On 2 Dec 98, at 22:30, James Ewing wrote:
> >> Have anyone out there looked at running Linux on the IC Links "PC on a
> >> Stick" ?
> >>
> >> It's a little board with a 386ex, 512Ko of RAM and 2Mo of DOS flash
> disk.
> >>
> >> Any input is highly appreciated.
> >
> >That is little, alright. I think the record minimum for booting Linux is
> >about 1 meg. Considering the current form factor for 8MB of RAM is smaller
> >than 2MB of FLASH, this design seems a little unbalanced.
> >
>
>
> There is a new version of the Stick due out now, December '98, with 2 MB
> RAM/8 MB flash. The company is very interested in seeing Linux ported to the
> stick. What is needed is a working flash driver and a FFS implementation.
> Any Linux gurus interested in helping out?
>
> James Ewing
Yep, quite interested in helping/using/testing the code needed to boot up
BIOSless, from memory mapped flash, w/ little RAM. I had figured that a system
with memory mapped flash *COULD* have the kernel's static (read-only) part--
code and constants in flash, and decompress the r/w data section into RAM. We
could probably get by with VERY little ram for the kernel this way, although
I'm not sure how much code vs. data there actually is in the kernel.
I took a quick look-see at the stick. We'd probably want to add the watchdog
support into the kernel as well. And the non-standard clock interface would
have to be added... Keyboard support removed, etc.
If the eval is cheap enough I'd probably get one just to 'play' with it. It's
too bad it only has serial communications... Ethernet would be nice. Then
this thing could be a firewall for a modem/PPP for a small company... And I
wonder if the 16C550's are limited to 115,200 like usual. (They could be made
to go 920kBaud over differential lines for some real fun.)
Reguardless, there are some things that can/should/will be done in the kernel
to help these sorts of embedded systems take advantage of Linux.
Cheers,
-= [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==== Infrared Solutions, Inc. =-
