From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 10:00:59 -0400 Message-Id: <200006201400.KAA19361@rome.wavemark.com> From: Kent Borg To: fray@gate.crashing.org CC: linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org In-reply-to: (message from Mark Hatle on Mon, 19 Jun 2000 18:48:59 -0500 (CDT)) Subject: Re: RFC: Embedded Linux Page References: Sender: owner-linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: Mark Hatle wrote: >Now what I need from you folks are suggests on content As a representative of one part of your audience, let me describe what I have been missing: a non-Linux perspective. Now before you dismiss me as a weirdo who is posting to the wrong mailing list, please read a bit further. I have been a user of Linux for some time, I currently use it as a platform for cross development work, and I used various versions of Sun's Unix back when. But my current work is writing embedded software. I start out knowing next to nothing about the Linux kernel, I have never programmed Linux itself, I don't know (though am learning) Linux internals. I am an embedded person looking at Linux, not a Linux person looking at embedding it. Whether it be true or not, I get the impression that the embedded community is largely Linux experts who have decided that Linux can even be used for embedded purposes, ("Isn't Linux great!"). The sequence seems to be that many of you folks know Linux first, and then work to adapt it to embedded uses. Well, I think Linux is great too, but I know less about it and so my affection for Linux is based more on faith and politics than it is based on deep knowledge. My sequence is different, I have very specific embedded needs and also somehow have this idea I need to learn how to how to get Linux to fill them. The difference might be subtle, but I think there is one. As a smidge of evidence, one of the open questions we have is how to execute embedded software directly from ROM (yes, flash ROM!) without needing to page it through RAM first. No one seems to do this because it is very much at odds with how Linux traditionally works, but it is very common (might I say standard?) in embedded systems to execute code directly out of ROM, and when you add up the parts costs it can frequently be economical. I don't mention this to complain over Linux's defects for not already having such an option (something tells me I will be the one to write it once I learn enough about Linux to figure out how), rather I use it to illustrate a difference in perspective that might be shared by the next wave of adopters of embedded Linux. What does this mean for setting up the embedded section of linuxppc.org? Only to remember that as Linux becomes more mainstream (my biggest allies here in looking at embedded Linux are possibly non-technical folks!) some of your audience will be now coming from embedded environments and just beginning to look at Linux, not coming from Linux and adapting it to embedded programming. The difference in what folks like me don't know will be different, so how we look at your parts of linuxppc.org will be different too. OK, I'll shut up now. Thanks, -kb, the Kent who has been doing "old" work the last few days and so not getting any time to play with Linux. ** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/