From my research I gather arm is just an architecture or chip producer as
well? As i have a project, that might do sufficiently running on a dev board, or even a custom developed arm based board.
I have been trying to find a contact email at arm but to no avail. Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.
Hello Jonathan,
On 13.04.13 08:26 +0200, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
This is what Wikipedia (a great source of information) says:
Business model
Unlike other microprocessor corporations such as AMD, Intel, Freescale (formerly Motorola) and Renesas (formerly Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric), ARM only licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing its own CPUs. Thus, there are a few dozen companies making processors based on ARM's designs. Intel, Samsung,[29] Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Atmel, Freescale, Nvidia, Qualcomm, STMicroelectronics and Renesas have all licensed ARM technology. In the fourth quarter of 2010, 1.8 billion chips based on an ARM design were manufactured.
I have been trying to find a contact email at arm but to no avail. Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.
If you're trying to find some inexpensive ARM-based board for your project, without having any additional information from you, I'd recommend you starting with a Raspberry Pi [1].
Links: [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/
POS as in Point of Sale?
Dave
On 15 Apr 2013, at 14:16, Jonathan Aquilina eagles051387@gmail.com wrote:
correct. I worry that the raspi wont be powerful enough for instance to generate reports of inventory so the business can make orders etc.
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Dave Pigott dave.pigott@linaro.org wrote:
+++ Serge Broslavsky [2013-04-15 15:11 +0300]:
Why? Pi's are cheap and popular but there are a couple of things wrong with them. Primarily the rare v6+VFP flavour used by almost no-one else so standard stuff either doesn't work (v7+VFP) and needs to be rebuilt, or is poorly optimised (v5+softFP). Secondly the outrageous claims of exemplary openness on a very closed platform (videocore).
There are _so_ many other boards available which have neither of these issues that it seems odd to recommend this one unless someone says 'I have to have really cheap, but need full linux, I need easy IO Pins and really don't care about freeness'. Or possibly 'I am clueless noob and heard there is an RPi club near here'. Otherwise I'd suggest any number of other boards.
Wookey
My goal is to provide affordable point of sales systems. I was also considering some of the linaro dev boards that are available.
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Wookey wookey@wookware.org wrote:
On 15 April 2013 15:36, Jonathan Aquilina eagles051387@gmail.com wrote:
My goal is to provide affordable point of sales systems. I was also considering some of the linaro dev boards that are available.
Hi Jonathan,
It seems you won't be using fancy 3D graphics, so the video card is near irrelevant, here. You should be able to get accelerated 2D graphics with most SoCs, even if not using open source drivers. Wookie might know some boards that have decent OSS video drivers, but if you don't care (most people don't), you should be fine.
There are a number of v7 that you might consider. I would go for anything that is equal or higher than a dual/quad-core A9 (Pandaboard ES, Odroid, Tegra3), but there are also newer dual-core A15 (which is at least 2x faster than dual-A9), on several flavours (Arndale, Chromebook, Odroid, Tegra4).
You might also try the very cheap "AllWinner A10" which is essentially a Beagleboard (dual-core A8). You can find several cheap platforms on the market with that configuration (including tablets running Android) that you might be lucky putting Linux on it. Though, I'd have a look at how your software behaves on a Beagleboard before trying the hard way. Mans suggestion (Beaglebone) is smaller than the Beagleboard, but faster than the Raspbery Pi. It's also extremely cheap and very customizable.
The Pi is not a bad choice per se, IMO, but Wookie is right regarding what pre-compiled systems are in offer, you just won't get the best experience unless you opt for specialized Linux distros (Raspbian?). Given that they're really (really) cheap, it might be worth a try.
Hope that helps, --renato
All i need is something that is decent performing to generate reports etc as well as perform calculations. im totally not worried about graphics
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Renato Golin renato.golin@linaro.orgwrote:
+++ Renato Golin [2013-04-15 16:24 +0100]:
I just updated the Debian RPi wiki page to point people at some alternatives:
https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi
The Cubieboard is a nice option. mk802's are nice and cheap. The above page and the freedombox hardware list (linked from there) is a good place to start to see what boards might suit your purposes.
For anyone looking to make hardware which a linux COM (Computer on module) plugs into, the EOMA68 spec produced by Rhombus Tech is something to keep an eye on. That provides standard IO for various comuter modules (the first is an Allwinner A10-based one, of which first hardware arrived 3 days ago apparently). So you make your bit of hardware with a PCMCIA socket on for the COM to go in. You will hopefully get second-sourcing this way.
http://rhombus-tech.net/ http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/news/
Most of the boards linaro is supporting directly are a bit high-end for running a POS system, and I'm not aware of any of them being aimed at low-volume manufacturers who aren't wanting to lay out their own boards (which sounds like where you are coming from).
Wookey
Wookey I'm trying to weigh all my options before going down the line of developing my own board On Apr 15, 2013 7:05 PM, "Wookey" wookey@wookware.org wrote:
Another thought what bout using arm based embedded systems? On Apr 15, 2013 7:20 PM, "Jonathan Aquilina" eagles051387@gmail.com wrote:
On 15 April 2013 15:35, Wookey wookey@wookware.org wrote:
It's not that rare if you look around. The same core was used in iPhone up to and including the 3G, and the Nokia N8x0 tablets used a very similar v6+vfp (1136).
Secondly the outrageous claims of exemplary openness on a very closed platform (videocore).
This cannot be stressed enough.
Then the Beaglebone is generally a better choice. There's a new version of it coming out shortly that's faster _and_ cheaper than the current one.
I was also leaning toward the nvidia tegra 3. which i have used in my nexus 7 and im very happy with the performance but might be overkill for my application or to develop my own board.
What are the specs of the current beaglebone board compared to the new one
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:20 PM, Mans Rullgard mans.rullgard@linaro.orgwrote:
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Dave Pigott -
Jonathan Aquilina -
Mans Rullgard -
Renato Golin -
Serge Broslavsky -
Wookey