AVR XMEGA?

AVR XMEGA?

[Sledz, Steffen]

Just a short question: Is somebody working on support for Atmel AVR XMEGA (8-bit AVR) architecture in OE?

Steffen

Re: AVR XMEGA?

[Marco Cavallini]

Sledz, Steffen ha scritto:
> Just a short question: Is somebody working on support for Atmel AVR XMEGA (8-bit AVR) architecture in OE?
> 

http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page
Openembedded, your best-in class cross-compile environment. Openembedded
allows developers to create a complete Linux Distribution for embedded
systems

Linux doesn't run on 8 bit CPUs

--
Marco Cavallini

Re: AVR XMEGA?

[Phil Blundell]

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:03 +0100, Marco Cavallini wrote:
> Sledz, Steffen ha scritto:
> > Just a short question: Is somebody working on support for Atmel AVR XMEGA (8-bit AVR) architecture in OE?
> > 
> 
> http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page
> Openembedded, your best-in class cross-compile environment. Openembedded
> allows developers to create a complete Linux Distribution for embedded
> systems
> 
> Linux doesn't run on 8 bit CPUs

There's nothing about OpenEmbedded itself that is inherently specific to
Linux; it just so happens that all the currently supported targets are
Linux-based.  There's certainly no reason that one couldn't build an OE
target system around, say, the Hurd or the BSD kernel.

Likewise, it would be perfectly feasible to use OE to generate binaries
for a 8-bit device, although the nature of those small deeply-embedded
systems tends to be that they use single monolithic application binaries
rather than a filesystem or "distribution" in the sense that larger,
general-purpose machines do.  That being the case I suspect some of the
advantages of OE would probably be negated in such an environment.

As far as I know nobody is working on XMEGA support, anyway.

p.

Re: AVR XMEGA?

[Ulf Samuelsson]

> On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:03 +0100, Marco Cavallini wrote:
>> Sledz, Steffen ha scritto:
>> > Just a short question: Is somebody working on support for Atmel AVR 
>> > XMEGA (8-bit AVR) architecture in OE?
>> >
>>
>> http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page
>> Openembedded, your best-in class cross-compile environment. Openembedded
>> allows developers to create a complete Linux Distribution for embedded
>> systems
>>
>> Linux doesn't run on 8 bit CPUs
>
> There's nothing about OpenEmbedded itself that is inherently specific to
> Linux; it just so happens that all the currently supported targets are
> Linux-based.  There's certainly no reason that one couldn't build an OE
> target system around, say, the Hurd or the BSD kernel.
>

> Likewise, it would be perfectly feasible to use OE to generate binaries
> for a 8-bit device, although the nature of those small deeply-embedded
> systems tends to be that they use single monolithic application binaries
> rather than a filesystem or "distribution" in the sense that larger,
> general-purpose machines do.  That being the case I suspect some of the
> advantages of OE would probably be negated in such an environment.
>
> As far as I know nobody is working on XMEGA support, anyway.

The AVR could in theory run linux since it supports
an 8 MB linear address space.

In practice there are no standard chips which bond out the program bus
so you are limited to 256 kB of flash, that's it.

The AVR also has a Harvard Architecture which is not hidden,
so you would have a problem compiling most applications.

The AVR32 is much better suited to the job.

Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson                ulf@atmel.com
Atmel Nordic AB
Mail:  Box 2033, 174 02 Sundbyberg, Sweden
Visit:  Kavallerivägen 24, 174 58 Sundbyberg, Sweden
Phone +46 (8) 441 54 22     Fax +46 (8) 441 54 29
GSM    +46 (706) 22 44 57

Re: AVR XMEGA?

[Stanislav Brabec]

Phil Blundell wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:03 +0100, Marco Cavallini wrote:
> > Sledz, Steffen ha scritto:
> > > Just a short question: Is somebody working on support for Atmel AVR XMEGA (8-bit AVR) architecture in OE?

> > Linux doesn't run on 8 bit CPUs

> As far as I know nobody is working on XMEGA support, anyway.

There is a rudimentary avr-gcc build.

I am thinking about creating of native and Canadian cross recipes for
avr utilities to be able to compile and upload Arduino sources from my
Zaurus.

Support for shared libraries, OS, command line and package management is
far above capabilities of these devices. But I can imagine recipes for
static libraries (e. g. avr-libc; however most standard libraries would
be too heavy for AVR) and just one application package that will become
an "image" (= firmware), linking against these static libraries. Maybe
OE is an overkill for this task. Make could do the same with a smaller
complexity, but on the other hand, at least avr-libc (and the Arduino
library) has to be build in this way.

And finally, it might be interesting to invent a way, how to convert
linux kernel drivers to microcontroller drivers and vice versa. I have
been just thinking about porting of drivers/w1.

-- 
Stanislav Brabec
http://www.penguin.cz/~utx