<xiangfu>
2 atusb. great. you are using openwrt on your pc?(x86)
<wpwrak>
(opened -> porting) cool ! ;-)
<wpwrak>
xiangfu: how do you switch between mmc and atben ?
<xiangfu>
wpwrak, not yet. I am still testing. compile as module. and load mmc by default.
<blogic>
xiangfu: using a lantiq based dsl router with usb :D
<xiangfu>
wpwrak, I am thinking first step will be let people manually run some modprobe command.
<wpwrak>
xiangfu: for atben, that sounds good. but is there a use case with root on uSD ? if yes, then MMC would have to be in the kernel or a module in an initramfs
<wpwrak>
if it's in the kernel, i'm not sure if unbinding MMC and then loading atben works. of course, if it does, that would elegantly solve the problem
<xiangfu>
wpwrak, (root on uSD) wow. I didn't think of that. too bad. :(
<wpwrak>
that's the case that's been keeping me from pushing towards a merge into the distro :) but if we figure this one out now, even better :)
<xiangfu>
blogic, so if we have lantiq based dsl router with usb. then Ben nanonote will have wireless in home. :)
<blogic>
not doing what it should but doing something
<blogic>
this is 3.1
<viric>
hm
<viric>
'fsync' is a heavy operation on a SD card...
<fk15_guest>
hey? :)
<fk15_guest>
hm well either way been having fun reading through the older logs but if thats ok I'm wondering if anyone here could share any thoughts on ARM verus PowerPC for general processors on embedded boards?
<Ayla>
is PPC good for embedded?
<Ayla>
isn't it a bit too power-hungry?
<fk15_guest>
ayla 1.6W? :)
<Ayla>
1.6W is enormous
<Ayla>
it depends of your needs actually
<fk15_guest>
oh sorry yeah you just made me realize, I'm not that nitpicky to be measuring in milliwatts but at same time I'll like to avoid something that uses quite many watts like say 65W
<fk15_guest>
is that making sense to you now?
<Ayla>
yes
<Ayla>
what will the CPU be used for?
<fk15_guest>
desktop os for most part, nothing fancy tho so you gamers and whats not better look somewhere else heh
<fk15_guest>
been trying different setups for quite some time and finally decided it'll be much easier if I just made the board myself
<Ayla>
desktop OS? On a board? ...
<fk15_guest>
a few people think I'm maybe crazy but I don't mind it
<Ayla>
you'd need a light OS
<Ayla>
you can have a look at the Panda board or the Rapsberry Pi
<Ayla>
something like Meego could run fine on those
<fk15_guest>
yeah I had thought about meego, on top of a few others like netbsd or qnx just to name two
<fk15_guest>
and mm I've looked at these sort of small boards before, the problem with them in my case is the few onboard i/o on top of no conventional pci or cardbus for expansions
<fk15_guest>
I do find them interesting to look at tho
<Ayla>
QNX, a desktop OS? :)
<Ayla>
you're really masochist :)
<fk15_guest>
ayla haha well you should have tried the two older boot images they gave
<fk15_guest>
especially the one that managed to fit a decent qnx into just a single diskette
<Ayla>
well I tried QNX on my dreamcast back in the day
<fk15_guest>
ayla the dreamcast was supposed to support windows ce didn't it?
<fk15_guest>
I think even the netbsd ports list has dreamcast on there too
<Ayla>
windows CE was supposed to support the dreamcast
<Ayla>
the console in itself does not have any OS
<fk15_guest>
ayla yeah. by the way if you did not know, there was supposed to be an iomega zip 100mb drive specifically for the dreamcast but it never really materalized
<Ayla>
some games do use windows CE, but most of them use SEGA's own OS
<fk15_guest>
that would had been one way to run an os perhaps
<Ayla>
yes, there was one on ebay maybe one year ago
<fk15_guest>
if you want something ever more tricky then umm can I say apple piddin? :)
<fk15_guest>
interesting idea but some bad plannings on their part tho
<Ayla>
but zip is quite obsolete, now the dreamcast can use SD cards
<Ayla>
with some hardware modding
<fk15_guest>
ayla that is the funny thing I can not fathom at all. iomega is still selling brand new usb 100mb zip drives in some places, even adjacent to the 250mb ones
<fk15_guest>
who the hell will EVER buy these anymore when a higher capacity usb thumbdrive costs less
<Ayla>
nobody
<fk15_guest>
right!
