Embedded Linux

[kf0rt]

Anyone here into it?

Got a potential project coming up (and I'm sooo tired of the Windows approach to this).

Don't know Jack about Linux, but at the moment am listening to Dire Straits on a Pithos client to Pandora running on Ubuntu 11.10 under VMPlayer 4.0 under Windows 7. Long damn way to play a MP3, but it seems to prove a point. It'd be just as easy to use the web interface under Windows.

Just wondering who among us is into this stuff...

[KC2UGV]

I've done some work with building Android firmwares (Sort of embedded linux), and also some DDWRT work. What embedded platform are you looking into? I personally like the NVidia platforms, and am partial to their Harmony boards.

[KA9MOT]

I stream directly from Pandora's website in Chromium with Ubuntu 11.10. Works great. I think my Windows7 box is going to remain parked in the corner for a very long time. I don't know about embedded, but Ubuntu runs amazingly well off of a Flash Drive. I'd love to be rich so I could by a Solid State drive, and run Ubuntu off of that.

[KC2UGV]

I stream directly from Pandora's website in Chromium with Ubuntu 11.10. Works great. I think my Windows7 box is going to remain parked in the corner for a very long time. I don't know about embedded, but Ubuntu runs amazingly well off of a Flash Drive. I'd love to be rich so I could by a Solid State drive, and run Ubuntu off of that.

Nvidia dev boards run pretty cheap, if you are handy with building the OS parts. I'm tempted to grab another Viewsonic G Tab just to have as a stand-alone Linux boxen.

[KA9MOT]

Nvidia dev boards run pretty cheap, if you are handy with building the OS parts. I'm tempted to grab another Viewsonic G Tab just to have as a stand-alone Linux boxen.

OK...At the risk of appearing stoopid, What the devil is a Nvidia Dev Board? I'm familiar with the brand.

[KC2UGV]

Nvidia has their own embedded platform, based on the Tegra Chip. It's a SOC (System on a chip), but it's a whole single-board computer, complete with on-board storage (32GB), and 512MB of RAM. Has some other neat little bells and whistles:

http://developer.nvidia.com/node/19086

T (http://developer.nvidia.com/node/19086)hey appear to be much more expensive than when I last looked. The dev kits used to run about $300, computer + lcd panel... Now, it's $400 for an outdated one (Harmony), and $1000 for the Ventana kit... :(

At that rate, just get one of these:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS439US439&q=viewsonic+g+tablet&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12276282375233030737&sa=X&ei=P-WqTsHxMcbd0QHL7oyhDw&ved=0CIgBEPMCMAQ

[kf0rt]

All noted, and thanks!

Mostly looking at an embedded touchscreen app that has to do a bunch of proprietary (layered on IPX) Ethernet stuff. Doing a lot of research and playing and so far, the hardware that's catching my eye is this:
http://www.advantech.com/products/PCM-3343/mod_645A1E17-167A-4476-B253-CA4CF2E19428.aspx

Pretty inexpensive at $170 (qty:1) and I think it'll handle the task (really want two Ethernet ports). The ITX platform would be nice (cheaper and more standard), but the boards are slightly too large for our packaging and I don't care for the ATX power requirements.

As I understand it, Android is layered on top of Linux and is programmed entirely in Java. Probably not suitable for this task, and it's hard to get management to "get" the subtleties of all this (some of them dream of smart phone access but don't quite understand that THIS is a back-end project). Actually, a tablet might do the job, but hardwired Ethernet is an absolute requirement, even if it's just 10-BaseT, and I've yet to find a tablet that will do this. Bookmarked the Viewsonic, though, Corey -- neat device at a great price! Google seems to be providing only news on the Nvidia stuff -- where's the storefront with the 8x10 glossies? <g>

[n2ize]

What the heck is "Android" ? This stuff is bizarre. Unlike a lot of fields in this field one thing seems to mean many things and once I think I comprehend it I find out I don't. For example I never understood what .NET is. At one time I took it to be a programming language. Then I took it to be a development platform. Then I understood it to be a framework for a development platform. maybe its one of those things that can be anything you want it to be.

