Beginner Questions

[Joel Sherrill]

Arun Govind wrote:
> 
> I've heard that RTEMS BSP contains all the needed drivers for a particular board. And the mailing list contains a number of queries regarding driver related issues on particular boards. Again as a beginner, which port is known to have less such issues with boards?

This is the embedded world.  There is no cut and dry answer.  Systems
are
assembled in a custom fashion to meet the application/system
requirements
at the least cost/power/weight.  In this environment, there is no
hardware
that is not needed in a fielded system.  

If you pick a self-contained embedded board with little expansion
capabilities
like the MRM332, then the BSP contains everything you can use.  If
you choose a highly expandable board as the starting point, then
everything
on the "base board" is probably supported but not every expansion
capability.
For example, there are 1000s of PCI boards.  The RTEMS PC386 BSP
supports 
basic PC functionality but it is easy to pick an unsupported peripheral
board.
Similarly, many VMEbus and CompactPCI single board computers have BSPs
which
support the entire functionality on that board.  But I could add a
peripheral
board or PCI mezzanine module and easily find that is not supported.

This philosophy is not RTEMS specific, it is a fact of life in the
embedded
world.  I have consulted to projects on OS and hardware selection that
found
themselves having to balance which OS and version to use to result in
the
least development of new device drivers. 

So the question is.. what do YOU really want to do as an application and
what do YOU need?

--joel

> thanks
> Arun
> --
> 
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:11:34
>  Joel Sherrill wrote:
> >
> >
> >Arun Govind wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>   I am new to this group as well as to RTEMS development. I have used the i386-rtems using my pc as the target and now preparing to move to a 'real' board. Can anyone suggest which processor and board I should opt for? Or which board is 'most commonly' used for RTEMS development?
> >> I need all the necessary drivers for the board in the specific BSP.
> >
> >You can just link them with your executable and either put them in the
> >device driver
> >configuration table or dynamically install them using
> >rtems_io_register_driver.
> >
> >> thanks
> >> Arun
> >>
> >> _____________________________________________________________
> >> Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year.
> >> http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus
> >
> >--
> >Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
> >joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
> >Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
> >Support Available                (256) 722-9985
> >
> 
> _____________________________________________________________
> Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year.
> http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus

-- 
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
Support Available                (256) 722-9985