancy of the block. Second, Because of the way NAND storage is used in smartphones, One tends to accumulate fairly full devices, so the handful of data that is frequently written tends to be limited to a small part of the system. Many blocks see very little wear while a few blocks see a lot of wear. This is exacerbated by the block size being large. (smartphones tend to use NAND rather than NOR because of the cost difference) Because of the relatively large block size, you have to do garbage collection anyway, and it's not hard to do modest wear leveling while you're doing that. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 21:35:45 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 21E6C16AFE0; Mon, 29 May 2006 21:35:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ATRENS@nortel.com) Received: from zrtps0kn.nortel.com (zrtps0kn.nortel.com [47.140.192.55]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C16943DA3; Mon, 29 May 2006 21:34:14 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ATRENS@nortel.com) Received: from zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com (zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com [47.129.230.99]) by zrtps0kn.nortel.com (Switch-2.2.6/Switch-2.2.0) with ESMTP id k4TLWko04612; Mon, 29 May 2006 17:32:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [10.0.10.2] ([47.128.166.148] RDNS failed) by zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Mon, 29 May 2006 17:32:46 -0400 Message-ID: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 17:32:32 -0400 From: "Andrew Atrens" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051129) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: James Mansion References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.93.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 29 May 2006 21:32:46.0040 (UTC) FILETIME=[6D02AD80:01C68367] Cc: current@freebsd.org, Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 21:35:59 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Mansion wrote: >>On the other hand, if you're building an embedded system for a lunar >>lander for Apollo 13, or a real time control system, then I would argue >>that you should squeeze in as many engineering cycles as you can, >>because a dependable system is only as robust as its weakest link. > > > I disagree. What you are building does not change the truism. All that > happens is that 'good enough' has a more stringent definition - that's > the whole point. I've always been a strong believer that in software, as in geology, the macro structure reflects the micro structure. Consider that we're building something that's going to be used in variety of applications with a variety of different 'good enough' definitions. Consider VxWorks, a popular embedded OS that's used in a variety of NASA projects, but I'm sure is also used in some toasters, too. So your 'good enough' quality idea doesn't apply well to something like BSD (or VxWorks) that are really just 'general purpose' building blocks because we don't know the final application and hence that product's 'good enough' definition. >>Having said that, I don't think James initially knew that a CF does >>wear-levelling - so perhaps he doesn't have that much direct experience >>with these devices. > > > I thought I made the point that I believe many do. But once again the > issue here is not whether the do or not, its whether wear-levelling > is a requirement. A modern flash device will handle many updates > per sector, and a device that runs from flash is presumably intended > not to be update-heavy. So long as you don't perform unnecessary > housekeeping IO's such as flushing access times frequently, then > you'll generally be fine. Do the maths. Systems tend to update > /tmp and /var quite a lot, even then if you can avoid flushing the > sectors with directories and delaying them, then you can get > to a the point where the design life is not limited by the flash > device. I really have to disagree with you on that one. I don't know where to start though. Firstly, flash is not ram and flash is not a disk. I'm not trying to be facetious, but you don't seem to have considered that the write-erase paradigm is completely different for flash chips, versus disks or ram. One of the value-added's that CF gives you is that it makes flash 'look' like a disk, so that you can access it using a disk-access paradigm. To keep it simple, you can't just 'put' a r/w filesystem directly on a memory mapped Flash chip - it just won't work. I'm not into the theoretical here. I've worked in telecom, in the embedded space, for almost 12 years. Almost all of that has been on moto platforms, but lately as a hobby (for about a year and a half or so) have been playing with pc-engines WRAP boards. Thing is, and I believe Marty said the same for phones, the form factor for CF is kinda big, and cost is also a factor. So people that are rolling their own hardware have no incentive to use it. Great for a development system. But if you're stamping out a lot of them it is really going to eat into profit margins. For the rest of us, who aren't rolling our own hardware, we gotta use what's available. Jim Thompson for instance uses WRAP boards for some of his routers. I'm sure he'd dearly love to find a cheaper platform to build BSD-based CPE gear on. Heck I would, too. Some of the little MIPS (and ARM) based platforms appear to excellent. And none that I know of use CF - for two reasons - form factor and unit cost. >>Putting on my selfish hat I'd love to have a filesystem that could run >>directly on raw flash. > > > Why? Lets remember we're talking about an embedded system that can be > sensibly implemented with a general purpose OS. I'd put it to you that > normally where this is very desirable, its because the run rate is > quite low so the project overall is very sensitive to ease and cost of > development. But if the run rate is low, then you also need to consider > what hardware will be available in volume at go-live, and CF-to-IDE > is very cheap now in conjunction with system-on-a-chip designs for > set top boxes. For big bulk, we have PIC, Atmel, Rabbit, and assorted > 80186 designs (including one very cute thing I saw built into an > ethernet PHY) Form factor, and cost if you're building your own h/w. If not then you need to use what general use platforms are available, and currently the CF supporting ones are a bit pricey. > If you really must wear level, then why not access through a layer that > divides the whole CF into 'n' partitions, uses 'n-1' of them, re- > presents the 'n-1' through a RAID0-like mapping, and allows the logical > sector 0 in each partition to be changed (with wrap-around). > Then you can use a real filesystem on top of the block-mapping layer, > and the mapper can move the hotspot around the disk much as a RAID > array can rebuild under a real system. So then we agree - write a driver that makes raw flash look like a CF, and does wear-levelling, gc, etc, under the hood. Then put whatever f/s you want on it. it's a start at least. Then build your kick-ass NAND-aware (or NOR aware or both) fs on top of that that makes use of some extensions that the driver provides. Okay, that's quite the arm wave ... I must admit that I don't know so much about the existing fs<->disk interface... Andrew. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEe2hw8It2CaCdeMwRAqGcAJ4qEuTpVQGFMZKwID6UdXnpyN5f4gCgnvhG ki/EOHOmzFisoEjyY5wxUjw= =nZ5y -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 23:05:39 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDF6016A430 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 23:05:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ducatista@camber-thrust.net) Received: from pip.tenebras.com (pip.tenebras.com [216.27.179.43]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4FA4C43D55 for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 23:05:39 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ducatista@camber-thrust.net) Received: (qmail 23566 invoked from network); 29 May 2006 23:05:32 -0000 Received: from daggoo.tenebras.com (HELO ?127.0.0.1?) (192.168.188.60) by pip.tenebras.com with SMTP; 29 May 2006 23:05:32 -0000 Message-ID: <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 16:05:32 -0700 From: Michael Sierchio User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: small@freebsd.org References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> In-Reply-To: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 23:05:42 -0000 shilo layston wrote: > Poul-Henning Kamp sez... >> FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over >> the world use this to their advantage. > > Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development, > *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded market. > WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners > of that marketplace. [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks; > I've heard they're a big BSD shop] If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know the provenance of WindRiver and VxWorks and the embedded OS in Brocade fiber channel switches, etc. etc. are all BSD. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 29 23:55:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D44DE16A896; Mon, 29 May 2006 23:55:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from mrout1-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com (mrout1-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com [216.109.112.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B80443D5E; Mon, 29 May 2006 23:55:36 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from traveling-laptop-140.corp.yahoo.com.neville-neil.com (proxy7.corp.yahoo.com [216.145.48.98]) by mrout1-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com (8.13.6/8.13.4/y.out) with ESMTP id k4TNtDZI053833; Mon, 29 May 2006 16:55:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 08:55:05 +0900 Message-ID: From: gnn@freebsd.org To: Michael Sierchio In-Reply-To: <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> User-Agent: Wanderlust/2.14.0 (Africa) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.8 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Shij=F2?