Best TinyCore (microcore) alternative for ARM?

[martin]

No kidding, some of the hardware, even on ebay, is slightly beyond my impulse purchase limit. I already have some of the environment set up for when I was wanting to build stuff for DD-WRT which uses ARM.

If I had the hardware to play with, I would put serious energy into the porting effort.

[vinnie]

I'm serious, I haven't the skills to do the porting, however, if a team is constituted I believe that I participating in a hypothetical fund for purchase dev tool.

It would be appropriate to estimate the costs and see how many people would be willing to participate.

However, asking arm to powerdeveloper could be a solution.

[hiro]

The costs for microcore are about 50 Euros currently. My cost problem is time.

[roberts]

I am planning to purchase a raspberry pi, if and when, such is generally available. First Novemeber, no. Then Decemeber no. Then Ebay bidding war, no. End of January, no. Still waiting... From what I hear non-profit institutions will get them before the general public. Patience is a virture.

[bmarkus]

Just thinking on minimal RAM requirement, whether it is different for an ARM system. I expect it is lower than for x86, but must be verified.

[hiro]

Just thinking on minimal RAM requirement, whether it is different for an ARM system. I expect it is lower than for x86, but must be verified.

Why?

[curaga]

The costs for microcore are about 50 Euros currently. My cost problem is time.

Sorry?

[hiro]

I meant the price of a cheap ARM device only able to run microcore (without an X desktop).
Language barriers

[bmarkus]

Specs? Without details price is meaningless.

[roberts]

An interesting read on ARM vs X86
http://vanshardware.com/2010/08/mirror-the-coming-war-arm-versus-x86/

Explains why we don't see many ARM netbooks or ARM devices for general purpose computing.

[bmarkus]

Well, it is a one and half year old article. Both architectures are developing rapidly. You can compare them  but what is more important, can ARM based machines offer acceptable performance with price, consumption, ... benefits over current x86 or not?

BTW, why dob't you consider a MIPS port?

[roberts]

Nobody approached me at Scale inquiring about MIPS. It's interest would seem to not even be on the radar.
I find interesting is that Arm CortexA8 did not compare well to the lowly Atom.
Core runs well on Atom. The clamour is for these still unavailable super cheap "old" arm devices, e.g., raspberry pi. It's arm processor is older than the article I referenced. Do you see a raspberry pi sporting an A9 or even the mentioned A8?

[hiro]

Specs? Without details price is meaningless.

The Kirkwood based iomega iconnect for example.

The great thing about ARM platforms is not processing power, but energy efficiency. I also don't like fans on my CPUs.
Better devices will come, and for more competition I hope MIPS manages to get into this segment again. We've been seeing their chips for a long time, most recently embedded in consumer products like dsl routers.

An other point: I also like having one device just for one thing. Don't put CPUs in your computer, instead buy more computers.

On the other hand I'm writing this on an old thinkpad x60s (core duo) without a fan (disabled) which suits me all right. Current figures after 1 hour of web browsing: P=11W, T=49C
And I have two old celerons which are still working. One embedded t-online s100 settop box and a normal fanless tower.
Sometimes it's not the CPU, but peripherals which eat the most, but ARM nonetheless pushes the bar one dimension lower (or was it higher? ).

[hiro]

btw would it be ok to use Sourcery G++ for compiling tinycore on ARM? I've compiled some kernels for my private use, but I don't know anything about licenses or such.

[martin]

Just having a quick look at what I could find in a hurry (ebay).

VIA ARM-WM8505 clocked at 300Mhz netbook @ US$79.99.
VIA 8650 clocked at 600MHz netbook @ AU$81.99.
another WM8505 netbook currently at AU$24.99 with 4 days to go. Marked as "faulty" but by the description merely sounds like the OEM software has been badly loaded.

The WM8650 is based on ARM11, from what I've read.

Just a FYI.