2010/1/1 Pavan Kandepet <pavankp@xxxxxxxxx>
Hello,
I want to get involved and eventually get a job doing embedded
Linux development. I had a couple of questions for folks who do
this and could give me some advice. I am specifically interested
in device driver development and embedded networking.
I am competent in userland Linux programming and have done
plenty of kernel compilations etc... I am also an electrical engineer
and don't have problems reading processor or device manuals etc...
I know I could get a development board and start working right away,
but is there any specific development board that you folks would
recommend which offers great Linux support? I should be able read and
understand how most of the drivers and networking code work. ( I am
interested in ARM processor boards). I want to tweak drivers and play
around.
Is there any way I could find out what new open source device drivers are
being developed so that I could contribute? This would be a great place to
start.
If there are any embedded Linux developers on this mailing list, how did
you get started? Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks and have a great
new year.
Pavan
Hi Pavan,
you can give a look at the OpenMoko FreeRunner. It's a Linux phone powered by a Samsung S3C2442 ARM CPU.
It has USB, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, SD card, touchscreen and it's a great tool for investigating how Linux kernel work. They supply also a debug board for debugging or flashing the boot-loader or OS. You can try several distribution on it: OpenMoko, Debian, QT, Android...
Don't expect to use it as a regular phone because software is not as stable as you might expect, but for experimenting its amazing.
All software and hardware is open. That means you can easily get the schematics or data-sheet from Internet
I've bought it at the price of 260 Euro (included debug board and delivery fee).
Regards
Luca
