Re: Porting ELKS

[Syed Faisal Akber <faisal.akber@utoronto.ca>]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Raghavan wrote:

> Fasal,
>
> Thanks very much for the reply.
>
> If I understand you correctly, we "can" have a port of ELKS as is without
> change in Memory model , but it
> will possibly be pedestrian.

No, you will have to make major changes in the way the memory and other
platform specific things are handled.

>
> I took a look at eCOS , but it looks like a nice full fledged OS with
> excellent features. Porting it might be
> a difficult task might be like an Year or so ...
>

Sounds about right if you are doing it alone with little knowledge of the
OS you are working on.

> I am inclined towards ELKS because I can possibly have a port like in 3 to 4
> months ...
> My priority is really to have applications running on Blackfin ASAP.
>

It would take longer to do this

> Also, why do we need to have gcc ported ?

Most of the opensource OS's require gcc as a compiler.  This is because
they take advantage of its special features.  Also GCC is more likely to
conform to C language standards than compilers provided by chip
manufacturers.

> Cant I use the native compiler provided by ADI guys for the Blackfin
> Processor ?

If you like but it would be more difficult to use and you would have to
port much more of the code to support the compiler.  I have used VisualDSP
for BLACKfin and found it to have many quirks.

> Yeah..I need to tweak the compiler options to the respective equivalents on
> Blackfin Compiler ..; I am not seeing anything else ...
> Am I missing something ?

The two compilers are by no means the same at all.  Using the commercial
compiler will cause you grief and cause your project timelines to be
extended 2 to 3 fold.

>
> Am I looking too optimistic to assume a 'as is' port of ELKS to Blackfin
> in 3 to 4 months ? I was thinking of taking Memory management after I have a
> 'working' version of  ELKS ...
>

An AS IS port will not work for you.


> Does this sound reasonable ?
>

The eCOS does sound reasonable, but I think using ELKS would be in the
same realm.  The regular Linux 2.6 kernel now has full support of MMU-less
systems.  You might want to look at it as an alternative.

Regards,
Faisal