Subject: Re: (q) Intel XScale (ARM)
To: None <kamils80@gmail.com>
From: John Clark <jclark@metricsystems.com>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 07/27/2005 09:10:20
Kamil Shakirov wrote:

> Hello guys!
>
> Well, two days ago I bought a PDA (Fujitsu Simens LOOX 720). It is 
> based on the Intel XScale PXA27x RISC processor. So, I looked through 
> some websites and couldn't find any information about installing 
> NetBSD on this device. :) If I am not mistaken XScale is the next 
> generation of ARM processors and what is written for ARM can run on 
> XScale CPU. So, I wonder, has anyone succeeded in installing NetBSD on 
> PDA's (Pocket PC) based on XScale? Just I haven't used PDA before and 
> know very little about other architectures than x86. And again I'd 
> like to have NetBSD on my PDA. ;-) I would be glad to any help from 
> you. Thanks in advance.
>
>
NetBSD does run on Xscale processors. However, I have no idea about the 
specifics of running on this PDA. The problem there is the user 
interfaces. In the
case of the Xscale support that I know about, there are several boards 
based on the Xscale, but have 'traditional' serial port consoles. Hence, 
bringing
up the NetBSD kernel, is pretty 'straight' forward, for some value of 
'straight'.

The ARM (including XScale) support can be found in the path: sys/arch/evbarm

On that path the boards identified as 'iq80310', 'iq80321', and 
'ixdp425', all XScale based, and smdk2xx0 a Samsung ARM-9 implementation
I have had some experience with running NetBSD. I recall looking at the 
Lubbock code set for an PXA255 (or something like that...)
for a closer to a PDA example, but never perrsued that further than a 
review.

John Clark