uCLinux demo

This demo runs the uCLinux on Altera Nios II development kit with Ethermac.

The demo was a test of OpenCores Ethermac after Zylin helped debug the RX/TX bugs in the OpenCores Ethermac. OpenCores Ethermac for Altera works very nicely now!

1. Program demo.sof
2. Upload zImage
3. Launch nios2-terminal
4. You can now ftp into the box and you should get ca. 1.2MByte upload/download speed. Use "anonymous" and no password.

   

Running a hello world app

You can now debug Nios applications using gdbserver over TCP/IP. This can of course be much faster than using JTAG and quite convenient.

See DebugApps for some instructions on how to do this.

eCos vs. uClinux

Which is best suited is best decided by application developers in each case.

eCos can not claim a clear lead in performance across the board when looking at the ftp numbers above. They are on par or better than what eCos can do with it's FreeBSD stack. On the other hand, running an ftp server test under eCos is hard in the first place, because eCos does not ship with an ftp server out of the box. It can be awfully expensive in terms of engineering cost to get "simple" "standard" applications to run under eCos.

eCos can boast much smaller minimum ram/flash footprint, which can be crucial for some applications and it is a hard real time operating system.

It is awfully nice to be able to tick off all sorts of weird and wonderful applications in "make menuconfig" and see them work on the first try though. Until you run out of flash/ram or performance... It is hard to remember that it isn't a "real" PC with infinite ram/disk space and oodles of CPU/ram performance... A typical PC today can have ~10000 DMIPS and 2 gByte RAM compared to 200 DMIPS(on a clear day) and 128mByte RAM on a hefty Nios...