Lineo Solutions (Japan) has released a uLinux Consumer Electronics Edition (CE Edition) Board Support Package (BSP) for the VIA EPIA-ME6000, an inexpensive and widely available mini-ITX motherboard. The BSP is provided as a snap-in for Lineo's “uLinux Elite” embedded cross development environment.

(Click for larger view of VIA Epia M-series board

The M6000 model in VIA's Via Epia M-Series features a 600MHz VIA/C3 processor, and sells for $150 or less. VIA's mini-ITX boards have been used in many innovative embedded Linux projects.

VIA lists the following features for its M-Series motherboards:

• Processor
  • VIA C3/EDEN EBGA Processor
• Chipset
  • VIA CLE266 North Bridge
  • VT8235 South Bridge
• System Memory
  • 1 DDR266 DIMM socket
  • Up to 1GB memory size
• VGA
  • Integrated VIA Unichrome AGP graphics with MPEG-2 decoder
• Expansion Slots
  • 1 PCI
• Onboard IDE
  • 2 X UltraDMA 133/100/66 Connector
• Onboard Floppy
  • 1 x FDD Connector
• Onboard LAN
  • VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY
• Onboard Audio
  • VIA VT1616 6 channel AC'97 Codec
• Onboard TV Out
  • VIA VT1622 TV out
• Onboard 1394
  • VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire
• Onboard I/O Connectors
  • 1 USB connectors for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports, 2 1394 connectors for 2 1394 ports, Front-panel audio connectors (Mic and Line Out), CD Audio-in connector, SIR connector, CIR connector, Wake-on-LAN, Wake-on-Ring, CPU/Sys FAN/Fan 3, System intrusion connector, 1 I2C connector, 1 LVDS connector (Optional), Serial port connector for second com port
• Back Panel I/O
  • 1 PS2 mouse port, 1 PS2 keyboard port, 1 Parallel, 1 RJ-45 LAN port, 1 Serial port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 VGA port, 1 RCA port (SPDIF or TV out), 1 S-Video port, 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in; can be switched to 6 channel output
• Applications
  • VIA FliteDeck Luxurious Utility, MissionControl-H/W Monitoring, Remote SNMP management, FlashPort-Live BIOS Flash, SysProbe-Live DMI Browser
• BIOS
  • Award BIOS, 2/4Mbit flash memory
• System Monitoring & Management
  • CPU voltage monitoring, Wake-on-LAN, Keyboard-Power-on, Timer-Power-on- System power management, AC power failure recovery
• Form Factor
  • Mini-ITX (4 layer), 17 cm x 17 cm

Lineo lists the following features for its uLinux CE Edition BSP:

• Small footprint/Fast booting-time
  • ROM: 2Mbyte and above/ RAM: 2Mbyte and above
  • Kernel XIP support
  • ulibc: Reorganized and compacted glibc

• uLinux Realtime
  • Hard Real Time in Linux kernel space
  • POSIX compliant pthread I/F specifications
  • Metrics Sample (i386 Compatible EDEN CPU Clock: 600MHz Bus Clock: 66MHz)
    • Interrupt Response: 5 microseconds
    • Task Latency: 4 microseconds
    • Periodic Task Latency: 10 microseconds
    • (Timer Clock Accuracy: 1 microsecond Jitter: 1 microsecond)

• Power Management Framework
  • Non-BIOS-based APM-related I/F support

• IPv6 standard with IPv4/6
• Enhanced Memory Management
• Lots of Device Drivers
  • HotPlug support

Lineo lists the following features for its “uLinux Elite”:

• Embedded Linux Integrated Development Environment
• Development Host OS RedHat 8.0/9.0, Windows2000
• Hardware Requirements
  • CPU: Pentium4 (Recommended: 2GHz and above)
  • Memory: 128MB (Recommended: 256MB and above)
  • Hard Disk Space: 2GB (Recommended: 10GB approx.)

 
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