Talk:ARMUS Embedded Linux Board
Hello David, The ARMUS embedded linux board looks very intresting, but it miss the software part, Would u please add the software part so to allow intrested colleagues to have a complete view of the project and improve it afterwards ? Thanks in advance, Samer Elghandour
Dear Samer Elghandour,
Alas, I don't know anything more about it than what is posted here. One of our other volunteers posted that information here.
I suspect that project uses a fairly standard Linux port to the ARM microprocessor.
--DavidCary 19:31, 21 October 2007 (PDT)
Hi! Very glad at least one guy did show some enthousiasm about the project! Currently, as the project was left (and will probably stay....): Hardware is all good. The board with gerbers can be sent to most major Fab House and you will receive a functionnal design. Proto1 was tested and around 5 glitches have been found and corrected for Proto2, wich was never tested but should be 100% functionnal.
The Firmware of the 4 DSPics is symetrical, and is "complete". It interface to Servos and DCs. The input encoder, if I recall, is not done, but the code is there and all C, so it should be easy to just copy-paste a snippet from somewhere else into the project. The Firmware for the multi-IO PIC18 is complete, and you will be able to play with all IO. The Drivers to communicate to the PIC and DSPIC from the kernel is done and documented. Ah, yeah, we have drivers for Ethernet/CAN/Sound. We also have a complete compiled kernel ready to load onto the board with various "demonstration" mode.
Most of the work left is polishing here and there, as the firmware/driver part was done is haste. Most of the things work 100%, and will need no touch, but some functions (like the Quadrature encoders) are plain missing.
The part where more work is to be done is on the Integrated Devellopment Environment (IDE). Shure, you can use KDevellopp, Eclipse, or any cross compiler out there. You could even download some dev.boards' software and load it onto ARMUS and compile natively from there. We had in mind (read the article) to creat a simple and easy IDE for 1st year undergrads, so maybe it's not necessary for you :P
If you want the =WHOLE= project CVS for you to enjoy, I have it and could send it to you trough FTP or any other way you prefer. I guess I could also just mail a DVD. It weights around 700MB, and there is ton of french comment and files (as the team, in Quebec, was native french) but I could translate any part you feel is critical for specific applications.
If you want to work on this "on your own", most of the board is based on atmel's AT91RM9200EK and AT91RM9200DK . Their demonstration Kernels should run as-is with the same procedure as Atmel's.
Just to say: what do you plan to use the board for? Thanks for your interest! -Jerome Marchand
