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<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>
Subject: Re: Advice on VME processor cards for EPICS
From: Andrew Johnson <[email protected]>
To: "TYLER, Paul" <[email protected]>, EPICS tech-talk <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 10:51:42 -0600
TYLER, Paul wrote:

> So my major question and then a minor one.  Any suggestions on
> replacement VME processor cards with Operating System options?  Price
> is a consideration.  We also have a preference for cards that can run
> Linux and RTEMS.  Also is anyone running with Pentium based systems?

I have an alternative suggestion, although you'd be a bit out on a limb to begin with if you did this: you can run Linux on many of the Motorola MVME2xxx PowerPC CPU boards. I did a port of Hard Hat Linux 2.0 for the really cheap MVME2100, but I think some of the standard distributions can run on things like the MVME5100.

The problem with this approach is that you won't be able to make much use of the existing EPICS drivers for VME cards, as they're all written for the vxWorks memory model (no protection). If you're going to have to write all your own device supports anyway then it might not be too much extra work as you can access the VME hardware from user mode through one of the Linux Universe-2 drivers, although interrupts are one thing for which you probably can't avoid having to write a kernel driver.

It would be interesting to see if something like ucLinux (a version of Linux for CPUs that have no MMU) could be made to work on the MVME boards (giving direct visibility to the hardware from User code), but I don't think it's been ported to PowerPC and the architecture includes an MMU anyway, so it would be a slightly strange setup.

Overall I'd guess RTEMS on an MVME2100 is probably your cheapest solution, although I'm not sure whether an RTEMS port for the 2100 actually exists yet. Given the price difference of the cards though doing that port might very well be worthwhile.

- Andrew
--
"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon

References:
Advice on VME processor cards for EPICS TYLER, Paul
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