=) APEL/10.6 Emacs/22.0.50 (i386-apple-darwin8.5.1) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI) MIME-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.6 - "Maruoka") Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Cc: small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 23:55:38 -0000 At Mon, 29 May 2006 16:05:32 -0700, Michael Sierchio wrote: > > shilo layston wrote: > > > Poul-Henning Kamp sez... > > >> FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over > >> the world use this to their advantage. > > > > Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development, > > *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded market. > > WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners > > of that marketplace. [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks; > > I've heard they're a big BSD shop] > > If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know > the provenance of WindRiver and VxWorks and the embedded OS in Brocade > fiber channel switches, etc. etc. are all BSD. Sort of, but not really. Having spent 5 years at Wind River a lot of that code is not related to BSD, but the network stack was and likely still is, so it really depends on what part of the system you're talking about. Interrupts, mutexes, and all the other core, low level parts of VxWorks that people in the embedded world care about has nothing to do with BSD. The important part for us, and I think that Robert brought this out quite well, is how we compare, and what we have to do, in order to compete in that market and to make it easier for embedded developers to choose and use BSD. I'll be incorporating some of his suggestions into the Embedded FreeBSD web site I'm building right now. Later, George From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 00:12:00 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1CAA16A870 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 00:12:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from netgate.com (mail.netgate.com [64.62.194.115]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9301B43D4C for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 00:12:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from [192.168.2.184] (rrcs-67-52-77-54.west.biz.rr.com [67.52.77.54]) by netgate.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 637CC28000B; Mon, 29 May 2006 17:11:47 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <9f7850090605291049j2d6c6e41wff1330e114fa91a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <9f7850090605271000j524d6a35gfa3f6df1f0ed59f5@mail.gmail.com> <9f7850090605291049j2d6c6e41wff1330e114fa91a7@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v750) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jim Thompson Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 14:11:46 -1000 To: "marty fouts" X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.750) Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , small@freebsd.org, Andrew Atrens Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 00:12:04 -0000 On May 29, 2006, at 7:49 AM, marty fouts wrote: > On 5/28/06, James Mansion wrote: >> >Experience suggests that wear leveling does matter in this >> market, but >> >that fairly simple wear leveling can be very effective. >> >> Can I ask why? I mmay be a very bed person to talk about phones, >> because I have a 6-year-old Seimens I chose for battery life and >> the first thing I did was disable IrDa and WAP. It doesn't have >> a camera. ;-) And I've never sent a text. >> > > Two reasons: First, NAND devices have a complicated wear behavior. The > more frequently you hit the same block, the lower the life expectancy > of the block. Uh... 'hit' is 'write', correct? and I don't think its got anything to do with frequency, but hey, I've been wrong before, feel free to correct me. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 00:27:42 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC38216AD40; Tue, 30 May 2006 00:27:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: from amd64.ott.parse.com (ottawa-hs-206-191-28-202.s-ip.magma.ca [206.191.28.202]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D9FA43D46; Tue, 30 May 2006 00:27:42 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: from amd64.ott.parse.com (localhost.parse.com [127.0.0.1]) by amd64.ott.parse.com (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k4U0Q1uZ028880; Mon, 29 May 2006 20:26:01 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from root@parse.com) Received: (from root@localhost) by amd64.ott.parse.com (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id k4U0Q1B5028878; Mon, 29 May 2006 20:26:01 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from root) From: Robert Krten Message-Id: <200605300026.k4U0Q1B5028878@amd64.ott.parse.com> To: small@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 20:26:01 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> from "Michael Sierchio" at May 29, 2006 04:05:32 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL6] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 00:27:46 -0000 Michael Sierchio sez... > > shilo layston wrote: > > > Poul-Henning Kamp sez... > > >> FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over > >> the world use this to their advantage. > > > > Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development, > > *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded market. > > WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners > > of that marketplace. [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks; > > I've heard they're a big BSD shop] > > If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know > the provenance of WindRiver and VxWorks and the embedded OS in Brocade > fiber channel switches, etc. etc. are all BSD. Please attribute the quotes properly; I am not "shilo layston", and yet I am the author of the paragraph that you are quoting. As far as WindRiver goes, the "VxWorks FAQ" makes no mention of this "BSD provenance of VxWorks", I suggest you contact the FAQ maintainer and point this out so that other people "without the slightest idea of what we are talking about" like me don't make the same mistake. I had also not realized that VxWorks was the sole OS WindRiver is associated with. The point that I was trying to make was not that certain commercial RTOSs may have "come from" BSD (or other forms of UNIX), but rather that "in my experience" (paraphrasing) all of the contracts I have been involved with (20+ years, most of them in the embedded/realtime arena) have, in general, shown a complete lack of awareness of *BSD. *That* is what I feel needs to be addressed. I am sure there are companies using FreeBSD (and other BSDs). The challenge is getting the awareness out there and getting to be in the same ballpark as the other OSs mentioned. It's entirely possible that FreeBSD is more prevalent than what I've experienced. I have not experienced vast deserts of sand, and yet I am told they exist :-) Are they prevalent where I live? No. Cheers, -RK -- Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices Realtime Systems Architecture, Consulting, Books and Training at www.parse.com Looking for Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1 through PDP-15 minicomputers! From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 04:02:23 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E0EF16A530; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:02:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: from what-creek.com (what-creek.com [66.111.37.70]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EEDF543D4C; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:02:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: by what-creek.com (Postfix, from userid 102) id 1228B78C1D; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:02:21 +0000 (GMT) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 04:02:20 +0000 From: John Birrell To: Andrew Atrens Message-ID: <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 04:02:25 -0000 On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 05:32:32PM -0400, Andrew Atrens wrote: > So then we agree - write a driver that makes raw flash look like a CF, > and does wear-levelling, gc, etc, under the hood. Then put whatever > f/s you want on it. it's a start at least. Then build your kick-ass > NAND-aware (or NOR aware or both) fs on top of that that makes use of > some extensions that the driver provides. Okay, that's quite the > arm wave ... I must admit that I don't know so much about the existing > fs<->disk interface... Writing a NAND driver for FreeBSD using geom is a trivial matter. It only takes a few days or a week at the most. I don't really understand what all the fuss is here. I've built FreeBSD embedded systems that are smaller than all the picobsd etc configurations which all rely on choosing programs out of the standard FreeBSD tree and putting them on a 'disk'. The smallest embedded system using FreeBSD consists of just a kernel and a threaded program which runs as 'init'. No other files are required (subject to how you boot, so perhaps include the loader). You most certainly don't need anything all from /etc. You don't need a shell. You don't need shared libraries. Try it! Build a kernel that does nothing other than have devices in it to talk to a console and floppy disk. Boot from floppy using the current loader and write a minimal app that will talk to the console. Tell me how big the kernel and the app is. It won't take you longer to do that to write all the messages you are posting here. Configure your system to mount the root file system read-only and any temporary data that you want to write, do it to a ram disk. Boot the system, check that your 'init' program works and then just turn the power off. It should boot up again next time without any problems. You can make your 'init' program remount the disk in write mode if it needs to change any config data. Then it can remount it again read-only and you're back in fail-safe mode. I've done this with a FreeBSD based video recorder mounted to a race motorcycle in the Australian Formula Xtreme series. When the rider powered up his bike, the embedded FreeBSD system (which is just an embedded board) booted and automatically started recording. When he returned to the pits and turned off his bike, the FreeBSD system detected the fact that the bike was turned off and went through it's shutdown sequence, closing the video file which was on CF (not NAND where the OS was) and then when the buffers were flushed, it toggled an output bit which opened a relay contact and powered itself down. This is all trivial to do with FreeBSD and has been since FreeBSD-4 when I first tried it. You end up with custom software to make your 'init' program have just the features that you want (and FreeBSD's libraries aren't too convenient for that), but it's all do-able without a million emails to a mailing list postulating on how to do it. Just try it with what is in FreeBSD now. Sigh. -- John Birrell From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 04:42:41 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B9C216A445; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:42:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from netgate.com (mail.netgate.com [64.62.194.115]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB39643D48; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:42:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from [192.168.2.184] (rrcs-67-52-77-54.west.biz.rr.com [67.52.77.54]) by netgate.