[KC2UGV]

All noted, and thanks!

Mostly looking at an embedded touchscreen app that has to do a bunch of proprietary (layered on IPX) Ethernet stuff. Doing a lot of research and playing and so far, the hardware that's catching my eye is this:
http://www.advantech.com/products/PCM-3343/mod_645A1E17-167A-4476-B253-CA4CF2E19428.aspx

Pretty inexpensive at $170 (qty:1) and I think it'll handle the task (really want two Ethernet ports). The ITX platform would be nice (cheaper and more standard), but the boards are slightly too large for our packaging and I don't care for the ATX power requirements.


I've been looking at their stuff too. The advantech stuff can work with daughterboard too, I believe (Your second ethernet port).



As I understand it, Android is layered on top of Linux and is programmed entirely in Java. Probably not suitable for this task, and it's hard to get management to "get" the subtleties of all this (some of them dream of smart phone access but don't quite understand that THIS is a back-end project). Actually, a tablet might do the job, but hardwired Ethernet is an absolute requirement, even if it's just 10-BaseT, and I've yet to find a tablet that will do this. Bookmarked the Viewsonic, though, Corey -- neat device at a great price! Google seems to be providing only news on the Nvidia stuff -- where's the storefront with the 8x10 glossies? <g>

On the Harmony board, you can load a clean Linux install, instead of Android. There's a how-to somewheres on how to do it. And, the Viewsonic has a full USB host, that you can use USB ethernet cards with (If you have the drivers there).


What the heck is "Android" ? This stuff is bizarre. Unlike a lot of fields in this field one thing seems to mean many things and once I think I comprehend it I find out I don't. For example I never understood what .NET is. At one time I took it to be a programming language. Then I took it to be a development platform. Then I understood it to be a framework for a development platform. maybe its one of those things that can be anything you want it to be.

Android is a mobile OS based on Linux, with Java running on top as it's presentation layer.

.NET is a common language runtime, which means no matter the language, it get's compiled using a JIT into the same bytecode. I don't like it.

[n2ize]

Android is a mobile OS based on Linux, with Java running on top as it's presentation layer.

.NET is a common language runtime, which means no matter the language, it get's compiled using a JIT into the same bytecode. I don't like it.

Hmmm... so it's like Java in as far as how it runs but instead of JIT-ing just Java code it can do it with other languages ? Also, when you say 'any "language" do you mean that literally, as in anything I can throw at it ? Like my favorite Lisp dialect ? Or are there limits ? I could see where that approach would have advantages. However if it runs anything like Java I'm not too impressed. Java always seemed like a resource hog. I've had good luck with interpreted or statically compiled languages. Then again, my needs are not everyone's. What works fine for me might not suit everyone's requirements.

[KC2UGV]

Hmmm... so it's like Java in as far as how it runs but instead of JIT-ing just Java code it can do it with other languages ? Also, when you say 'any "language" do you mean that literally, as in anything I can throw at it ? Like my favorite Lisp dialect ? Or are there limits ? I could see where that approach would have advantages. However if it runs anything like Java I'm not too impressed. Java always seemed like a resource hog. I've had good luck with interpreted or statically compiled languages. Then again, my needs are not everyone's. What works fine for me might not suit everyone's requirements.

The limits for .NET are languages MS has written for the CLR (VisualBasic, C#, J#, etc), so no, you can't throw lisp at it.

And Google did some interesting things to Java to make it snappy. They actually compile it, and it runs using the Dalvik JVM, which is optimized for being the core of the OS.

[n2ize]

The limits for .NET are languages MS has written for the CLR (VisualBasic, C#, J#, etc), so no, you can't throw lisp at it.

And Google did some interesting things to Java to make it snappy. They actually compile it, and it runs using the Dalvik JVM, which is optimized for being the core of the OS.

Well that makes sense. back when I was playing around with Java it lacked the robust qualities of some of the statically compiled languages or some of the more robust interpreted languages However it did have some features other languages lacked. Typical of MS to try and lock developers into proprietary MS code. Screw em.