Recommended motherboard

Recommended motherboard

[dashesy]

I have tested the rt31 patch and everything seems great on my
off-the-shelf high-end Xeon desktop so far. I will continue testing
and let you know if I find any oopses or panics :)

We are in the process of upgrading our embedded system, now based on
an old ADEOS patch.
In the first step we need to substitute our soon to be obsolete
motherboard with a new long life industrial motherboard that works
with -rt (as we all hope it will be all in the mainline).
I know I will be going to a lengthy validation and testing phase to
choose the right motherboard, one that is reliable (for a medical
device), state-of-the-art (at least two cores) and of course -rt
compliant (some indication about thing like SMI or hrtimer issues for
example).

There are few book and plenty of resources out there. "Building
Embedded Linux Systems by Karim Yaghmour, et al" is a nice book, and
linux-rt archives, LWN and LKML have been the ultimate source to keep
up with the past (as much as I could) an learn the new. To find out
what might cause problem or what to avoid when designing the system.

It seems the manufacturers section of the OSADL Realtime QA Farm is a
good starting point to look for motherboards if one is concerned about
the latency plots, however,
That would be great if there was some sort of -rt compliance
certificate or tag, issued by OSADL (one organization that I can think
of). I believe, this might generate some revenue for the project, and
some ease of mind for developers who want to start a fresh design.

I appreciate any comments or suggestion about the motherboard.

Thanks
dashesy

Re: Recommended motherboard

[Daniel James]

Hi dashesy,

> That would be great if there was some sort of -rt compliance
> certificate or tag, issued by OSADL (one organization that I can think
> of). 

At 64 Studio, we would be interested in being part of a certification
scheme.

> I appreciate any comments or suggestion about the motherboard.

You might consider asking Kontron about a suitable board, they have
products such as:

http://uk.kontron.com/products/systems+and+platforms/embedded+ipc++thinkio/thinkioduo.html

Click on Downloads -> Linux on that page, there is a BSP package with an
RT kernel, and also a Debian based distro available, I believe.

Their boards are too expensive for most of our customers, but for a
medical application the cost may be justifiable:

http://uk.kontron.com/industries/medical/

To be clear, we have no business relationship with Kontron, we just keep
an eye on the boards they bring out.

Cheers!

Daniel

Re: Recommended motherboard

[Ehsan Azarnasab]

Hi Daniel,

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 2:42 AM, Daniel James <daniel@64studio.com> wrote:
> Hi dashesy,
>
>> That would be great if there was some sort of -rt compliance
>> certificate or tag, issued by OSADL (one organization that I can think
>> of).
>
> At 64 Studio, we would be interested in being part of a certification
> scheme.
Great, I am looking forward to see your mark being advertised on the
future motherboards.
>
>> I appreciate any comments or suggestion about the motherboard.
>
> You might consider asking Kontron about a suitable board, they have
> products such as:
>
> http://uk.kontron.com/products/systems+and+platforms/embedded+ipc++thinkio/thinkioduo.html
>
> Click on Downloads -> Linux on that page, there is a BSP package with an
> RT kernel, and also a Debian based distro available, I believe.
>
> Their boards are too expensive for most of our customers, but for a
> medical application the cost may be justifiable:
>
> http://uk.kontron.com/industries/medical/
>
> To be clear, we have no business relationship with Kontron, we just keep
> an eye on the boards they bring out.
>
Thanks for the suggestion! I am looking at their basic and embedded
motherboards as they more suitably fit our purpose.
I am compiling a list to submit to my manager to purchase for evaluation.
> Cheers!
>
> Daniel
>

Regards,
dashesy

Re: Recommended motherboard

[Armin Steinhoff]

Hello Dashesy,

very good information are available at:

https://www.osadl.org/Individual-system-data.qa-farm-data.0.html#c4630

Check out the latency plots and make your own conclusion.

--Armin




dashesy wrote:
> I have tested the rt31 patch and everything seems great on my
> off-the-shelf high-end Xeon desktop so far. I will continue testing
> and let you know if I find any oopses or panics :)
>
> We are in the process of upgrading our embedded system, now based on
> an old ADEOS patch.
> In the first step we need to substitute our soon to be obsolete
> motherboard with a new long life industrial motherboard that works
> with -rt (as we all hope it will be all in the mainline).
> I know I will be going to a lengthy validation and testing phase to
> choose the right motherboard, one that is reliable (for a medical
> device), state-of-the-art (at least two cores) and of course -rt
> compliant (some indication about thing like SMI or hrtimer issues for
> example).
>
> There are few book and plenty of resources out there. "Building
> Embedded Linux Systems by Karim Yaghmour, et al" is a nice book, and
> linux-rt archives, LWN and LKML have been the ultimate source to keep
> up with the past (as much as I could) an learn the new. To find out
> what might cause problem or what to avoid when designing the system.
>
> It seems the manufacturers section of the OSADL Realtime QA Farm is a
> good starting point to look for motherboards if one is concerned about
> the latency plots, however,
> That would be great if there was some sort of -rt compliance
> certificate or tag, issued by OSADL (one organization that I can think
> of). I believe, this might generate some revenue for the project, and
> some ease of mind for developers who want to start a fresh design.
>
> I appreciate any comments or suggestion about the motherboard.
>
> Thanks
> dashesy
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