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30C3628000B; Mon, 29 May 2006 21:42:16 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v750) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jim Thompson Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 18:42:14 -1000 To: John Birrell X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.750) Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 04:42:41 -0000 On May 29, 2006, at 6:02 PM, John Birrell wrote: > On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 05:32:32PM -0400, Andrew Atrens wrote: >> So then we agree - write a driver that makes raw flash look like a >> CF, >> and does wear-levelling, gc, etc, under the hood. Then put whatever >> f/s you want on it. it's a start at least. Then build your kick-ass >> NAND-aware (or NOR aware or both) fs on top of that that makes use of >> some extensions that the driver provides. Okay, that's quite the >> arm wave ... I must admit that I don't know so much about the >> existing >> fs<->disk interface... > > Writing a NAND driver for FreeBSD using geom is a trivial matter. It > only takes a few days or a week at the most. > > I don't really understand what all the fuss is here. I've built > FreeBSD > embedded systems that are smaller than all the picobsd etc > configurations > which all rely on choosing programs out of the standard FreeBSD > tree and > putting them on a 'disk'. Everything you wrote is true, if (and only if) your application can deal with having the non-vm-based filesystem(s) be RO. But it was true for linux prior to JFFS/JFFS2 as well. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 04:46:51 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CD8F16A431; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:46:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: from what-creek.com (what-creek.com [66.111.37.70]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02CA843D48; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:46:50 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: by what-creek.com (Postfix, from userid 102) id F2BC078C1D; Tue, 30 May 2006 04:46:48 +0000 (GMT) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 04:46:48 +0000 From: John Birrell To: Jim Thompson Message-ID: <20060530044648.GA60110@what-creek.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 04:46:51 -0000 On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 06:42:14PM -1000, Jim Thompson wrote: > Everything you wrote is true, if (and only if) your application can > deal with having the non-vm-based filesystem(s) be RO. Try it with what is in FreeBSD now. Just do it. It really does work. -- John Birrell From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 05:10:52 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4BF6416A494 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 05:10:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.188]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45C5D43D53 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 05:10:51 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id p77so28372nfc for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 22:10:50 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=DA/87M0CVnyD8tc2li2GbQUP284UJgYyx0uVAlO3d4lQ/H2/XHqkINPA9sKF2wyRa6eij3f5k5Is6rAFEJJq0YvCi7B0X0rU97sLphAxoxIZnC7jL+m4f1LHRiQkzkFlInXCsLrKYjenZsQTI+sL7WaHHTbxCn/WXZitbFEmhM0= Received: by 10.48.208.8 with SMTP id f8mr2246184nfg; Mon, 29 May 2006 22:03:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.49.17 with HTTP; Mon, 29 May 2006 22:03:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f7850090605292203k68fb8ff3k35601fd720efa6@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:03:40 -0700 From: "marty fouts" To: "Jim Thompson" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <9f7850090605271000j524d6a35gfa3f6df1f0ed59f5@mail.gmail.com> <9f7850090605291049j2d6c6e41wff1330e114fa91a7@mail.gmail.com> Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , small@freebsd.org, Andrew Atrens Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:10:58 -0000 On 5/29/06, Jim Thompson wrote: > > On May 29, 2006, at 7:49 AM, marty fouts wrote: > > Two reasons: First, NAND devices have a complicated wear behavior. The > > more frequently you hit the same block, the lower the life expectancy > > of the block. > > Uh... 'hit' is 'write', correct? Um, yes. sorry for the slang. > and I don't think its got anything to do with frequency, but hey, > I've been wrong before, feel free to correct me. The literature says you're right. Measurements made on test parts suggests you're wrong. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 05:14:57 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 557F116A444; Tue, 30 May 2006 05:14:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: from what-creek.com (what-creek.com [66.111.37.70]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F41C243D46; Tue, 30 May 2006 05:14:56 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jb@what-creek.com) Received: by what-creek.com (Postfix, from userid 102) id 59D4578C1D; Tue, 30 May 2006 05:14:55 +0000 (GMT) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:14:55 +0000 From: John Birrell To: marty fouts Message-ID: <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:15:07 -0000 On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 10:01:37PM -0700, marty fouts wrote: > On 5/29/06, John Birrell wrote: > > >The smallest embedded system using FreeBSD consists of just a kernel > >and a threaded program which runs as 'init'. No other files are required. > > Unfortunately, in my world, the smallest embedded system isn't of > interest. We need something a bit larger. That threaded program needs > a data store for persistant data. Yes, you write persistent data to the NAND disk. As I said, you remount the file system as write enabled when you need to save data then leave it read-only for the rest of the time. This doesn't take very long to do. It's not like you have gigabytes of data buffered because you mount the file system write enabled synchronously. > >the FreeBSD system > >detected the fact that the bike was turned off and went through it's > >shutdown sequence, closing the video file which was on CF (not NAND > >where the OS was) and then when the buffers were flushed, it toggled > >an output bit which opened a relay contact and powered itself down. > > I guess you missed the discussion earlier where it was pointed out > that there are significant applications in which CF is not an > available option. If you didn't have CF on the device, but you did > have NAND, (which is where we are in smartphone land) you'd need a > NAND based file system, for the data that has to persist across phone > shutdowns. The example that I gave uses NAND flash to boot the OS and save persistent configuration data. The CF was only used because the MPEG file for a race video was 1GB. If I wasn't writing such a large amount of data, the CF would not have been required. At the time it was the easiest way to get a large amount of storage in a small system which had to stand the rigor race motorcycle vibrations. As I said, writing a NAND driver under geom on FreeBSD is a trivial matter. That is what I did. The driver wasn't committed to FreeBSD because it is hardware specific to the board due to the way the the processor I/O is mapped. If you study the NAND implementations on embedded hardware, you will see that making a general operating system support them all with drivers is hard to do because of the different ways that the NAND chips are mapped in I/O. It's not like they are on a general bus that makes access to them the same. -- John Birrell From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 07:47:05 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BEC2816A422 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 07:47:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from small@dino.sk) Received: from mail.netlab.sk (mail.netlab.sk [213.215.72.51]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3220643D46 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 07:47:04 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from small@dino.sk) Received: from [192.168.16.13] (home.dino.sk [213.215.74.194]) (AUTH: PLAIN milan@netlab.sk, TLS: TLSv1/SSLv3,256bits,AES256-SHA) by mail.netlab.sk with esmtp; Tue, 30 May 2006 09:53:49 +0200 id 00289C14.447BFA0F.00011C7F From: Milan Obuch To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 09:41:49 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> In-Reply-To: <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200605300941.51523.small@dino.sk> Cc: Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 07:47:05 -0000 On Tuesday 30 May 2006 07:14, John Birrell wrote: > On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 10:01:37PM -0700, marty fouts wrote: > > On 5/29/06, John Birrell wrote: > > >The smallest embedded system using FreeBSD consists of just a kernel > > >and a threaded program which runs as 'init'. No other files are > > > required. > > > > Unfortunately, in my world, the smallest embedded system isn't of > > interest. We need something a bit larger. That threaded program needs > > a data store for persistant data. > > Yes, you write persistent data to the NAND disk. As I said, you remount > the file system