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New $149 NetBSD Single Board Computer Port
An Anonymous NetBSD User writes "NetBSD now supports a new ARM board, the Technologic Systems TS-7200. The TS-7200 is a low cost ($149!) mass produced embedded single board computer that runs on less than 2 watts of power."
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TS-7200 Single Board Computer 200 MHz ARM processor for Linux ARM9 processor with MMU 32 MB SDRAM 8 MB flash drive (16 MB optional) 10/100 Ethernet Compact Flash 2 USB host ports 2 COM ports 20 DIO PC/104 expansion bus Optional A/D and RS-485 Optional 802.11b WiFi
I've recently been looking at small / quiet form factor boards from places like Mini-ITX - I'm embedding an X terminal into my glass topped dining room table.
I've had it with desktops; time for the X table top.
The computer itself seems like a steal for the specs they're claiming but their prices on CF flash are more than a little silly. You can get Sandisk Ultra II 512MB for $60 from any online meta-retailer and these guys are offering an unknown 512MB CF card for $145.
I've seen this kind of thing from several of these kinds of suppliers and I don't quite get it. They don't seem to realize that things like flash are fully commoditized and are still thinking they can get away with a 100% markup...
Oh well, if they can actually sell CF at those prices, then they deserve the money. Kudos for such a sweet, low power, inexpensive computer either way.
Regards,
Ross
This looks like a nice SBC, but I am really happy with my little Soekris'. With case, the 4501 is cheaper than this ARM board (the board alone is more expensive) and has three ethernet interfaces.
Comparable to VIA's Eden-N at 2.5w at half the size.
I'm pretty sure NetBSD has already got an x86 port too...
An extra $50 can buy a lot more technology elsewhere.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Here are some ARM based boards to compare:
Microcontrollershop.com
Here is a similar Atmel board but this is only 8 bit and $153. Atmel Ethernut Board
8MB or 16MB flash with 32MB ram on a 32 bit processor is a good deal in the world of small low powr computers. (but still expensive compared to x86 desktop)
Which is why you should go with Linux, rather than NetBSD, since NetBSD's notion of "support" runs to "we can get it to boot on this hardware" rather than "works well on this hardware and supports all common drivers"
Your description of NetBSD's hardware support is a bit odd. Unlike Linux where the philosophy is "if it works on one platform include it", NetBSD is designed so that a driver written for one platform will work reliably on all those that support the same device. As for missing support for some devices, that's no more or less true than Linux. Compare the support for SGI MIPS for example - when it works in Debian it supports a similar subset of systems and devices. Likewise for the Vax, although here Linux supports a tiny suset of the systems and devices that NetBSD does. Linux has a large proportion of platforms that are only notionally supported (they booted once upon a time, but have languished thanks to Linus being primarily concerned with i386).
all things considered, Gentoo is a better bet
I don't know of a single embedded company using Gentoo (embedded boards being the subject of the original article), and all the embedded Linux kits I've used have been based on RedHat. I also know of no companies using Gentoo on their servers - again it is RedHat along with the odd SuSE box. I did encounter Debian once as a contractor, but the guy who had installed it was reputedly a loose cannon and ahad done it without auhorisation (one of my first tasks was to switch the machine in question to RedHat).
(I work for Technologic Systems)
I did both the Linux port and the NetBSD port to the TS-7200 so I am uniquely qualified on their differences. IMHO, to an engineer actually doing the work, NetBSD is a far superior OS to port to, at least to this platform.
The port is not a "we can get it to boot" port of NetBSD. There is installatium medium on a FTP site, a system installation program (sysinst), cross-toolchain support and even support for the ISA (PC/104) bus, which is something that is really impossible right now on Linux due to its x86 assumptions littered throughout ISA drivers. (Ever tried to use inb and outb on an ARM?, there is no such thing! ISA bus space is memory mapped and appears at a different spot depending on 8 or 16bit accesses)
Although you can run it on Debian, Debian does not support it. I had to do all that work myself, and Technologic Systems is supporting it on this platform. There aren't any TS-7200 kernels on debian.org.
If you want to go cheaper, got fo an NSLU from Linksys (http://nslu2-linuxorg). It's a 100 dollar ARM board w/ Ethernet, and two USB ports. It comes running Linux, but there has been some work with getting NetBSD running on it according to the mailing lists. It's a 233MHz ARM, 32MB RAM, 8MB Flash. It also has 1 1/2 serial port which you can solder on with little effort. The 1/2 serial port is only pinned out for an RX, no way to transmit with it, so it's kinda useless in that regard.
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This is a single board, not really an arch...
NetBSD not supporting an architecture means one of two things: (1) the architecture has no processors with an MMU, or (2) no developer has the hardware
This explains no NetBSD on iPaq/etc for (1) and no NetBSD on ppc64/ia64 for (2).
As we can see by these examples (especially that nice post by the developer who supported this board under NetBSD), when it does support the hardware, it supports it properly, not just as x86 compatibility. That's the key difference between Linux and NetBSD; NetBSD is an operating system for every architecture, Linux is a kernel that can pretend to understand any architecture. I'll stick to NetBSD, thanks (even on i386 where possible).
Sam ty sig.
You'll have a hard time convincing anyone in-the-know to run Linux on anything that isn't x86. Its strategy towards porting is "convince the rest of the kernel it's an i386 and work like that", which fails on a lot of systems which are fundamentally different from i386, even if they have some things in common (ISA isn't the same everywhere, for instance).
NetBSD is portable in the Right Way. It actually abstracts architectures, busses, etc. completely, with nothing i386-specific leaving the i386 world (to combat confusion: ports that are LIKE i386 but wouldn't involve the same kernel and installation are exempt - e.g. Xen which doesn't need any hardware drivers but is still based on i386).
The same clean code and clean design that allow this kind of abstraction lead to a generally clean and stable system. NetBSD's worst stability problems occur only in device quirks which haven't yet been fully understood (you'll notice Linux has the same quirks but the hacks around them are usually done earlier, since Linux contributors don't care if something is a hack or not). Where the hardware is non-quirky, the system simply does not encounter problems. Simple as that. You could say the same for Linux to some extent, but for Linux, achieving stability is all about quirks for everything, even where it's not needed [see the first mention of i386 'emulation' above]. That's why the Linux kernel is an order of magnitude larger than NetBSD's but does not have the functionality to justify it.
I ended up typing a lot in response to very little, but the point is: Linux is marketable, so it gets around, NetBSD is proper, so it gets installed over Linux by anyone in their right mind.
Sam ty sig.