Newbie Again. Where to start?

Hi,

I'm so interested in Operating Systems and Embedded Systems. I have
basic knowledge about both of them. But I want to go deeper. I asked
before same questions. But the answer was not enough. Let's start from
beginning.

I have made some experiment on Microchip's PIC like light LEDs. Which
Microcontroller is the  most used or which is good to start? My
target(or dream) is to port linux to my embedded device. (I know it is
difficult for me to make this now. But I said it is a dream :(  )

I have planned to work on this in all summer. So there is so much free
time to search, read books & documents. Can you advice some books and
web sites? 


Thanks...

On 18 Jun 2005 18:08:47 -0700, "Tolga Onbay" <tolgaonbay@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm so interested in Operating Systems and Embedded Systems. I have
>basic knowledge about both of them. But I want to go deeper. I asked
>before same questions. But the answer was not enough. Let's start from
>beginning.
>
>I have made some experiment on Microchip's PIC like light LEDs. Which
>Microcontroller is the  most used or which is good to start? My
>target(or dream) is to port linux to my embedded device. (I know it is
>difficult for me to make this now. But I said it is a dream :(  )
>
>I have planned to work on this in all summer. So there is so much free
>time to search, read books & documents. Can you advice some books and
>web sites? 

The easiest MCU to start with, which has devices large enough for
Linux is ARM. Start with either the Phillips or Atmel ARM MCUs. These
are too small for Linux, but once you are comfortable with the MCUs,
you can use one of the bigger ARMs, and add enough memory for Linux.

You can also buy small ARM based modules that has Linux already in
flash, or a linux port available.  Often it is ucLinux. Ask in the
comp.os.linux.embedded for suitable modules.

Regards
  Anton Erasmus

Anton, thanks for your reply.

I think I have to buy programmer and evaluation board for ARM MCUs.
Where can i buy these?Or is there any way to do this by myself? Can you
give me some websites?

Thanks again...

On 19 Jun 2005 13:41:59 -0700, "Tolga Onbay" <tolgaonbay@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Anton, thanks for your reply.
>
>I think I have to buy programmer and evaluation board for ARM MCUs.
>Where can i buy these?Or is there any way to do this by myself? Can you
>give me some websites?
>
>Thanks again...

Atmel sells a development kit for their ARM9 MCU that has a full linux
port. If you want to use something that you can use directly in a
final product, you can try one of the modules from http://www.digi.com

Regards
  Anton Erasmus

Tolga Onbay wrote:
> Anton, thanks for your reply.
>
> I think I have to buy programmer and evaluation board for ARM MCUs.
> Where can i buy these?Or is there any way to do this by myself? Can you
> give me some websites?

We have a discussion on "hardware platform" at
"comp.os.linux.embedded".  In particular, we are checking into the
xscale arm.  We are looking for help in porting a boot loader (2K bytes
max), kernel (USB host) and Jtag tools.  We are willing to provide the
necessary hardware and other incentives.

Basically, we need to bootstrap from the memory mode of a CF and load
the kernel and/or file system from the rest (or another IDE device).
The full system (128M) must support USB and I2C devices.

We will continue on comp.os.linux.embedded.

> 
> Thanks again...

"Tolga Onbay" <tolgaonbay@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1119143327.188458.17210@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I'm so interested in Operating Systems and Embedded Systems. I have
> basic knowledge about both of them. But I want to go deeper. I asked
> before same questions. But the answer was not enough. Let's start from
> beginning.
>
> I have made some experiment on Microchip's PIC like light LEDs. Which
> Microcontroller is the  most used or which is good to start? My
> target(or dream) is to port linux to my embedded device. (I know it is
> difficult for me to make this now. But I said it is a dream :(  )
>
> I have planned to work on this in all summer. So there is so much free
> time to search, read books & documents. Can you advice some books and
> web sites?
>
>
> Thanks...

Why not stick with pics for now if you are a bit familiar with them
and have used them. Can do quite a lot with pics.
Easy to use.

Why not try writing your own small operating system ?

http://www.piclist.com/techref/microchip/index.htm  has lots of examples you 
can look at.

www.winpicprog.co.uk  has some good tutorials.

If you wanted to use c or other language there are a few free compilers.

Jal  - a pascal like language
http://jal.sourceforge.net/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jallist
http://www.voti.nl/jal/index.html

C

hitech  have a free limited version PICC LITE of their compiler for the 16f 
pics
http://www.htsoft.com/downloads/demos.php
http://www.microchipc.com/

If you are using 18f pics there is the student version of microchip C18 
compiler
<http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en010014&part=SW006011>

Alex 

thank you all.

Alex,
The reason, that I want to use Atmel ARM, is I'm going to port linux to
my embedded device. But I don't know anything about ARM. I think I'm
going to do what you said. Because I don't have any programmer or
development board for ARM.

Anyway, thanks for your advice.

On 22 Jun 2005 14:26:55 -0700, "Tolga Onbay" <tolgaonbay@gmail.com>
wrote:

>thank you all.
>
>Alex,
>The reason, that I want to use Atmel ARM, is I'm going to port linux to
>my embedded device. But I don't know anything about ARM. I think I'm
>going to do what you said. Because I don't have any programmer or
>development board for ARM.
>
>Anyway, thanks for your advice.

You can get very cheap ARM development boards from various places.
Try http://www.olimex.com 

Regards
   Anton Erasmus

Is there any document or website to build my own development kit for
ARM?

On 23 Jun 2005 15:18:45 -0700, "Tolga Onbay" <tolgaonbay@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Is there any document or website to build my own development kit for
>ARM?

Start with one of these cheap development boards. They come with
schematics and examples to get you going. Once you have more knowledge
about how everything sticks together, you can start designing
something yourself. You need a thorough understanding of how
everything works before you have any hope of getting Linux to run on
your own hardware.
Trying to run when you haven't even crawled yet is, is a recipy for
disaster.

Regards
  Anton Erasmus