as write enabled when you need to save data then leave > it read-only for the rest of the time. This doesn't take very long to do. > It's not like you have gigabytes of data buffered because you mount > the file system write enabled synchronously. > There is another tradeoff between smallest/minimalistic system and somewhat larger embedded system, based on ease of application development. It is sometimes much easier to develop system using already existing applications without need to compile everything into one program (routers need routing protocols etc.) [ snip ] > > The example that I gave uses NAND flash to boot the OS and save > persistent configuration data. The CF was only used because the MPEG > file for a race video was 1GB. If I wasn't writing such a large amount > of data, the CF would not have been required. At the time it was the > easiest way to get a large amount of storage in a small system which > had to stand the rigor race motorcycle vibrations. > > As I said, writing a NAND driver under geom on FreeBSD is a trivial matter. > That is what I did. The driver wasn't committed to FreeBSD because it > is hardware specific to the board due to the way the the processor I/O > is mapped. If you study the NAND implementations on embedded hardware, > you will see that making a general operating system support them all with > drivers is hard to do because of the different ways that the NAND chips > are mapped in I/O. It's not like they are on a general bus that makes > access to them the same. It would be interesting to see your implementation documented somewhere. I think the community could use it to study... Other than that I think there is no universal methodology for embedded system. That said, everything publicly documented is usefull. Regards, Milan -- No need to mail me directly. Just reply to mailing list, please. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 07:53:39 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3300C16A444 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 07:53:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 800F243D58 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 07:53:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id p48so343257nfa for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 00:53:37 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=PuQAtRyUY78okmc3qT232hmixLEREOL2rABvOVXN7uNTLA1WxnxKwthdFoVJ0/wzJEonVmTXWzb15F5vgppgi1Jv63oC6pRKy7ZHSnrx+mbdHM7+OYOh0saLN+QMf2PJHl46IqhDjh/yaIh2yuyJ7bAA5h9NhY0s34hMiUlEdEc= Received: by 10.49.21.13 with SMTP id y13mr2249404nfi; Mon, 29 May 2006 22:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.49.17 with HTTP; Mon, 29 May 2006 22:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:01:37 -0700 From: "marty fouts" To: "John Birrell" In-Reply-To: <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 07:53:41 -0000 On 5/29/06, John Birrell wrote: > The smallest embedded system using FreeBSD consists of just a kernel > and a threaded program which runs as 'init'. No other files are required. Unfortunately, in my world, the smallest embedded system isn't of interest. We need something a bit larger. That threaded program needs a data store for persistant data. > the FreeBSD system > detected the fact that the bike was turned off and went through it's > shutdown sequence, closing the video file which was on CF (not NAND > where the OS was) and then when the buffers were flushed, it toggled > an output bit which opened a relay contact and powered itself down. I guess you missed the discussion earlier where it was pointed out that there are significant applications in which CF is not an available option. If you didn't have CF on the device, but you did have NAND, (which is where we are in smartphone land) you'd need a NAND based file system, for the data that has to persist across phone shutdowns. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 08:07:28 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 09A4916A429; Tue, 30 May 2006 08:07:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wb@freebie.xs4all.nl) Received: from smtp-vbr4.xs4all.nl (smtp-vbr4.xs4all.nl [194.109.24.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B02443D48; Tue, 30 May 2006 08:07:27 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from wb@freebie.xs4all.nl) Received: from freebie.xs4all.nl (freebie.xs4all.nl [213.84.32.253]) by smtp-vbr4.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k4U87Aor017329; Tue, 30 May 2006 10:07:23 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wb@freebie.xs4all.nl) Received: from freebie.xs4all.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freebie.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.3) with ESMTP id k4U87Att042824; Tue, 30 May 2006 10:07:10 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wb@freebie.xs4all.nl) Received: (from wb@localhost) by freebie.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k4U877AA042823; Tue, 30 May 2006 10:07:07 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wb) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 10:07:07 +0200 From: Wilko Bulte To: Michael Sierchio Message-ID: <20060530080707.GB42775@freebie.xs4all.nl> References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-Virus-Scanned: by XS4ALL Virus Scanner Cc: small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 08:07:28 -0000 On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 04:05:32PM -0700, Michael Sierchio wrote.. > shilo layston wrote: > > > Poul-Henning Kamp sez... > > >> FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over > >> the world use this to their advantage. > > > > Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development, > > *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded > market. > > WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners > > of that marketplace. [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks; > > I've heard they're a big BSD shop] > > If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know > the provenance of WindRiver and VxWorks and the embedded OS in Brocade > fiber channel switches, etc. etc. are all BSD. If you really knew what you were talking about you would know that all the Brocade switches running FOS 4.x and 5.x are Linux based. The Brocade Multiprotocol router is based on NetBSD. All FOS 2.x and 3.x Brocades are VxWorks. -- Wilko Bulte wilko@FreeBSD.org From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 16:55:22 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AB96B16AD4A for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 16:55:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kudzu@tenebras.com) Received: from pip.tenebras.com (pip.tenebras.com [216.27.179.43]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C2C4043D60 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 16:55:19 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kudzu@tenebras.com) Received: (qmail 36822 invoked from network); 30 May 2006 16:55:16 -0000 Received: from daggoo.tenebras.com (HELO ?127.0.0.1?) (192.168.188.60) by pip.tenebras.com with SMTP; 30 May 2006 16:55:16 -0000 Message-ID: <447C78F5.5020408@tenebras.com> Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 09:55:17 -0700 From: Michael Sierchio User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Wilko Bulte References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> <20060530080707.GB42775@freebie.xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <20060530080707.GB42775@freebie.xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 16:55:27 -0000 Wilko Bulte wrote: > If you really knew what you were talking about you would know that all > the Brocade switches running FOS 4.x and 5.x are Linux based. The Brocade > Multiprotocol router is based on NetBSD. All FOS 2.x and 3.x Brocades > are VxWorks. VxWorks? Every bit of userland code reveals its origins in BSD, esp. FreeBSD. A scan of any of the older fiber channel switches identifies nearly every service as being from FreeBSD (and ancient revs, at that). From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 17:35:46 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3D5016A557 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 17:35:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from linimon@lonesome.com) Received: from mail.soaustin.net (mail.soaustin.net [207.200.4.66]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 54A0A43D60 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 17:35:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from linimon@lonesome.com) Received: by mail.soaustin.net (Postfix, from userid 502) id 010314CC7; Tue, 30 May 2006 12:35:45 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 12:35:45 -0500 To: Michael Sierchio Message-ID: <20060530173545.GF28227@soaustin.net> References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> <20060530080707.GB42775@freebie.xs4all.nl> <447C78F5.5020408@tenebras.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <447C78F5.5020408@tenebras.