Hi,
On Thu, Jun 03, 2010 at 05:21:21PM -0500, Joel Crisp wrote:
Hi all
Given the intention of Linaro seems to be improved Linux support for new and upcoming hardware, how would an individual dev who might be wanting to contribute acquire suitable hardware? Is there any hardware being targeted which is currently on the market (e.g. BeagleBoard type systems)? Or are emulators the intended development platform?
There are a few things that are important to recognize. While Linaro is ment to ease the TTM for new boards and ensure that the software stack gets consolidated in a way that future hardware can be supported much more easily, we also want to use real hardware that exists now, so that developers and community like you can get their hands on something that is more than just a boring emulator.
Hence, while we are working on all the kernel, bootloader consolidation and tools support that would allow much faster enablement of new hardware, we had to pick some development platform(s) that are easily available to the community at a decent price.
Obviously there were not many modern armv7 boards available that matched those criteria, which made the choice quiet easy. So for now (as you rightly guessed) we start with beagle support, but will adopt new platforms as they become available and as their mainlining moves forward.
I have previous experience in embedded systems work and was the original author of the SPCA50x driver for Linux USB webcams. I have also worked on vxWorks ports and embedded JVM technology but I currently have a full time job I'm not planning on leaving (Greencard application) and would have to be a hobbyist contributor - it isn't clear if the Linaro project has scope for such due to the hardware issue. This I see as the main differentiation between the Ubuntu development and Linaro.
Thoughts?
How about you checking with our kernel folks in #linaro on irc.freenode.net and see where you can start contributing help?
- Alexander