Access has introduced a software reference design for Linux mobile phones based on Marvell's PXA30x and PXA31x (“Monahans”) embedded processors. At LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week, the companies are demonstrating Marvell's “Littleton” reference design running Access Linux Platform (ALP), together with… various Orange World applications.

(Click for larger view of Littleton platform)

Marvell's Littleton board supports the processor-maker's PXA310 and PXA300 processors, which clock up to 624MHz. It does not yet support the PXA320, expected to clock at 806MHz. However, Palm's ALP software can be expected to support the PXA320 with minor porting, once a mobile phone hardware reference design is available for that chip, according to Kirsten Knipp, platform marketing manager at Marvell.

The Littleton board includes a mobile phone UI (user interface) plus typical PC I/O ports. Marvell said it plans to distribute the Littleton board along with a CD containing a demonstration of ALP; the demo will include a Web address where developers can apply to receive the board's complete ALP software reference design

Access's LinuxWorld demo of its ALP stack running on the Littleton board included several legacy Garnet (Palm OS) applications, including 3D games, which appear to perform quite well. It also included Java applications that have been qualified via the Orange Partner program, and native Linux applications, which can be installed and managed in a uniform way by ALP's Bundle Manager.

Additionally, native apps can be easily programmed to interoperate with one another, Access claims, via an “Exchange Manager” said to lets developers easily leverage components of other applications — for example, to let an image editor invoke relevant addressbook and email program libraries in order to send a picture over the Internet. ALP's various “Manager” components are related to its interesting open source “Hiker” application framework.

The demo also included GTK+ Linux applications, including GPaint, which Access's Didier Diaz said “took about five minutes” to port to ALP.

GPaint running on ALP
(Click to enlarge)
Toru Arakawa, Access CEO, stated, “Marvell's scalable, high-performance PXA3xx processors, running the ACCESS Linux Platform evaluation kit, provide a turnkey solution that integrates the technology our customers need to create exciting native Linux applications and devices without compromising on performance and usability.”

The Access Linux Platform was selected by Orange Networks in mid-2006, and the demo also includes various Orange-approved applications, such as OrangeWorld TV and the Bluestreak's MachBlue Flash player.

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