From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Florian Fainelli Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 11:50:52 +0100 Subject: [U-Boot] Any good __LOW COST__ MIPS SBC suggestion please In-Reply-To: <4B92BE4C.5050901@gmail.com> References: <3b233f7d1003052030r4165e204l11181f61c3fd87ed@mail.gmail.com> <4B92BE4C.5050901@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201003071150.52763.f.fainelli@gmail.com> List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: u-boot@lists.denx.de Le samedi 6 mars 2010 21:42:52, Jerry Van Baren a ?crit : > Hi Balaji, > > Balaji Ravindran wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I'm hunting for a __LOW COST__ MIPS/PPC SBC, something like TS-7200(but > > it is for ARM). Could anyone please suggest me a good one, that you guys > > have come across. > > My purpose is only for general driver development, and developing some > > MIPS / PPC porting skills. > > > > Also another true intension is, i have couple of 2600$$ BDI3000 JTAG > > debuggers for PPC and MIPS, lying idle in my office, and want to make > > some good use out of it :). > > Lucky dude. :-) > > > I was looking in the "Boards" directory to hunt for any MIPS based SBC > > boards, but found it hard to search. > > > > It will be nice, if its an SBC, and it has atleast 64/128 MB SDRAM, and > > 16/32 MB flash, USB support, (i can;t expect a super fast processor, but > > a decent one like 166/200 Mhz should be ok) > > Two off-the-wall thoughts would be to use QEMU (the ultimate in low > cost) or a MIPS-based wireless/firewall/router. A fair number of the > cheap ones use versions of the Realtek SoC processor, which is MIPS > architecture: > This is actually a really bad choice, unless you start using Realtek WiSoCs (RT30xx/RT28xx). RTL8186 and RTL8651B are using a Lexra core, which is famous for not having 4 patented instructions (lwl, lwr, swl and swr), which therefore requires a different toolchain. Also the Linux support is just non- existent. Finally they use a brain-dead bootloader called ROME which only allows a couple of actions to be performed. More seriously, buy a WRT160NL or WRT54GL from Linksys, which is equally cheap as those Realtek devices. > > As another possibility, you may be able to pick up a Lemote computer > which uses the Loongson processor: > > This is a much better choice :) -- Cordialement, Florian Fainelli ------------------------------