From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list linux-mips); Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:08:43 +0000 (GMT) Received: from arrakis.dune.hu ([195.56.146.235]:63664 "EHLO arrakis.dune.hu") by ftp.linux-mips.org with ESMTP id S20022084AbXCVIIm (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:08:42 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by arrakis.dune.hu (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1E3F7840CB; Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:17:28 +0100 (CET) Received: from arrakis.dune.hu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (arrakis [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 22624-10; Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:17:28 +0100 (CET) Received: from richese (catv-5063b788.catv.broadband.hu [80.99.183.136]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by arrakis.dune.hu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9CB417840C9; Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:17:28 +0100 (CET) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:08:10 +0100 To: "Songmao Tian" Subject: Re: =?utf-8?B?5Zue5aSNOiBNaXBzIFNPQywgTGludXg=?= From: "Imre Kaloz" Organization: OpenWrt - Wireless Freedom Cc: PhilipS , linux-mips@linux-mips.org Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20070311135654.GA26339@linux-mips.org> <7d73e7d80703211907l147578b3gc696b8c4c15ae20c@mail.gmail.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <7d73e7d80703211907l147578b3gc696b8c4c15ae20c@mail.gmail.com> X-Virus-Scanned: by amawis at dune.hu Return-Path: X-Envelope-To: <"|/home/ecartis/ecartis -s linux-mips"> (uid 0) X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org Original-Recipient: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org X-archive-position: 14615 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org Errors-to: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org X-original-sender: kaloz@openwrt.org Precedence: bulk X-list: linux-mips Well, a year before or so I've tried to get a Godson based unit (a Municator) with no luck.. I wasn't able to find a contact regarding the Lemote, but if you can, I would be also interested in working on this platform. Imre On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:07:49 +0100, Songmao Tian wrote: > Have you heard of loongson? the current version of the cpu is 2e, > while 2f will be released this year, which will clocks at 1GHz, > delivering rather high perfermance:) > > Fulong is a miniPC now based on loongson 2e. you can get one for free > if you make recognized contribution to the system:) > > > Some introduction here: > http://www.cyrius.com/debian/loongson/ > > 2007/3/11, Ralf Baechle : >> On Sun, Mar 11, 2007 at 11:59:11AM +0530, PhilipS wrote: >> >> > Hello All, >> > I am looking for MIPS Development boards for my hobby projects like >> Linux >> > Porting and Development, I am here by looking for an Expert >> suggestion to >> > buy a MIPS custom boards, so far on Google I could come across >> > vendor selling MIPS Evaluation target boards which is Obviously >> expensive >> > which ,I cannot afford to buy. I hope I am asking this question at the >> right >> > place, else please suggest me where I can post my request if one knows >> about >> > it. >> >> You're touch a big problem here, so I'm going to use this opportunity to >> post a rant ... >> >> Most of the eval boards are have very high price tags due to low volume >> and >> esotheric components such as very large and fast FPGAs or pricey matched >> impedance connectors for logic analyzers. Another factor is that the >> vendors making these boards usually target their commercial customers >> and >> factor in a fairly generous markup for the post-sale support into the >> sales >> price of the board. >> >> From a Free Software perspective this is a bloody disaster. Even if >> for a >> moment I put on my dot com hat again, it's one. Over the past years the >> commercial contributions have primarily focused on hardware support. In >> many cases I received large code drops of lousy to medicore quality and >> no maintenance at all after the initial code drop. I won't go into the >> reasons here nor do I think I need to name companies here - but it's a >> big >> problem. >> >> As usual exceptions proof the rule and also as usual there are alot of >> grey shades between white and black. Some companies seem to have >> tremendous >> difficulty to be good open source citizens - but they throw some free >> hardware into the crowd. Not enough to satisfy the demand and usually >> only >> a few key people are really able to take advantage of that. >> >> Otoh many if not most important and highest quality contributions over >> the >> years have come from hobby hackers, so in the end the lack availability >> of >> modern hardware is making everybody suffer. Meanwhile the importance of >> Linux as OS for MIPS is continuing to rise ... >> >> I hear similar complaints from other, mostly embedded architectures >> such as >> ARM. But that's not an excuse - this problem wants some remedy. >> >> But let's also look at the options you have right now: >> >> o Eval boards end on ebay relativly rarely, but you can try anyway. >> Another option is something like a surplus MIPS workstation. >> o A bunch of wireless routers and other devices such as some the >> Linksys >> WRT54 models have been recycled for hacking use with good success. >> o Routerboard which is not yet supported out of tree (working in >> cleaing >> the patches) would be another reasonably priced option. Generally >> you >> may want to look at the list of platforms supported by >> http://openwrt.org/ - many of their platforms have friendly price >> tags. >> Of course alot of those are purpose built hw so may be a bit quirky >> to >> use. >> o Apparently AMD Alchemy boards used to be fairly cheap, on the order >> of >> $100. I have not idea this is true or still true for the new owner >> of >> Alchemy Raza Microelectronics. >> o For the meager investment of a few megabytes of disk space Qemu is a >> really nice and well performing system which also is rapidly >> improving. >> >> Ralf >> >> >