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i From: linimon@lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Cc: Wilko Bulte , small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 17:35:50 -0000 (current- removed since this is IMHO only of interest to small@) On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 09:55:17AM -0700, Michael Sierchio wrote: > VxWorks? Every bit of userland code reveals its origins in BSD, esp. > FreeBSD. A scan of any of the older fiber channel switches identifies > nearly every service as being from FreeBSD (and ancient revs, at that). As someone who contracted at VxWorks in the early days (I have a 3.21 manual around here), I would say that yes, technically, early VxWorks was based signficantly on the historical BSD codebase. I'm sure there were imports from BSDi when they owned it, and FreeBSD before and after. But the market _perception_ is that VxWorks is not a FreeBSD derivative. The best (IMHO) you could do in an argument was to make the case that they share a common lineage and there has been much borrowing. That's not at persuasive a case. Now add the fact that the "modern" VxWorks marketing idea is to push Linux (and not BSD) and you have your work cut out for you. Whether or not that's because they reached a plateau with how many seats they could sell based on "just like Unix", or their pricing strategy, is irrelevant to FreeBSD's choices (also IMHO). Lastly let it be noted that for reasons of performance and predictability, the traditional codebase was designed to run on either the VRTX kernel or one or two other choices (though 90% of the people used VRTX. They later bought its author.) Due to licensing issues ($) they decided to write the Wind kernel (John Fogelin's original code). I have not tracked the progress over the years but at least in the early 1990s timeframe they were not using a BSD kernel; instead, some kind of layer over the more strictly designed real-time kernels. So for one of the most important pieces, it was _not_ a derivative; it was aiming at very different markets. Summary: I think it's going to be pretty tough to make the case that modern VxWorks is a "BSD derivative". mcl From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 17:46:13 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1F9716A64A for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 17:46:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kudzu@tenebras.com) Received: from pip.tenebras.com (pip.tenebras.com [216.27.179.43]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5211143D6E for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 17:46:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kudzu@tenebras.com) Received: (qmail 37455 invoked from network); 30 May 2006 17:46:10 -0000 Received: from daggoo.tenebras.com (HELO ?127.0.0.1?) (192.168.188.60) by pip.tenebras.com with SMTP; 30 May 2006 17:46:10 -0000 Message-ID: <447C84E3.7020305@tenebras.com> Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 10:46:11 -0700 From: Michael Sierchio User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: small@freebsd.org References: <200605291736.k4THaOGc012014@amd64.ott.parse.com> <447B7E3C.5020408@camber-thrust.net> <20060530080707.GB42775@freebie.xs4all.nl> <447C78F5.5020408@tenebras.com> <20060530173545.GF28227@soaustin.net> In-Reply-To: <20060530173545.GF28227@soaustin.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: Wake up to reality X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 17:46:19 -0000 Mark Linimon wrote: > But the market _perception_ is that VxWorks is not a FreeBSD derivative. Now you're talking about brand and brand recognition. It's true, FreeBSD has lagged behind more recent (and usually inferior) entrants in the OS space, embedded or not, when it comes to perception. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 19:37:58 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 88C2A16A79D for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 19:37:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.186]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D3DA43D4C for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 19:37:57 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mf.danger@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id a25so13707nfc for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 12:37:56 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=bdEt5vmwlhNecOyL+jHJ/0hD9f2xGNA50aLAWha1IfFWvNXuOCdWS9jhhgbO9z2BV76N7VtLPH/pS37pFpsEYAtiXgxBgjudlCS2oc+YlxOCHeggL/bmF3YshUtGRVTDAIME+vQLr8pCHWIj7KxJSJLSPX2tb5jXcDPCyO/zVCU= Received: by 10.49.9.19 with SMTP id m19mr39615nfi; Tue, 30 May 2006 12:12:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.49.17 with HTTP; Tue, 30 May 2006 12:12:43 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f7850090605301212n57cd4d70k735881f121b5fe6d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 12:12:43 -0700 From: "marty fouts" To: "John Birrell" In-Reply-To: <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , current@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 19:38:06 -0000 On 5/29/06, John Birrell wrote: > On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 10:01:37PM -0700, marty fouts wrote: > > Unfortunately, in my world, the smallest embedded system isn't of > > interest. We need something a bit larger. That threaded program needs > > a data store for persistant data. > > Yes, you write persistent data to the NAND disk. As I said, you remount > the file system as write enabled when you need to save data then leave > it read-only for the rest of the time. This doesn't take very long to do. > It's not like you have gigabytes of data buffered because you mount > the file system write enabled synchronously. A smartphone is constantly writing data to persistant storage. It needs a real file system that's r/w all the time. > The example that I gave uses NAND flash to boot the OS and save > persistent configuration data. The CF was only used because the MPEG > file for a race video was 1GB. If I wasn't writing such a large amount > of data, the CF would not have been required. At the time it was the > easiest way to get a large amount of storage in a small system which > had to stand the rigor race motorcycle vibrations. The next generation of smartphones are likely to have GBs of NAND storage. Some of them are going to include ipod-like NAND based media players and the ability to capture mpeg. They're still not going to have room for a CF card. > If you study the NAND implementations on embedded hardware, > you will see that making a general operating system support them all with > drivers is hard to do because of the different ways that the NAND chips > are mapped in I/O. It's not like they are on a general bus that makes > access to them the same. This is a general observation about embedded devices. GPIO is your friend. If you look at, for instance, the evolution of OMAP support in Linux, you'll see a succession of attempts to abstract a GPIO support service that provides an abstraction like the bus abstraction to deal with this. I think your comments highlight the difference between doing one-off embedded devices, like your motorcycle camera, where quick hacks and custom drivers are utterly appropriate, from doing long lived families of embedded devices, where you have to routinely deal with several generations of hardware. If FBSD wishes to be the best-of-the-best and play in the embedded space, then it has to accomodate the later as well as the former. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 21:30:23 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B43AA16A929 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 21:30:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from james@wgold.demon.co.uk) Received: from anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.90]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 334DB43D48 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 21:30:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from james@wgold.demon.co.uk) Received: from wgold.demon.co.uk ([158.152.96.124] helo=thor) by anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 4.42) id 1FlBn6-000Jq6-6i; Tue, 30 May 2006 21:30:16 +0000 Received: from 127.0.0.1 by thor ([127.0.0.1] running VPOP3) with SMTP; Tue, 30 May 2006 06:30:47 +0100 From: "James Mansion" To: "Andrew Atrens" Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 06:30:45 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 X-Server: VPOP3 V1.5.0k - Registered Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , small@freebsd.org Subject: RE: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 21:30:34 -0000 >Consider that we're building something that's going to be used in >variety of applications with a variety of different 'good enough' >definitions. Well, if you really want to be all things to all men. I guess I'm coming from a point of view that this is a dumb thing to do. Do you want to be jack of all trades, or master of one (or at least some defined set)? If you want to be master of lots of trades, then you'd better not be in a hurry - and have lots of resource too. >Firstly, flash is not ram and flash is not a disk. I'm not trying to >be facetious, but you don't seem to have considered that the write-erase >paradigm is completely different for flash chips, versus disks or >ram. Yes I have. I've suggested that you reduce the number of writes, then you can consider what the lifetime is assuming that all writes hit the same sector. You only *need* wear levelling if this impacts the design life of a unit, right? >development system. But if you're stamping out a lot of them it is >really going to eat into profit margins. Yes, and then you don't necessarily need a general purpose system. Because you have a lot of economy of scale. >For the rest of us, who aren't rolling our own hardware, we gotta use >what's available. Jim Thompson for instance uses WRAP boards for some In effect I am suggesting that BSD target *this* sort of embedded use, and be very good at it, rather than try to run a phone or a gameboy. >Form factor, and cost if you're building your own h/w. If not then you >need to use what general use platforms are available, and currently >the CF supporting ones are a bit pricey. Huh? CF (or the other newer smalled form factors like SD) is pretty cheap for low volume stuff, surely? Economy of scale for cameras, phones and PDAs has driven that. >So then we agree - write a driver that makes raw flash look like a CF, >and does wear-levelling, gc, etc, under the hood. Then put whatever Well, no, because I question whether wear-levelling is *necessary* for many potential applications, because that in itself implies a lot of writes must be supported. And if a lot of writes must be supported, why not use a microdrive? The scenario would seem to be: - very small form factor and cost per unit - so no physical spinning disk - *and* you need a lot of updates Its the last of these that bears scrutiny. I'm suggesting that this is a small slice of the embedded pie in terms of people using FreeBSD: I'm suggesting that if you can limit and control the number of ohysical (not even logical) writes then the wear on a single sector of flash can be reduced to the point that wear levelling is not necessary, and is just a 'nice to have'. I think in terms of the overall embedded pie, then sure the form factor is an issue, but you have to question how many writes must be supported, relative to the cycles available in modern flash - which has itself improved. James From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 22:35:58 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CECB16B25E for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 22:35:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chad@DCFinc.com) Received: from freebie.dcfinc.com (freebie.dcfinc.com [205.159.99.240]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 918F743D7F for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 22:35:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from chad@DCFinc.com) Received: from freebie.dcfinc.com (chad@localhost.dcfinc.com [127.0.0.1]) by freebie.dcfinc.