<fk15_guest>
even the 750mb is useless too. you can get a 1gb thumbdrive can't you? :)
<fk15_guest>
at least iomega still does ok with other non-zip products especially NAS hds
<fk15_guest>
ayla anyway what do you usually use for copying/backup these days yourself?
<Ayla>
network
<fk15_guest>
NAS or a server box?
<Ayla>
server box
<fk15_guest>
I've always thought a bit about one for some time but for now I just have two different external hds on top of the occassional cdrw discs when giving away large lumps of files to someone
<Ayla>
usually I upload an archive and give a link :)
<fk15_guest>
heh yeah, well with the way internet is in some areas around here online storage just doesn't work so well
<fk15_guest>
not blaming anyone including you but mm
<fk15_guest>
ayla anyway the reason I asked that cpu question before was because on paper it seem so similiar but I know its probably not so much at all tho. eg both are clocked at 1ghz with a 2.5DMIPS/mhz rate
<fk15_guest>
is trying to avoid the old 'apple vs orange' arguements that has gotten too old with the G4 verus pcs before
<Ayla>
I don't know PPC
<fk15_guest>
thanks still, I guess I'll keep reading any more papers I can find in that case
<fk15_guest>
:)
<Ayla>
you probably should take a SoC that has at least a FPU and a GPU anyway
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: if you don't care much about CPU core speed but need fancy I/O, then maybe milkymist could be interesting for you. it runs on an FPGA. the core is quite slow, only some ~100 MHz, but the FPGA gives you a lot of flexibility.
<fk15_guest>
ayla I was thinking of powervr for the gpu. seem like the most economical way to get any 3D graphics without needing a full dedicated gpu such as was with the radeon 7000M before amd-ati eoled it
<Ayla>
wpwrak: he wants to run a desktop PC on it :)
<Ayla>
desktop OS*
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak heh thanks for that suggestion but the cpu does actually matter :p
<wpwrak>
Ayla: well, M1 does have sort of a "desktop" :)
<Ayla>
if the CPU does matter, then buy a real PC
<fk15_guest>
ayla did I have to mention that another reason for powervr was that it supported opengl which is probably tons easier than trying to relay on software rendering all the times right? :)
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: ah, pity
<Ayla>
wpwrak: oh yeah?
<fk15_guest>
oh I meant to ask, whats M1? I've noticed it a few times in the logs but no links
<wpwrak>
Ayla: there's a bit of a GUI with settings dialogs and editor. no shell but i think that could be easily added if someone needed it (it has a command line)
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: milkymist.org
<fk15_guest>
oh didn't realized that was short for M1 mm ok thanks
<Ayla>
so you want a decent CPU, and display 3D graphics
<Ayla>
and you want a board
<Ayla>
hmmm .....
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: it's an FPGA-based SoC, designed to be a video synthesizer. the "magic" is in the graphics subsystem
<wpwrak>
ah, you know it already. alright
<fk15_guest>
ayla well it doesn't have to be full blown 3D like in games but at least something that could deal with minor renderings
<fk15_guest>
and can I tell you what I was thinking of in term of the cpu?
