RE: [ECOS] i386 questions

[Gary Thomas <gthomas@redhat.com>]

On 03-Jun-00 Mike Friedrichs wrote:
> anyone,
> 
> i'm confused about ecos and porting to i386. on the ecos home page they
> make reference to i386 as a supported target, but upon viewing posts, it
> appears that people are building the port to i386. which is it.
> 
> i have found the words 'synthetic x86 linux' and synthetic i386' for
> targets; what do these phrases mean.
> 

Have you checked the latest sources from CVS?  This is the best way to
keep up with what's available.  

Actually, we have supported ports for both.
  * Synthetic x86 Linux - A pseudo target where eCos applications run as
    Linux programs.
  * x86 "PC" - a target for standard "PC" boxes, running stand alone where
    the eCos application is the only thing running on the platform.

> assuming ecos has not been ported to i386, why has ecos been ported to
> the 'Intel StrongArm family' and not the 'i386 family'.

Don't forget what eCos stands for: "Embedded Configurable Operating System".
As such, our primary interest is in commercially used, embedded platforms.
The ARM/StrongARM family of processors is certainly one of the most popular
architectures for such devices and becoming more so every day.  While the
i386 architecture is also very poplular, it is not normally deployed into
the very deeply embedded systems we concentrate on (think cell phones, etc).

If you're really interested in the i386 support and find that what's out there
already isn't sufficient, get the sources and add to them.  This is the heart
of Open Source projects - everyone has the ability to do whatever they want
and/or need.  If you find you need help or want even more, just ask us, that's
part of how we "drive" the development.  Requests can be sent to:
  ecos-info@cygnus.com