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Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

dmitry.gr

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Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#51

Post by nickpsecurity »

pjc50 wrote: post #38
hawski wrote: post #34

Cool project. Personally I like the idea behind RetroBSD [1] - port of 2.11BSD Unix intended for microcontrollers. I was thinking if a system like this powered by solar panel would be a good idea for poor countries. The idea is to have computing of the past in sustainable form available for poor. The main problem is probably to have a cheap and low energy display. Maybe epaper made in bulk would be enough? But probab…

It sounds like you're about to re-invent the failures of "One Laptop Per Child". The one thing people in poor countries do not want is special weird incompatible systems designed for the poor. They want a solution which is adequately close to the western ones, just cheaper. Look at cellphones: http://qz.com/451844/africas-smartphone-market-is-on-the-ris...

Perhaps a cheap phone combined with a cheap, keyboard accessory and bundled software would be better? Definitely include Wikipedia app on homescreen and Python w/ learning guide somewhere on there.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#52

Post by nickpsecurity »

teddyh wrote: post #9

More like Linux on 32-bit ARM, but running in an emulator on an 8-bit processor. I don't think this qualifies as “Running” Linux on an 8-bit processor. I voiced the same complaint when somebody claimed to “run” Windows 3 on an Apple watch (IIRC), which also was achieved by running a standard PC-hardware emulator, and running Windows 3 on that. These are somewhat interesting accomplishments, but the click-bait factor…

I'm with you on the title and such. I thought it was a port of Linux to 8-bit with something like uCLinux. Then I saw it was a project emulating a 32-bit CPU to spend 4 hours booting Ubuntu. A cool accomplishment but not what title made me think.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#53

Post by goligo »

hawski wrote: post #40
pjc50 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're about to re-invent the failures of "One Laptop Per Child". The one thing people in poor countries do not want is special weird incompatible systems designed for the poor. They want a solution which is adequately close to the western ones, just cheaper. Look at cellphones: http://qz.com/451844/africas-smartphone-market-is-on-the-ris...

I also think that smartphone will get there faster. Maybe Chromebooks if Google will play it nice, because of Android apps support and normal keyboard. However I think OLPC is different from what I have in mind. OLPC targeted children with OS designed for children. I am thinking about something more like RaspberryPi with integrated power and display systems, but with external keyboard. Also I think about it to be ext…

Maybe something like a PocketChip (https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip). But cheaper.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#54

Post by jakub_h »

itgoon wrote: post #49
koytch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiprocessor AVR running Linux would be the next step, definitely.

Yea, imagine a Beow....ah, never mind.

Reminded me of Part 4 of https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/FPGA-relatedWork/Comp... . Intellasys/GreenArrays are kind of similar but only with tiny local memory.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#55

Post by mastax »

patmcguire wrote: post #46

Chrome gives some ssl-shaming for this site that I haven't seen before. An angry red warning and text that says "This site uses a weak security configuration (SHA-1 signatures), so your connection may not be private."

https://security.googleblog.com/2014/09/gradually-sunsetting...

> That’s why Chrome will start the process of sunsetting SHA-1 (as used in certificate signatures for HTTPS) with Chrome 39 in November. HTTPS sites whose certificate chains use SHA-1 and are valid past 1 January 2017 will no longer appear to be fully trustworthy in Chrome’s user interface.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#56

Post by cellularmitosis »

joosters wrote: post #43
teddyh wrote: post #9

More like Linux on 32-bit ARM, but running in an emulator on an 8-bit processor. I don't think this qualifies as “Running” Linux on an 8-bit processor. I voiced the same complaint when somebody claimed to “run” Windows 3 on an Apple watch (IIRC), which also was achieved by running a standard PC-hardware emulator, and running Windows 3 on that. These are somewhat interesting accomplishments, but the click-bait factor…

I think it's actually more impressive that this runs linux by emulating a 32-bit ARM on an 8-bit processor!

Indeed! It is also a nice real-world analogy to the idea of a Turing machine. As long as the machine can advance and rewind the tape, and read and write to the tape, it can accomplish any computational task...

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#57

Post by paulannesley »

Jaruzel wrote: post #18
paulannesley wrote: post #2

Very cool (TL;DR: it's an ARM emulator for 8-bit AVR which can slowly boot Linux). Could do with a [2012] tag in the title.

Why are people TL;DRing a lot of posts recently? Surely on HN, the joy is in discovering the linked content themselves surely? If you don't have time to read HN, and need TL:DRs then you should question why you are here in the first place. -- Vote down if you like, I joined HN to get away from inane commentary and TL:DR nonsense that's so prevalent on other sites.

I somewhat agree; TL;DR can seem dismissive and certainly discards most of the value of the actual article.

In this case I did it because the title made me wonder if this was the article I read years ago about implementing an ARM emulator for AVR to boot linux. I clicked through, confirmed it was, and that it was a 2012 article. I figured I'd leave the TL;DR as a shortcut for others to confirm they've already read it, not as a replacement of the article for those that haven't.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#58

Post by patmcguire »

dmitrygr wrote: post #47
patmcguire wrote: post #46

Chrome gives some ssl-shaming for this site that I haven't seen before. An angry red warning and text that says "This site uses a weak security configuration (SHA-1 signatures), so your connection may not be private."

I'll take a look.

Didn't mean to throw shade, was just intrigued by the new blinkenlights on my screen.

Re: Linux on an 8-bit micro? (2012)

#59

Post by poseid »

madez wrote: post #27
poseid wrote: post #12

was reading about instruction sets a couple of hours ago, the performance bottleneck is often the memory pipeline not so much the size of the instructions

Can you give more information on that?

it takes longer studies - but possibly this is a good start https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2014/EECS-2014-...
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