<Ayla>
then get a Panda board :p
<Ayla>
sure
<fk15_guest>
cortex-a9, -a15, or ibm powerpc 400 series
<fk15_guest>
this isn't set into stone tho....yet ;)
<Ayla>
IIRC the Panda board has a Cortex A9 with a PowerVR GPU
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak that milkymist thing is rather interesting btw
<Ayla>
wpwrak: hey, that milkymist is interesting
<Ayla>
ditto
<fk15_guest>
lol
<Ayla>
I'm reading the PDF paper about the CPU you implemented in VHDL
<wpwrak>
it's not me who implemented it. that's all sebastien's work :)
<wpwrak>
and it's in verilog :)
<fk15_guest>
ayla one other reason I picked these two particular cpu series as I'm sure these panda/etc people knew of too was that it could run with minimal or no active cooling at all
<Ayla>
it's written VHDL on the website
<wpwrak>
and yes, damn interesting. it doesn't look like much, but it's actually amazingly efficient
<Ayla>
I did learn ARM at school, and I believe that it's badly designed
<wpwrak>
"Verilog HDL" or "VHDL" ? :)
<Ayla>
it lacks registers mainly, so there are too much load/store necessary that could have been saved with more general-purpose registers
<fk15_guest>
ayla hmm well I'll see which of the two I finally think to go along with eventually then
<Ayla>
wpwrak: Very-high speed integrated circuits Hardware Description Language
<fk15_guest>
just if you wanted to know about that
<wpwrak>
Ayla: (vhdl) yes, i know. but i don't see where milkymist.org claims that it's written in VHDL.
<Ayla>
yeah, I don't see it either :)
<Ayla>
it's written Verilog HDL, it tricked my mind
<fk15_guest>
heh
<wpwrak>
ah, good :)
<Ayla>
the milkymist is interesting, but at 526.50 euros, it's a bit too much for me
<Ayla>
x_x
<fk15_guest>
thats a bit too expensive for me too -_-
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak and ayla want hear what I had been thinking about in term of the hardware design I was working toward on?
<Ayla>
ok
<fk15_guest>
1-2ghz processor, intergrated powervr graphic core, single ddr2 sodimm socket I assume, yamaha or cirrus audio dsp, jmicron sata controller for how else do I get storage otherwise, a few other i/o including a usb host core, pcmcia or pcmcia/pci expansions, and a few more smaller details
<fk15_guest>
I've done a few homemade pci cards so I do kinda have some sense of pci i/o stuffs a bit, might need to work on it some more tho
<fk15_guest>
I know that the audio dsp may be a little overboard but think I'll like to try it still
<Ayla>
well... good luck :p
<fk15_guest>
ayla thanks :p
<fk15_guest>
ayla I actually built two of these few pci cards out of fustration with crappy mass-run designs to be honest with you heh!
<fk15_guest>
one was a simple 1+1 ports firewire 400 card that could actually deliver 24W to the single external port
<fk15_guest>
most of the other cards were just simply for fun tho
<Ayla>
I'm not good at doing hardware
<fk15_guest>
I'm not good at some part of it neither
<fk15_guest>
I'm a little more of the 'hmm does this work....nope.....*ZZZTTTT!!*...oh shoot crap' some of these times, so yeah don't ask me to ever work on anything expensive!
<fk15_guest>
is it no wonder I hate modern cars by any means
<fk15_guest>
early fuel injections are easy to poke around with
<fk15_guest>
he's right, I always see way too many alike small projects duplicated left and right online. it just doesn't make much sense tbh
<fk15_guest>
ayla you mind if I asked you which country you're from?
<Ayla>
France
<fk15_guest>
canada here and no I don't even see any snow yet although I did hear that the maine area does have some now
<fk15_guest>
:p
<fk15_guest>
france? nice
<fk15_guest>
how about you wpwrak?
<fk15_guest>
ayla I would admit I only know just a few basic french words tho :s
<fk15_guest>
bonjour et merci!
