Roboard, Linux, boot times?
by winchy_matt
Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:29 pm
ProblemChild wrote:Personaly I Just used a Mates Windows PC and ran Ghost on it to expand the image on to a Micro SD plugged in via a Card reader
John
Thank's John, I will give this a go tomorrow!
I have just been having a look at some of the SBC's by Technologic suggested by RougeWarrior... I have to say I think they may be better suited to my needs, but being new to Linux there is just way too much informatin, variations and platforms available.. its a little bewildering!
by RogueWarrior65
Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:40 am
As to what I'm building, I could tell you but....well, you know.
I've looked at a ton of boards. I have a couple of requirements. I need at least one true RS-232 port. I need a fast ADC > 100ksps. I need it to be power-loss tolerant ideally with a simple toggle switch to turn it on and off. Linux is also preferred. (Windows sucks 8 ways to Sunday, IMHO, and should never ever be used in an embedded system. Feh.)
Beyond that I was initially sold on the idea of PC/104 since there are a lot of peripherals out there. MiniPCI is fine since I can get a long range wireless card. I'd also like audio output. Modern networking is also a plus and thus shifts the approach from a pure PIC-based system. Power consumption isn't a huge issue but it will use an SLA battery. The device will also be without traditional display & keyboard (DIP switches for settings or an HTML config page) and portable.
Initially, I took into consideration the apparent lack of support from most of the manufacturers. Technologic seemed well supported at first but I quickly found out that you're on your own for a lot of things. If any SBC company really wants to put themselves on the map, they should take a big cue from Microchip and build a similar support system. That is excellent.
The Roboard is interesting for a lot of reasons: fast ADC, audio, R/C servo support, small footprint, Mini-PCI. But I have emailed DMP three times about the Linux boot time question with no response.
I'm designing a real product not a one-off hobby project which means I'd be buying SBC's in quantity. So cost is also a factor. Beyond that, I'd have to deal with subsequent tech support from non-technical folk so the system has to be fairly bullet-proof or at least easy to fix remotely. SD cards make sense because if the thing won't boot, you send them a new card rather than having them send back the whole device.
I've looked at a ton of boards. I have a couple of requirements. I need at least one true RS-232 port. I need a fast ADC > 100ksps. I need it to be power-loss tolerant ideally with a simple toggle switch to turn it on and off. Linux is also preferred. (Windows sucks 8 ways to Sunday, IMHO, and should never ever be used in an embedded system. Feh.)
Beyond that I was initially sold on the idea of PC/104 since there are a lot of peripherals out there. MiniPCI is fine since I can get a long range wireless card. I'd also like audio output. Modern networking is also a plus and thus shifts the approach from a pure PIC-based system. Power consumption isn't a huge issue but it will use an SLA battery. The device will also be without traditional display & keyboard (DIP switches for settings or an HTML config page) and portable.
Initially, I took into consideration the apparent lack of support from most of the manufacturers. Technologic seemed well supported at first but I quickly found out that you're on your own for a lot of things. If any SBC company really wants to put themselves on the map, they should take a big cue from Microchip and build a similar support system. That is excellent.
The Roboard is interesting for a lot of reasons: fast ADC, audio, R/C servo support, small footprint, Mini-PCI. But I have emailed DMP three times about the Linux boot time question with no response.
I'm designing a real product not a one-off hobby project which means I'd be buying SBC's in quantity. So cost is also a factor. Beyond that, I'd have to deal with subsequent tech support from non-technical folk so the system has to be fairly bullet-proof or at least easy to fix remotely. SD cards make sense because if the thing won't boot, you send them a new card rather than having them send back the whole device.
by roboard
Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:23 am
which email you sent to
you can try info@roboard.com or tech@roboard.com
and also let me know you mail domain, maybe block by mail server.
you can try info@roboard.com or tech@roboard.com
and also let me know you mail domain, maybe block by mail server.
by winchy_matt
Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:17 am
ProblemChild wrote:To be honest there are so very many SBC's that With out a hint on what you are intending to build it would be impossible to recommend one.
What are you intending to build with your RoBoard ?
I'm migrating my HexEngine from a PIC based board into a x86/ARM based board. The reason for doing this is for more processing power, a bit of standardisation and ease of de-bugging. However, I also need my board to boot fast, be power-loss tolerant and rugged in design.
My HexEngine was originally running on an old DOS 486 machine, whihc I did look at using again, however, having setup a Debian x86 target machine, and development environment using Eclipse with remote debugging my target via TCP/IP.. I can see that advantages of running a small Linux system on the target.
Ultimately my system is for real time control of a large robot, so it has to be bullet-proof.
by ProblemChild
Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:00 am
I wasn't sure what the hexengine was so I Googled it and found :
http://www.hexapodrobot.com/products/el ... ngine.html
I presume this is what you are on about??
In a similar vein have you seen the PIC board done by ByVac:
http://www.byvac.com/bv/bv513.htm
The CPU is quite quick(80Mhz) ..you can program it in a nice easy basic or Assembler if you want.
if you want more CPU for say Vision processing then you could use it as a I/O off load engine for your main CPU board and therefore you wouldn't need a PC board that also had lots of Servo I/O !
John
http://www.hexapodrobot.com/products/el ... ngine.html
I presume this is what you are on about??
In a similar vein have you seen the PIC board done by ByVac:
http://www.byvac.com/bv/bv513.htm
The CPU is quite quick(80Mhz) ..you can program it in a nice easy basic or Assembler if you want.
if you want more CPU for say Vision processing then you could use it as a I/O off load engine for your main CPU board and therefore you wouldn't need a PC board that also had lots of Servo I/O !
