[time-nuts] looking for low-power system for gps ntp timekeeping

Chris Albertson albertson.chris at gmail.com
Tue Jul 2 17:59:23 UTC 2013


The way to run an embedded Linux system is NOT to run off the SD card.
Set up a small RAM disk and write to the disk image.

I think you could get this to work but you" have to know a little about
unix-like OSes so you can make changes.

That is one reason I suggested the Item Atom.  It is a standard PC
motherboard and can run the more common un-modified version of any OS you
like.  I boot them off the network or from a a USB flash drive and then
un-mound the boot drive.  A boot drive should be read-only and never
written to.




On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 10:43 PM, NeonJohn <jgd at neon-john.com> wrote:

> Before anyone wastes his money on a BeagleBone, I suggest you join the
> mailing list and read the hundreds of messages each day that pass
> through, most of them citing problems, mostly with the Linux
> implementation.
>
> Basically, the ancient implementation of Angstrom Linux is a POS.  Just
> barely enough code to be able to say, for example, that SPI works.  It
> does - sorta - but not well enough for any application where clock
> timing or jitter matters.
>
> I had intended to embed the BB white in my next revision induction
> heater.  After several months of frustration and a considerable amount
> of money to a kernel programmer to write drivers that actually worked, I
> gave up.  I could easily had a man-year in the application that I can do
> bare metal in a few months.
>
> The thing that finally canned the BB for me was the short SD card life.
>  Even though the implementation uses a virtualized root file system, it
> still writes to the SD card about once a second.  The result is that
> even industrial grade SD cards rarely live over a year.  With the Black
> they tried to address the problem by putting some NAND memory on board
> but that only prolongs the problem and with components that are not
> easily changed.
>
> A final negative is the support.  The team member, a guy named Gerald,
> who provides official support on the mailing lists is one of the most
> hateful persons I've encountered on the net. No, I never personally had
> an encounter with him but I daily shook my head in amazement that TI
> would let such a person rep them.
>
> PS: Before you go to buy the Black, take a careful look at what all they
> left off in an effort to compete with the Pi.
>
> PSS:  I have a couple of Whites, one unopened, and a prototyping board
> for sale.  Cheap :-)
>
> John
>
>
>
> On 07/01/2013 11:14 AM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> > Thanks.  I didn't know there were two kinds.  This is more useful for
> only
> > $5 more.
>
>
> --
> John DeArmond
> Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
> http://www.fluxeon.com      <-- THE source for induction heaters
> http://www.neon-john.com    <-- email from here
> http://www.johndearmond.com <-- Best damned Blog on the net
> PGP key: wwwkeys.pgp.net: BCB68D77
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-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California



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