[ECOS] ECOS for the PLX9054RDK-860

[ECOS] ECOS for the PLX9054RDK-860

[Crowe, Michael E]

Hi,
  	I'm new to ECOS, in fact, I'm looking at using it for the first
time.  I don't have alot of experience with embedded operating systems, but
I am fairly familiar with the way a OS such as LINUX operates.  I am looking
at puting ECos on a PLX PCI 9054RDK-860.  This board is basicly a PCI card
with a Motorola MPC860 on it.  
	My question is, is here an ECOS port to this chip/board and if not,
how much work is involved in such an endeavor??  Are we talking weeks,
months, or years??  Like I said, I don't have a lot of experience with
embedded OS, but I am a capable SW Engineer and have a strong support team
behind me.  My department has done extensive work with VxWorks and other
embedded RTOS's.

Thanks,
Michael Crowe
Software Engineer
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems
Owego, NY

[ECOS] Re: ECOS for the PLX9054RDK-860

[Bart Veer]

>>>>> "Michael" == Crowe, Michael E <michael.e.crowe@lmco.com> writes:

    Michael> Hi, I'm new to ECOS, in fact, I'm looking at using it for
    Michael> the first time. I don't have alot of experience with
    Michael> embedded operating systems, but I am fairly familiar with
    Michael> the way a OS such as LINUX operates. I am looking at
    Michael> puting ECos on a PLX PCI 9054RDK-860. This board is
    Michael> basicly a PCI card with a Motorola MPC860 on it. My
    Michael> question is, is here an ECOS port to this chip/board and
    Michael> if not, how much work is involved in such an endeavor??
    Michael> Are we talking weeks, months, or years?? Like I said, I
    Michael> don't have a lot of experience with embedded OS, but I am
    Michael> a capable SW Engineer and have a strong support team
    Michael> behind me. My department has done extensive work with
    Michael> VxWorks and other embedded RTOS's.

eCos has been ported to the MPC860, but not to that particular board
(as far as I am aware). For details of the supported boards, see
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ecos/hardware.html

Porting to a new board is generally straightforward, of the order of a
couple of weeks for the initial port. Typically you would just take
one of the existing ports and modify it as required. A lot depends on
how similar the board is to one of the existing ones, and I am not
familiar with PLX PCI 9054RDK-86. Another important issue is debug
support, i.e. what tools are available to run and debug code on that
board. If there is already gdb support for that board then that makes
life easy. If gdb needs to be extended, or if you need to combine the
GNU tools with some other debugging software, then you may run into
problems. A third issue is the on-board devices: once the basic port
is done and eCos is running, you will probably still need to write new
device drivers for any of the devices you are interested in.

You may also want to check the FAQ which has a section on porting,
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ecos/faq.html

Bart Veer // eCos net maintainer