Embedded Linux Hardware Resources? 37
jessecurry asks: "I've recently come up with a conceptual Linux based piece of hardware and have been able to find a huge amount of information regarding getting Linux on to a device, but almost nothing about creating the device itself. I'd like to know if there are any books, online guides, or software that would help in designing a device that would accept some flavor of Linux. I really don't want to go 'off the shelf', but I need something that can at least display graphics, respond to positional input, and play sound. Also, is there a good place to have all of these components put together once I have a finalized design?"
Depends (Score:4, Informative)
The RTAI mailing lists are a good place for this kind of question however, and handhelds.org has a lot of links to embedded Linux projects.
O'Reilly Book (Score:3, Informative)
Why? (Score:1, Informative)
While Linux runs on ARMs, be assured that building such a thing is not much different from designing a mainboard with bridges... yourself.
That's why I'm asking why.
- either you want to make it for fun, for learning. that's fine, go ahead
- or you have your idea about some software running on embedded Linux which you want to make into money. Then don't waste your time creating new hardware. Two links for you: <a href="http://www.pcengines.ch/wrap.htm">PCEngines WRAP</a>, <a href="http://www.soekris.com/">Soekris</a>.
Obvious - only existing chips... (Score:3, Informative)
So obviously if you plan to build hardware that will run Linux you need to use existing chips that have support in Linux. On the other way you may be willing (but there is no economical point for you really) to design some brand new hardware - just make sure it is atractive so few linux-heads-devs will use it and also make sure you release full specification of it.
it's all been done before (Score:3, Informative)
In my experience, Cirrus Logic is very Linux friendly, with good driver support for their ARM processors and dev boards.
one answer (Score:3, Informative)
As another poster suggested, you can do prototyping with a Gumstix. Just the display may be a pain with those because they use that teeny-weeny surface-mount Hosiden connector for most of the I/O lines, and you will probably need to build your own display adapter board. But they do have an audio daughterboard already. For something more expensive but a little more ready-to-go (as a prototype), check out the offerings from Arcom; I've used those as well. Or look for some other SBC (linuxdevices.com is a good place to search). You can develop software that way, make sure you know how to use all the hardware you're going to need, and in parallel be working on your final board design (suitably miniaturized if necessary, all on one board, and leaving off the features that you don't need).
Re:one answer (Score:2, Informative)
The ARM cores excell in power-efficiency, that's why there is hardly any better alternative for battery-powered hand-held devices, but the vast mayority of embedded systems are NOT battery powered, thus other processor cores might be better suited. If you need a 32-bit processor with memory-management functions that is able to interface vast amounts of RAM/Flash (i.e. something that can run linux), there are other choices besides ARM: PowerPC, MIPS, Super-H, Infineon Tri-Core, etc... Have a look at the MPC5200, MPC8xxx or MPC8xx ranges of processors from Freescale (ex Motorola) for instance, they have an impressive set of on-chip peripherals that is not equalled by any ARM based processor AFAIK.