Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:37:29 -0400 From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@telenix.org> To: Vincent Hoffman <vince@unsane.co.uk> Cc: Lars Engels <lars.engels@0x20.net>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: do we have support for the Beagle Board? Message-ID: <49DE2449.8050007@telenix.org> In-Reply-To: <49DDB2DA.9090409@unsane.co.uk> References: <49DD0DD2.8080806@telenix.org> <20090409085601.b54eb5y31ckwcwww@0x20.net> <49DDB2DA.9090409@unsane.co.uk>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Vincent Hoffman wrote: > On 9/4/09 07:56, Lars Engels wrote: >> Quoting Chuck Robey <chuckr@telenix.org>: >> >>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>> Hash: SHA1 >>> >>> I am truly impressed with that new handhelp computer, the Pandora. I >>> read >>> somewhere (I'm trying to find where I saw this) that the Pandora is very >>> compatible with the BeagleBoard. I was just wondering if any of the >>> work being >>> done for the ARM on FreeBSD has been ported to the Pandora? >>> >>> I don't know enough about it, *yet*, but I'm working on it. Having >>> such a great >>> tiny machine running FreeBSD would be incredible. FreeBSD would be >>> my first >>> choice, if I'm going to get a choice. >>> >> What is Pandora? > I think he means > http://openpandora.org/ > Which does look quite nice. Correct. I've been daydreaming about getting a nice handheld for a long time now, I dunno, maybe a decade now, but at LEAST since Sharp put out the units which really started the entire idea. The Pandora, it's the first one I've seen that really gets to a point that I've been happy with. I wouldn't even consider something that didn't have a minimum of 640x480. I also wanted a keyboard, even if it needed to be of a "chicklet" variety, but it needed to be pretty close to something that could be described as a QWERTY keyboard. I wanted a lot of RAM, lot of flash, and enough speed and power to host it's own compiler. Up until now, I just didn't see anything else out there that came close to meeting my minimums. Well, Pandora *way* more than meets my minimums, and it does it at a small fraction of what I thought something like that's going to cost. I know very well that I can't afford this at the moment, but I went ahead and got on the list to get one of these (it only caost me, base, $330). They info about this is scattered all over, I don't *think* that there is anything like a published spec on this, so grabbing the info on the Pandora means spending a LOT of time on Google. I think everything is out there, just extremely poorly organized. I've located the fact that the processor is a variant of the ArmV7, a OMAP3530, which means that it's a 600Mhz processor integrated with a version of TI's venerable 320-family of DSP processors. Software wise, it's even better. It was designed using public newsgroups, and making maximal use of public software. I'm not sure, but I think some parts of it might be limited in distribution, things like NDAs might be involved here. I don't like that, but it's still geatly better than any of it's competitors. TI has made available software written for the DSP processor implementing the latest version of OpenGL (ES?), so that the Pandora sports the best video 3D output you could have dreamed about. It runs a very recent version of Linux, I think that's 2.6.26. I'd REALLY like to get one of the BSD's here, I don't yet know what the status of that is. Up until recently, OpenBSD had the best support for the ARM, but I know works been done for FreeBSD, so I need to check that out. You begin to understand why I'm *really* looking forward to getting the Pandora delivered to me, in about a month of two. This stuff is really exciting, isn't it? If you want to know more, start at openpandora.org, but expect to have to spend a lot of time getting the info together. I wish this weren't true, but unless I've really missed a lot, then the info just isn't organized very well. If anyone knows more about the things I'm interested in, please, talk to me. Here's a few items ... about making a gcc crosscompiler, what's the --target string? What kind of floating point does it use, what's the actual name used to describe it? What's the status of FreeBSD's ARM stuff, does any of it work for the relatively new ArmV7 (I think it's called the TI OMAP3530, with the DSP being a Cortex A8). Same info for OpenBSD. > > Vince -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEUEARECAAYFAkneJEkACgkQz62J6PPcoOn+qgCWIWy+sBbKv4alOfvSrsRS8YcR pQCePHQFSDrwMRzjYjJ8TX22AUkiQwo= =KI5P -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?49DE2449.8050007>