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New $149 NetBSD Single Board Computer Port

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the of-course-it-runs-netbsd dept.

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."

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Direct Link to the Board by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is Here

    Keep It Real, Lameness Filter(TM)

  2. Crack-influenced flash prices... by rossifer · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    1. Re:Crack-influenced flash prices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work at embeddedARM.com, we know we're aren't competetive on CF prices and even suggest to cost sensitive customers to go get their CF's from Costco or what-not. We sell them at all just so we can be the one-stop shop to customers if they need them with the board, and pre-installed with Linux, etc..

      Also, some (not all) of our CF are inflated because they are the the "industrial" class CF's. These have extended rewrite cycles, higher G ratings, and work in extended temperature.

  3. Re:We can run Debian on it already by LizardKing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

  4. Re:We can run Debian on it already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    (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.