From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 8 11:54:12 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 693B31065670 for ; Tue, 8 Nov 2011 11:54:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-wy0-f182.google.com (mail-wy0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F157F8FC0C for ; Tue, 8 Nov 2011 11:54:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wyg36 with SMTP id 36so531845wyg.13 for ; Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:54:11 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=icIioLzSKxAfGC3lMYRVxlXegaR7KaQLp/EIWMwSGfI=; b=RJ2IxDLdroOEnu/vBlNWBWOZ1XicHOUWTr8FtlcXMIXzRm/0qyEdTmhseuOGzaBxHN 1IXsbTFuFIIPC5xN3nQdbkC9R4tmjZK6PEIGLCy+5b5SiH+xkPvDyCQmVP2wzXFPyPjK FIF5dFnsAY0w+umP9BekrKIXQvQf8/jPn3xTw= Received: by 10.227.208.77 with SMTP id gb13mr35449325wbb.4.1320753250945; Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:54:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from gumby.homeunix.com (87-194-105-247.bethere.co.uk. [87.194.105.247]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ff6sm1456894wbb.10.2011.11.08.03.54.07 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:54:08 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 11:54:05 +0000 From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20111108115405.36af1423@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <4EB875BC.4010606@gmail.com> References: <4EB875BC.4010606@gmail.com> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.10 (GTK+ 2.24.6; amd64-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: FreeBSD idea X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:54:12 -0000 On Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:20:12 +1100 David Morton wrote: > I'm very new to BSD, and had a career that left me mostly doing > commercial IT help desk in Windows, but am hoping to finally learn > and do something of interest to me: get deep knowledge of one > platform. > > A local magazine, Silicon Chip; and one of it's writers have > developed a little computer called the MaxiMite. Details here: > http://geoffg.net/maximite.html It's a PIC32 single chip computer > that I use through USB emulation of a serial port. Since you are new to BSD you might not be aware that the three main versions of BSD, have different priorities. OpenBSD focuses on security, NetBSD focuses on portability and FreeBSD aims to be an all-round OS with more emphasis on performance on mainstream hardware. IIWY I'd be looking at NetBSD. I suspect that this computer (and PIC32 in general) doesn't have a proper memory management unit, and that that will make it difficult to port most modern general-purpose OSes. I'd check to see if NetBSD has been run on a PIC32 (rather than MIPS in general).