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k4UMZHDS083174; Tue, 30 May 2006 15:35:17 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from chad@freebie.dcfinc.com) Received: (from chad@localhost) by freebie.dcfinc.com (8.13.1/8.12.11/Submit) id k4UMZB2n083172; Tue, 30 May 2006 15:35:11 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from chad) Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 15:35:11 -0700 From: "Chad R. Larson" To: James Mansion Message-ID: <20060530223511.GA83083@freebie.dcfinc.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Poul-Henning Kamp , Andrew Atrens , small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 22:36:04 -0000 On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 06:30:45AM +0100, James Mansion wrote: > The scenario would seem to be: > - very small form factor and cost per unit > - so no physical spinning disk > - *and* you need a lot of updates > > Its the last of these that bears scrutiny. I've been using m0n0BSD on Soekris hardware. The "disk" is a CF card, and booting consists of creating a RAM drive and then populating it from the CF. The CF stays mounted R/O unless some persistant information (like, configuration) needs to be saved, at which time it is remounted R/W until the update is completed and then put back to R/O. This satisfies the "no moving parts" and small form factor issues. It seems to me that if the VM could/would be willing to do its demand paging off the CF, so RAM would only have to hold dirty pages that we'd hit the sweet spot for embedded systems of small to medium production runs. Especially since CF is now available in gigabyte sizes. -crl -- Chad R. Larson (CRL15) 602-264-5009 chad@DCFinc.com Else: chad@larsons.org http://public.xdi.org/=Chad.R.Larson DCF, Inc., 1701 East Colter Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85016-3381 From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 30 22:57:15 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B65F616B3B6 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 22:57:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from netgate.com (mail.netgate.com [64.62.194.115]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E9F843D48 for ; Tue, 30 May 2006 22:57:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jim@netgate.com) Received: from [192.168.2.184] (rrcs-67-52-77-54.west.biz.rr.com [67.52.77.54]) by netgate.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B86DE280019; Tue, 30 May 2006 15:57:14 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20060530223511.GA83083@freebie.dcfinc.com> References: <447B6870.8020704@nortel.com> <20060530223511.GA83083@freebie.dcfinc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v750) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <50372FCA-0668-476F-8FD5-0F5EAE167891@netgate.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jim Thompson Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 12:57:12 -1000 To: "Chad R. Larson" X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.750) Cc: small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 22:57:27 -0000 On May 30, 2006, at 12:35 PM, Chad R. Larson wrote: > On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 06:30:45AM +0100, James Mansion wrote: >> The scenario would seem to be: >> - very small form factor and cost per unit >> - so no physical spinning disk >> - *and* you need a lot of updates >> >> Its the last of these that bears scrutiny. > > I've been using m0n0BSD on Soekris hardware. The "disk" is a CF > card, and booting consists of creating a RAM drive and then > populating it from the CF. The CF stays mounted R/O unless some > persistant information (like, configuration) needs to be saved, at > which time it is remounted R/W until the update is completed and > then put back to R/O. Systems with soldered on flash could hold the 'configuration' in a small number of flash sectors, with a checksum. If the checksum doesn't match, then a 'default' configuration could be used (stored in the RO part of the flash). m0n0 and pfsense largely point the way here, though PHP is a big footprint for a system with minimal flash. > This satisfies the "no moving parts" and small form factor issues. > > It seems to me that if the VM could/would be willing to do its > demand paging off the CF, so RAM would only have to hold dirty pages > that we'd hit the sweet spot for embedded systems of small to medium > production runs. Especially since CF is now available in gigabyte > sizes. Not all embedded projects use boards that can use CF. From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 31 03:38:34 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71CDD16A476; Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from lp01.vtr.net (relay.vtr.net [200.83.1.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DBA443D46; Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from [192.168.10.3] (200.83.72.22) by lp01.vtr.net (7.1.026) (authenticated as ogautherot) id 4474036900055BC7; Tue, 30 May 2006 23:38:32 -0400 From: Olivier Gautherot To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 23:36:35 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <3500.1148571492@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: <3500.1148571492@critter.freebsd.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200605302336.37320.ogautherot@vtr.net> Cc: Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda - summary X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: olivier@gautherot.net List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:34 -0000 Greetings to all! I think this thread moved a lot of ideas and points of view. I will skip the "ADN" of VxWorks and others as this does not apply to what I am trying to do ;-) I mean the Flash support. In essence, we seem to have a versatile community with highly heterogeneous needs. 1) The "I-need-it-quick" audience who does not have a very restricted budget. CompactFlash did not seem to be a show-stopper so I suppose a UFS file system on top of it (or FAT if UFS is not supported) should be OK. Wear-leveling is done inside using automatic sector renaming so it is a not an issue. I will call these the "industrial PCs" as the architecture they use is close to a real PC architecture (the simplest CompactFlash interface is IDE). To me, you are sorted out because you won't be holding your breath until I'm done ;-) 2) The "I-need-it-quick" audience with a restricted budget... who probably already went with another OS. They're sorted out and can wait now until the next project. I won't hold my breath until they come back ;-) 3) The "hard embedded" audience with RO filesystem could use UFS on a customized hardware layer (I call these "Target 1"). It should not be too difficult to implement but will require a BSP for the interface. 4) The "hard embedded" audience with RW filesystem definitely needs a more carefully planned FS (tentative name Plain-Old-Filesystem o POFS ;-) ), which I call Target 2. It is difficult to guess what Flash devices are used in the embedded market (my initial search was fairly miserable) and the interface seems to be often GPIO (what makes the project even more complex to plan). My view on this one is to provide a FS engine up to the hardware access and provide a form of BSP for various Flash types, densities and interfaces. There was a suggestion to use Geom and I think it is a good thing to support so it is in the plan. Once I have time to synthesize all this (I'm busy preparing classes for a university course on top of my day job...), I'll pass it on to George for the embeddedfrebsd.org website. Thanks for this hot and very instructive thread! Cheers -- Olivier Gautherot olivier@gautherot.net From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 31 03:38:34 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71CDD16A476; Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from lp01.vtr.net (relay.vtr.net [200.83.1.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DBA443D46; Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from [192.168.10.3] (200.83.72.22) by lp01.vtr.net (7.1.026) (authenticated as ogautherot) id 4474036900055BC7; Tue, 30 May 2006 23:38:32 -0400 From: Olivier Gautherot To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org, small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 23:36:35 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <3500.1148571492@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: <3500.1148571492@critter.freebsd.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200605302336.37320.ogautherot@vtr.net> Cc: Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda - summary X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: olivier@gautherot.net List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 03:38:34 -0000 Greetings to all! I think this thread moved a lot of ideas and points of view. I will skip the "ADN" of VxWorks and others as this does not apply to what I am trying to do ;-) I mean the Flash support. In essence, we seem to have a versatile community with highly heterogeneous needs. 1) The "I-need-it-quick" audience who does not have a very restricted budget. CompactFlash did not seem to be a show-stopper so I suppose a UFS file system on top of it (or FAT if UFS is not supported) should be OK. Wear-leveling is done inside using automatic sector renaming so it is a not an issue. I will call these the "industrial PCs" as the architecture they use is close to a real PC architecture (the simplest CompactFlash interface is IDE). To me, you are sorted out because you won't be holding your breath until I'm done ;-) 2) The "I-need-it-quick" audience with a restricted budget... who probably already went with another OS. They're sorted out and can wait now until the next project. I won't hold my breath until they come back ;-) 3) The "hard embedded" audience with RO filesystem could use UFS on a customized hardware layer (I call these "Target 1"). It should not be too difficult to implement but will require a BSP for the interface. 