<Ayla>
good
<fk15_guest>
I do love crepes at times tho
<fk15_guest>
sometimes plain, sometimes with chocolate chips. always syrrup on top anytime tho
<fk15_guest>
ayla I never could figure out certain food names tho because they are not quite where you thought they came from
<fk15_guest>
english muffins didn't actually come from england for example
<Ayla>
err... ok
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: i'm austrian, born in switzerland, now living in argentina
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak mm. I find switzerland quite interesting but sadly I've only gone there just once so far :s
<Ayla>
fk15_guest: the "french cream" is called "crème anglaise" in France, which can be translated to "english cream"
<fk15_guest>
hm I didn't know that
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak I've been looking at the milkymist for a while, it sure is an interesting thing. I guess the price can be a bit of a deciding factor on how much you would be actually using it
<fk15_guest>
if I had some free money for random things I might had thought about it actually
<fk15_guest>
I kinda like to play with videos of any sort so thats why I'm a bit interested
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak have you heard of the Open Graphics Project?
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: it's fun to play with :) if you add midi controls, you have a lot of interactive control
<fk15_guest>
expensive for many people but still an interesting project
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak like I said, if I got some free cash I may have to get one :P
<wpwrak>
fk15_guest: (switzerland) it's nice, but also a bit boring :)
<fk15_guest>
:p
<wpwrak>
(open graphics) dunno. there've been a few. haven't heard much from them for a while
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak I find the idea intresting but I'm not too sure about how praticial an open sourced hardware graphic card design could be
<fk15_guest>
especially since when you can already more or less do open sourced graphics on pretty much any new or old run of mill cards
<fk15_guest>
opengl that is
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak I know this is a bit of a different topic with some debate but I've always liked displayport over that hdmi thing especially in term of licensings as well
<wpwrak>
yeah, HDMI is full of nasty stuff
<fk15_guest>
as nasty as that bollockful mpeg-la troll too
<wpwrak>
lots of stuff that says "bow before us, dirty little customer !"
<wpwrak>
well, mpeg-la are indeed pretty evil, too :)
<fk15_guest>
I don't understand how meg-la really strayed far away from its original purpose what with owning so many unrelated patents on too many other things
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak beside what you would send down hdmi you can do pretty much the same with displayport as well but at a lower cost :P
<fk15_guest>
I still do have to think about if I'll like to implent a displayport controller or just do with vga instead. I guess I'll have to wait to actually design the graphic core first and see from there
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak oh and mpeg-la is one small part of the various reasons I don't like h264 too much
<fk15_guest>
especially that time when there was an interview where mpeg-la said that they wouldn't charge users now for online h264 contents but they "may" do so in some future date
<fk15_guest>
its just....stubborn :/
<wpwrak>
isn't HDMI basically DVI-D plus evil ?
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak well the video aspect of hdmi is pretty much exactly just dvi-d yeah
<wpwrak>
oh, the whole codec scene is all wrong
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak one other thing about displayport was that if its implented in the controller on the hardware design you can use more or less a simple specific cable to get vga output from a displayport capable computer. hdmi can't do that without requiring a full d>a converter box
<fk15_guest>
so its not bad for if you ever needed to output to an older display
<fk15_guest>
I don't know the whole technical details on displayport tho
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak there anything else you could think of? I probably could comment on it
<wpwrak>
ah, so DP also includes the analog signal ? nice. i never looked much at DP. found it mildly distracting that they would come up with *yet*another* connector just after DVI-I/D and HDMI. i still have a lot of VGA. works great :)
<fk15_guest>
I never really understood dvi. but I would consider displayport a good upgrade over vga tho especially in term of further HD resolutions support
<fk15_guest>
that is providing the gpu can deal with it
<fk15_guest>
wpwrak one thing you should keep in mind is that displayport deals with a lot more than just video
<fk15_guest>
it has digital audio stream aside to a few extra lines that can be used for just about any other data you would want with no limit
<fk15_guest>
say unpowered firewire, touchscreen feedback, or whatever else you can think of
<fk15_guest>
used to be touchscreen would usually need two cables, one for vga and other for either serial or usb. but with displayport you now have just a single cable as it should had been meant
<fk15_guest>
oh and wpwrak before I almost forgot, one of the offical aim of displayport was to replace the propertiary-ish LVD too. so you could have a laptop that only had one single controller for both the internal and external screens
<fk15_guest>
plus did I have to mention that the webcam, mic, etc can be funneled through that same hingle cord too?