> G'day Guys and Gals,
> As part of a new embedded development project (a scientific
> instrument) we are currently trying to settle on an OS. Linux is being
> considered along with NT, WinCE, QNX and ThreadX. One of the important
I'd focus on Linux and QNX. Much as I like Linux, you should take
a hard look at QNX. They had an impressive single-floppy demo that
included X and networking.
> factors in the decision will be size of Flash required (we'll be using Disk
> On Chip).
>
> Does anyone out there have a good feeling (experience based is best)
> on how many megabytes of DOC will be required to run Linux on a PC104 board
> with the following services:
>
> X-windows for VGA LCD (we need a gui front end, though not the actual
> windowing, drop down lists etc).
This is the big part.
> Floppy disk support for upgrades and general file reading & writing.
> DOC file support
> Serial ports
> Parallel port
> keyboard
> Unicode support
> touch screen drivers (we can work this out separately).
>
> We will not need networking, browsers, etc.
What! No networking! Are you sure? One big way to save space is
to dump X on the embedded system, add networking, and tell people
they need Netscape on a PC to run the system. Think about the
environment where the system is going. Is there going to be a PC
nearby?
But it sounds like this may not work for you.
As for size, there are several single-floppy linux systems. In fact,
the red-hat install disk is a single floppy linux system with networking
and character based graphics. The BOOTDISK-HOWTO explains how to
create single-floppy systems.
With X client and server, I'd guess you're in the tens-of-megabytes
area. We have a pretty full-featured system that has a 12MB compressed
image. That's the entire root partition. No X, though.
Plus, remember to look at your write cycles with flash ram.
-- cary
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Regards,
> Alf Katz
>
> Principal Software Engineer
> Vision Instruments Limited
Looks like fun! Feel free to contact me if you have any
questions.
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ph: -61 3 9265 8900
> fax: -61 3 9265 8847
>