John
by roboard
Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:45 pm
RogueWarrior65 wrote:But what I'm really after is how long it takes to boot. If you're designing an appliance, you don't want to tell customers that they have to wait several minutes for it to be ready to use. Furthermore, in a battery powered target environment, you'd want it to be tolerant of disconnect. My ultimate goal is to have a simple toggle switch to turn the thing on and off with ready-to-work status in a few seconds.
I think what you need with RoBoard is an x86-compatible customized OS (customized Linux).
by roboard
Fri Jul 31, 2009 7:16 am
I do believe everyone interesting to know the Linux boot time,
the video is run xLinux, so you can check the boot time is around 15 second, the RoBoard is x86 based so can use most Linux distribution (like Debian, Puppy), also boot time is different by selected distribution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHdff0MgdNc
the video is run xLinux, so you can check the boot time is around 15 second, the RoBoard is x86 based so can use most Linux distribution (like Debian, Puppy), also boot time is different by selected distribution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHdff0MgdNc
phpBB [media]
by ProblemChild
Fri Jul 31, 2009 6:06 pm
Well I've finally got home and did a couple of tests for you
From power up(Application of power from PSU not a reset !!)
Normal Bios with out Quick boot 27 Seconds
With Quick Boot 12 Seconds
Booting XLinux 28 seconds (I presume Roboard has sorted out some bits and pieces)
Booting Fedora 10 60 seconds
Both Boot times includes a long wait time for a four port hub it seemed to start to hate!
The times aint too bad to be honest .. If Rogue Warrior wants faster startup he will need to dump his code into the BIOS abit like COre-Boot Linux and Express gate on ASUS motherboards. This may get you the 2 second speed.
To be honest that's a joke because even embeded hardware like my cable router takes longer than that to even get to the point where it starts VxWorks!!
Personally if you really need that speed of startup you need a custom platform or say a PIC controller board to generally make sure your bot doesn't fall on it's face while it's "BRAIN" boots up. This may be a good idea any way as it would give you even more I/O for a very Cheap Price.
John
From power up(Application of power from PSU not a reset !!)
Normal Bios with out Quick boot 27 Seconds
With Quick Boot 12 Seconds
Booting XLinux 28 seconds (I presume Roboard has sorted out some bits and pieces)
Booting Fedora 10 60 seconds
Both Boot times includes a long wait time for a four port hub it seemed to start to hate!
The times aint too bad to be honest .. If Rogue Warrior wants faster startup he will need to dump his code into the BIOS abit like COre-Boot Linux and Express gate on ASUS motherboards. This may get you the 2 second speed.
To be honest that's a joke because even embeded hardware like my cable router takes longer than that to even get to the point where it starts VxWorks!!
Personally if you really need that speed of startup you need a custom platform or say a PIC controller board to generally make sure your bot doesn't fall on it's face while it's "BRAIN"
boots up. This may be a good idea any way as it would give you even more I/O for a very Cheap Price.
John
by RogueWarrior65
Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:15 pm
I wouldn't mind a longer boot time if there was a way to report boot progress to the user. The target environment isn't going to have a display per se. I'm considering a small character LCD but the kernel would have to be modified to use this as stdout.
Data said it best "Humans perceive time as variable." So when you're in a hurry, 15 seconds is an eternity.
Here's a blub on what and how Technologic does its thing:
http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm ... ts7300.php
Data said it best "Humans perceive time as variable." So when you're in a hurry, 15 seconds is an eternity.
Here's a blub on what and how Technologic does its thing:
http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm ... ts7300.php
by ProblemChild
Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:33 pm
Ok from the Link you sent us it looks like it actually reads everything from the initrd.
Which is the "initial Ram Disk" which normally is used just to kick things over so it's very quick because the setup is fixed and the startup scripts are not executed with in this environment... Yes you could do this your self but the fact is that you would need to do a lot of development to get the system to the state you wished to use it for then convert it to use initrd..... you would still have to wait for the BIOS though!
In a way this is very similar to how express-gate and core linux work !!
John
Which is the "initial Ram Disk" which normally is used just to kick things over so it's very quick because the setup is fixed and the startup scripts are not executed with in this environment... Yes you could do this your self but the fact is that you would need to do a lot of development to get the system to the state you wished to use it for then convert it to use initrd..... you would still have to wait for the BIOS though!
In a way this is very similar to how express-gate and core linux work !!
John
by winchy_matt
Sun Aug 02, 2009 5:53 pm
After hours of trying to get Linux installed on my RoBoard I have finally managed it! I couldn't get my USB DVD-ROM to work, so gave up on that, I then tried making a bootable USB flash disk, whihc got so far and then issued a Kernel Panic which I couldn't figure out how to get arround, so eventually I went back to the idea of ghosting the supplied Linux image directly to the µSD card. So again I booted from USB floppy to DOS, ran Ghost and selected the GHO file from a USB stick. This failed a couple of times, so I decided to try a different µSD card, an old 64mb card from my mobile phone.. this worked first time 
, tried again with the supplied 1gb µSD, failed!
Well at least I have something working now!
Now I have to figure out how to cross-compile my code for the 486 platform on my Pentium based Ubuntu host...
, tried again with the supplied 1gb µSD, failed!
Well at least I have something working now!
Now I have to figure out how to cross-compile my code for the 486 platform on my Pentium based Ubuntu host...