From owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 14 15:47:06 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 679BA16A480 for ; Sun, 14 May 2006 15:47:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from mrout1.yahoo.com (mrout1.yahoo.com [216.145.54.171]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29A4843D45 for ; Sun, 14 May 2006 15:47:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gnn@neville-neil.com) Received: from minion.lan.neville-neil.com (proxy8.corp.yahoo.com [216.145.48.13]) by mrout1.yahoo.com (8.13.6/8.13.4/y.out) with ESMTP id k4EFjFNB085057; Sun, 14 May 2006 08:45:16 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 11:45:14 -0400 Message-ID: From: gnn@freebsd.org To: Eduardo In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.0.20060514091549.01e2a4d8@pop3.retena.com> References: <6.2.3.4.0.20060514091549.01e2a4d8@pop3.retena.com> User-Agent: Wanderlust/2.14.0 (Africa) SEMI/1.14.6 (Maruoka) FLIM/1.14.8 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Shij=F2?=) APEL/10.6 Emacs/22.0.50 (i386-apple-darwin8.5.1) MULE/5.0 (SAKAKI) MIME-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.6 - "Maruoka") Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Cc: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Embedded FreeBSD Presentation... X-BeenThere: freebsd-small@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated and Embedded Systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 15:47:06 -0000 At Sun, 14 May 2006 09:16:48 +0200, Eduardo wrote: > Is this really possible:? Sorry for be a bit unoptimist, but in the > embeded space the o.s.must follow some rules that freebsd (nor > linux, *bsd, windows, etc..) can't: > > - size: The o.s. must be minimal. Freebsd kernel, now, is a bit huge. > - realtime: The o.s. must do some tasks at fixed times, this tasks > can't wait for nothing. > > The size one can be fixed, but the realtime not. It needs a new > scheleude, irq manager,...; so a great kernel rework. Perhaps you mis-understand the thrust of this drive, in that we are not talking about turning FreeBSD into an RTOS, at least not in the short term, but about making it more amenable to embedded. There is much to do but it will be a gradual process. Size and configuration are the first things to address. > Also, you forget the PowerPC chips. They are in a lot of embedded > devices and now freebsd has support for them (6.x). We did not forget them but amongst those who have shown interest in this project ARM and MIPS are the clear leaders. If we find people who wish to address the PowerPC chips as well, all the better. One other important component in this work is focus. We cannot be all things to all people, at least not at the outset, so two different processors and two or three reference boards for each are where we plan to start. Later, George