4) The "hard embedded" audience with RW filesystem definitely needs a more carefully planned FS (tentative name Plain-Old-Filesystem o POFS ;-) ), which I call Target 2. It is difficult to guess what Flash devices are used in the embedded market (my initial search was fairly miserable) and the interface seems to be often GPIO (what makes the project even more complex to plan). My view on this one is to provide a FS engine up to the hardware access and provide a form of BSP for various Flash types, densities and interfaces. There was a suggestion to use Geom and I think it is a good thing to support so it is in the plan. Once I have time to synthesize all this (I'm busy preparing classes for a university course on top of my day job...), I'll pass it on to George for the embeddedfrebsd.org website. Thanks for this hot and very instructive thread! Cheers -- Olivier Gautherot olivier@gautherot.net From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 31 09:31:14 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1090616A4F4; Wed, 31 May 2006 09:31:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@yazzy.org) Received: from mx1.yazzy.org (mx1.yazzy.org [84.247.145.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DD2C43D53; Wed, 31 May 2006 09:31:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@yazzy.org) Received: from mail.witelcom.com ([84.247.144.144] helo=marcin) by mx1.yazzy.org with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (YazzY.org) id 1FlN28-0003LA-GE; Wed, 31 May 2006 11:30:33 +0200 Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 11:31:24 +0200 From: Marcin Jessa To: "Joseph Koshy" Message-ID: <20060531113124.534377b7@marcin> In-Reply-To: <84dead720605260517k3cd67611q8c7af77898dab7a8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2538.1148556253@critter.freebsd.dk> <472414CE-94E8-4C8A-9586-DCA9E02A53C3@netgate.com> <20060525.140544.1474621433.imp@bsdimp.com> <84dead720605260517k3cd67611q8c7af77898dab7a8@mail.gmail.com> Organization: YazzY.org X-Mailer: Sylpheed-Claws 2.2.0 (GTK+ 2.8.12; i386-portbld-freebsd6.1) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) Cc: small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 09:31:14 -0000 On Fri, 26 May 2006 17:47:05 +0530 "Joseph Koshy" wrote: > imp> There's many sub $100 MIPS boards available that have enough > imp> resourses, barely, for a minimal system to boot/run on. > > Any recommendations? There are also great Xscale boards avaliable, especially for wireless usage: http://www.gateworks.com/avila_processors.htm From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 1 01:21:31 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C83D916C4BA for ; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 01:21:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fernandocompri@gmail.com) Received: from wx-out-0102.google.com (wx-out-0102.google.com [66.249.82.193]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E7C343D46 for ; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 01:21:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from fernandocompri@gmail.com) Received: by wx-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id i31so116327wxd for ; Wed, 31 May 2006 18:21:30 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=Ul9HkY0hqnsp0v7PMzjgY+uJI2Yck5zcTEmdK+w2NtRroCytKWi0ZNbaNc+IxXFL2r4PhIUD4a3qTFvfaqVr1MUSnpuUaHnQqYAeUZroeive1kBVUOEfDid6fWoxFKuNHUZWUaDMUxhruQsGokjNKXy1BDg1fmDi8HmY7VSR5cA= Received: by 10.70.105.9 with SMTP id d9mr75161wxc; Wed, 31 May 2006 18:21:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.70.61.12 with HTTP; Wed, 31 May 2006 18:21:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 22:21:20 -0300 From: "Fernando Compri" To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: mail list X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:21:34 -0000 hi Can I into the mail list? -- - Fernando Compri - From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 1 18:20:07 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E53916A730 for ; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:20:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (vc4-2-0-87.dsl.netrack.net [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DCA043D45 for ; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:20:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost.village.org [IPv6:::1] (may be forged)) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k51IGWLG077937; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 12:16:33 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:16:38 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <20060601.121638.1273920169.imp@bsdimp.com> To: jb@what-creek.com From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> References: <20060530040220.GA59831@what-creek.com> <9f7850090605292201x570d93b4v8a7dd3ea0c70f841@mail.gmail.com> <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 4.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: atrens@nortel.com, current@freebsd.org, phk@phk.freebsd.dk, Alexander@leidinger.net, small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:20:12 -0000 In message: <20060530051455.GA60261@what-creek.com> John Birrell writes: : As I said, writing a NAND driver under geom on FreeBSD is a trivial matter. : That is what I did. The driver wasn't committed to FreeBSD because it : is hardware specific to the board due to the way the the processor I/O : is mapped. If you study the NAND implementations on embedded hardware, : you will see that making a general operating system support them all with : drivers is hard to do because of the different ways that the NAND chips : are mapped in I/O. It's not like they are on a general bus that makes : access to them the same. Yes. This driver does have a number of issues. There needs to be some additional layers of abstraction to make it generic. The driver you wrote works very well (we only had to fix a one or two minor bugs). Warner From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 2 04:48:32 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7711016AA23 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 04:48:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from mrout1.yahoo.com (mrout1.yahoo.com [216.145.54.171]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 175E443D48 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 04:48:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from 125x100x85x163.ap125.ftth.ucom.ne.jp.neville-neil.com (proxy7.corp.yahoo.com [216.145.48.98]) by mrout1.yahoo.com (8.13.6/8.13.4/y.out) with ESMTP id k524lQoB009407 for ; Thu, 1 Jun 2006 21:47:26 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:47:25 +0900 Message-ID: From: gnn@freebsd.org To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org User-Agent: Wanderlust/2.14.0 (Africa) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.8 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Shij=F2?=) APEL/10.6 Emacs/22.0.50 (i386-apple-darwin8.5.1) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI) MIME-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.6 - "Maruoka") Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Web site updated... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 04:48:33 -0000 Howdy, The web site is beginning to take shape. I'd love a daemon with a wrench and screwdriver if someone has a good jpg image. I think that would be a good mascot. And, no, we will not argue about the mascot. I've added some documentation on flash wear and the flash translation layer. http://www.embeddedfreebsd.org I'll send out periodic updates as major, non-cosmetic, changes are made. Later, George From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 2 06:10:31 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90A0316AA0E for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 06:10:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nagoyayo@yahoo.com) Received: from web51106.mail.yahoo.com (web51106.mail.yahoo.com [206.190.38.148]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 03A0943D45 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 06:10:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nagoyayo@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 59818 invoked by uid 60001); 2 Jun 2006 06:10:28 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=mGXo/3El9n5cst6JPWVfHYnKPlxe4hdXegQpHyRXlMP55H+jERgHhOfvnsxCmLfreMk1Z3TzxTrls47K6dzXAVey28pIbp3F4eQhmnFG1r2tFLGgWJO06YBXm6CUPnW6+NqcgcVVM6YEWbyvMrKYMX0KRfI0ewpQTXzljp5I4C0= ; Message-ID: <20060602061028.59816.qmail@web51106.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [202.33.118.24] by web51106.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:10:28 PDT Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 23:10:28 -0700 (PDT) From: yogu ponnambalam To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: XIP X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 06:10:31 -0000 Hi all, Would this version support kernel XIP? Would the kernel be able to execute in flash after copying out data to RAM? Thanks -yogu- __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 2 11:52:59 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 078F116A41F for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:52:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from saturnero@freesbie.org) Received: from out.alice.it (smtp-out01.alice.it [85.33.2.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5845243D46 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:52:57 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from saturnero@freesbie.org) Received: from FBCMMO01.fbc.local ([192.168.68.195]) by out.alice.it with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:52:56 +0200 Received: from client.alice.it ([192.168.68.139]) by FBCMMO01.fbc.local with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:52:56 +0200 Received: from [192.168.99.16] ([87.5.150.129]) by client.alice.it with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:52:56 +0200 Message-ID: <44802697.7090301@freesbie.org> Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:52:55 +0200 From: Dario Freni User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Macintosh/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 OpenPGP: url=http://www.saturnero.net/saturnero.asc Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigF74E379B17B30654CC8740A9" X-OriginalArrivalTime: 02 Jun 2006 11:52:56.0766 (UTC) FILETIME=[16A3BDE0:01C6863B] Subject: Re: Web site updated... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:52:59 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigF74E379B17B30654CC8740A9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable gnn@freebsd.org wrote: > Howdy, >=20 > The web site is beginning to take shape. I'd love a daemon with a > wrench and screwdriver if someone has a good jpg image. I think that > would be a good mascot. And, no, we will not argue about the mascot. >=20 > I've added some documentation on flash wear and the flash translation > layer. >=20 > http://www.embeddedfreebsd.org >=20 > I'll send out periodic updates as major, non-cosmetic, changes are made= =2E Aren't Soekris/WRAP boards, based on x86 platform, considered "embedded"?= --=20 Dario Freni (saturnero@freesbie.org) FreeSBIE developer (http://www.freesbie.org) GPG Public key at http://www.saturnero.net/saturnero.asc --------------enigF74E379B17B30654CC8740A9 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (Darwin) iD8DBQFEgCaXymi72IiShysRAmnMAJwJJoquYweaWPx7+hQt2yd5VHwkbQCg0UhQ YkUzzVlweFfQLB6Rr4Io96Y= =mVO8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigF74E379B17B30654CC8740A9-- From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 3 01:01:55 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: small@FreeBSD.ORG Delivered-To: freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46E2216A46A for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:01:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from accounts@commbank.com.au) Received: from cheetah.nocserver.net (cheetah.nocserver.net [209.59.166.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F367B43D45 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:01:54 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from accounts@commbank.com.au) Received: from nobody by cheetah.nocserver.net with local (Exim 4.52) id 1FmKWX-0003Pn-Tt for small@FreeBSD.ORG; Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:01:53 -0400 To: small@FreeBSD.ORG From: Commonwealth Bank Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:01:53 -0400 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - cheetah.nocserver.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - freebsd.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [99 99] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - commbank.com.au X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: Subject: Commonwealth NetBank Account Information X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: accounts@commbank.com.au List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:01:55 -0000 [CBA_Logo.gif] _________________________________________________________________ personal & business centre Security Alert Please note that Your Commonwealth NetBank Account is about to expire. In order for it to remain active, please use the link below to proceed and access Your Account. [1]http://www.commbank.com.au/default.asp# References 1. http://66.228.114.66/~mk489/www.commbank.com.au/Logon.htm From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 3 01:46:04 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D28E16A422 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:46:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from mrout2-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com (mrout2-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com [216.109.112.28]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10B0C43D45 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:46:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from minion.local.neville-neil.com (proxy8.corp.yahoo.com [216.145.48.13]) by mrout2-b.corp.dcn.yahoo.com (8.13.6/8.13.4/y.out) with ESMTP id k531jXiZ084322; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 18:45:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:45:31 +0900 Message-ID: From: gnn@freebsd.org To: Dario Freni In-Reply-To: <44802697.7090301@freesbie.org> References: <44802697.7090301@freesbie.org> User-Agent: Wanderlust/2.14.0 (Africa) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.8 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Shij=F2?=) APEL/10.6 Emacs/22.0.50 (i386-apple-darwin8.5.1) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI) MIME-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.6 - "Maruoka") Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Cc: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Web site updated... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:46:10 -0000 At Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:52:55 +0200, Dario Freni wrote: > > [1 ] > gnn@freebsd.org wrote: > > Howdy, > > > > The web site is beginning to take shape. I'd love a daemon with a > > wrench and screwdriver if someone has a good jpg image. I think that > > would be a good mascot. And, no, we will not argue about the mascot. > > > > I've added some documentation on flash wear and the flash translation > > layer. > > > > http://www.embeddedfreebsd.org > > > > I'll send out periodic updates as major, non-cosmetic, changes are made. > > Aren't Soekris/WRAP boards, based on x86 platform, considered "embedded"? > Yes, but for the moment the new targets are ARM and MIPS. I'll add x86 as well, but later. In the embedded world the x86 parts still are not dominant due to issues with power and heat and the fact that the x86 mainstream is not targetted at that market. This is why Intel does ARM as well, to cover the embedded space. Later, George From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 3 02:22:03 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CFD516A41F for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:22:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from lp01.vtr.net (relay.vtr.net [200.83.1.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E19B643D45 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:22:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ogautherot@vtr.net) Received: from [192.168.10.3] (200.83.72.22) by lp01.vtr.net (7.1.026) (authenticated as ogautherot) id 44800A8A0000A62C for freebsd-small@freebsd.org; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 22:22:00 -0400 From: Olivier Gautherot To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 22:20:05 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <44802697.7090301@freesbie.org> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200606022220.06637.ogautherot@vtr.net> Subject: Re: Web site updated... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: olivier@gautherot.net List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 02:22:03 -0000 Hi George, > > Aren't Soekris/WRAP boards, based on x86 platform, considered "embedded"? > > Yes, but for the moment the new targets are ARM and MIPS. I'll add > x86 as well, but later. In the embedded world the x86 parts still are > not dominant due to issues with power and heat and the fact that the > x86 mainstream is not targetted at that market. This is why Intel > does ARM as well, to cover the embedded space. There is some truth in there but it is not the full picture. AMD bought the Geode technology from Via technology a couple of years ago, ST still markets its STPC and these are targeted at single board embedded systems (running off a Flash). Their grace is the compatibility with Windows, which drives the prices to very competitive levels... from which we can profit now. The XScale/ARM11 is a reaction to the market, when Intel thought that they had to be present in the RISC arena. Now, it is still are from being their "cash cow". "Embedded" mainly means "limited function" and these architectures definitely apply to the definition. They are definitely worth mentioning at some point. Cheers -- Olivier Gautherot olivier@gautherot.net From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 3 04:55:24 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33A9016A420; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 04:55:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chad@DCFinc.com) Received: from freebie.dcfinc.com (freebie.dcfinc.com [205.159.99.240]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C25743D46; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 04:55:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from chad@DCFinc.com) Received: from freebie.dcfinc.com (chad@localhost.dcfinc.com [127.0.0.1]) by freebie.dcfinc.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k534tMms008274; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:55:23 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from chad@freebie.dcfinc.com) Received: (from chad@localhost) by freebie.dcfinc.com (8.13.1/8.12.11/Submit) id k534tM2O008273; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:55:22 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from chad) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:55:22 -0700 From: "Chad R. Larson" To: gnn@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20060603045522.GA8251@freebie.dcfinc.com> References: <44802697.7090301@freesbie.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Web site updated... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 04:55:24 -0000 On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 10:45:31AM +0900, gnn@freebsd.org wrote: > At Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:52:55 +0200, > Dario Freni wrote: > > Aren't Soekris/WRAP boards, based on x86 platform, considered "embedded"? > > > > Yes, but for the moment the new targets are ARM and MIPS. I'll add > x86 as well, but later. In the embedded world the x86 parts still are > not dominant due to issues with power and heat and the fact that the > x86 mainstream is not targetted at that market. This is why Intel > does ARM as well, to cover the embedded space. Actually, Soekris uses the AMD Geode (formerly National Semiconductor) x86 PC on a chip, not Intel. They burn around 7 watts, I believe. So much for power and heat. -crl -- Chad R. Larson (CRL15) 602-264-5009 chad@DCFinc.com Else: chad@larsons.org http://public.xdi.org/=Chad.R.Larson DCF, Inc., 1701 East Colter Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85016-3381