So, who makes this one run FreeBSD? ;-)

[John-Mark Gurney]

Bernd Walter wrote this message on Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 00:54 +0200:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 02:33:48PM -0800, John-Mark Gurney wrote:
> > Bernd Walter wrote this message on Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 23:06 +0200:
> > > And the 4526 doesn't need regulated power plus has onboard ata flash.
> > 
> > also looks like it supports PoE, which the TS-7200 doesn't...  Right
> > now I'm using a breadboarded LM7805 for power, but I am going to build
> > a daughter card for this project, and so I'm going to throw a switching
> > power supply on it.. so the regulated requirement isn't such a big deal..
> > also, it doesn't need as much power either..  TS says only 1 AMP at 5V
> > is necessary...  I haven't measured it yet though...
> 
> 1A is a lot to handle with a linar regulator, but this may include
> power to additional hardware - e.g. USB ports.

Yeh, I haven't measured it, and was looking at doing that, but it'll
be over a week before I can get more useful power requirements...

> > > But this is still an interesting board after all - especially as it has
> > > USB ports and lot of GPIO, which I need sometimes.
> > > USB on Soekris require add-on hardware our pricier boards.
> > > How stable is FreeBSD on ARMv9 already?
> > > I didn't even know that it is running yet.
> > 
> > So far it's been fine..  There may be issues with optimized crossbuilt
> > worlds from i386...  But I can boot multiuser mode, and it runs all the
> > scripts and everything to come up...
> 
> That's great.
> 
> > As I mentioned the ethernet is a bit flaky...  For some reason, some
> > packets have the underrun and carrier loss bit set on them..  This is
> > the case on packets around 80 bytes in size (like reverse dns packets
> > for 192.168.0.1, but not 192.168.0.10), and may be a timing issue that
> > I'm not familar with...  But nfs root boots fine...
> 
> Well that's just a bug with lot of hope to get fixed.
> 
> > I do plan on figuring it out...  USB doesn't work yet, it does probe,
> > but causes issues.. and even though they say it's USB 2.0, it's only
> > for electrical... No ehci controler.. the USB controller is ohci, and
> > so only supports up to full speed usb (12Mb/s)...
> 
> I personally use USB on such systems for attaching custom hardware.
> Full speed is fine for that.
> Since you say it's OHCI there is hope and I know you are familar with
> USB host controllers.

:) hehe, I think I still have the OHCI specs.. It sees the hub, but hangs
when I plug a device in....

> It's OK to claim a full/low speed only device beeing USB 2.0.
> High speed isn't mandandory for 2.0.
> 
> > Also, this work isn't directly sponsored by TS, so it doesn't have any
> > drivers for their other boards, like the RTC, serial or lcd + keypad
> > parts that NetBSD does...
> 
> At least the documentation is good - and between the lines I read that
> NetBSD support the board too.

Well, there isn't much documentation, but the support people have been
helpful so far, but I haven't pinged them about the USB or ethernet
issues yet...  It doesn't help when NetBSD defines it one way in the
headers (incorrectly), but then uses hard coded values in the source
which are correct, and never uses the defines in the headers...

> > The real reason why I'm using the TS-7200 is because it had on board
> > AC'97 and I2S support (they aren't exposed to headers so I plan on
> > soldering my own wires to the chip)...  Which soekris definately doesn't
> > have... :)
> 
> The Soekris CPUs have lots of features that arn't wired.
> But it's hopeless since the CPUs are BGA.

I haven't looked at the specs for the chips that Soekris uses, but as
you mention, BGA's can't just have a wired layed done on the pin.. :)

> > dmesg from my last boot is at: http://people.freebsd.org/~jmg/dmesg.ts7200
> 
> I don't know where to put it performancewise to x86 systems.
> Does it feel slow on ssh?
> e.g. how long does it take to log in?

I haven't ssh'd in yet (since reverse is broken on 192.168.0.? addresses),
but it did seem to take a minute or more to create the host dsa key...
I'll let you know this evening..

> > As you can see, no RTC.. :)
> > 18 Mar 15:36:25 ntpdate[241]: step time server 192.168.0.30 offset 1111188933.058709 sec
> 
> A matter of time :)

If I by the board.. :)  It is somewhat anoying that the board doesn't
include an RTC on board...

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."