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General OpenPOWER Hardware => General CPU Discussion => Topic started by: pocock on June 09, 2020, 09:15:06 am

Title: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: pocock on June 09, 2020, 09:15:06 am

Search engines return a lot of publicity about Microwatt but I couldn't see any practical examples of hardware and operating systems

Which FPGAs are people aiming for or testing right now?

Is it at the stage where somebody could build something vaguely similar to a Raspberry Pi, even if it lacks some of the ports?

Is it stable enough to run any GNU/Linux or BSD OS right now?

Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: ClassicHasClass on June 09, 2020, 10:43:52 am
I'm hearing they're either at or near the point a Linux can boot, but I haven't played with it in awhile, so I don't know how feasible it is. I'm trying to keep the budget down and haven't bought new toys in a bit, or I'd pick up some hardware and try to build something with it.
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: MPC7500 on June 09, 2020, 11:12:21 am
Dunno, if you're on Twitter. Linux on Microwatt (https://twitter.com/shenki/status/1262738635356430342).
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: pocock on June 09, 2020, 04:46:13 pm

Thanks for that feedback

This is the Arty A7 board:
https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/programmable-logic/arty-a7/start

and it has a radio module that can do things like Zigbee:
https://store.digilentinc.com/pmod-rf2-ieee-802-15-rf-transceiver/

That could make it an interesting competitor for devices like the Zigate USB dongles (https://danielpocock.com/domoticz-packaging-debian-ubuntu-raspbian-fedora/).  Note that Zigate is currently programmed using a proprietary toolchain (https://github.com/fairecasoimeme/ZiGate/issues/105) and the Arty A7 radio module also requires what appears to be a proprietary SDK right now (https://www.microchip.com/design-centers/wireless-connectivity/embedded-wireless/802-15-4/zigbee).

It would be interesting to see all of that opened up like the POWER ISA.
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: MPC7500 on June 09, 2020, 08:28:59 pm
This could be also interesting. (https://twitter.com/enjoy_digital/status/1262701132012490754)
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: MPC7500 on June 10, 2020, 04:21:49 am
And Lattice ECP5 (https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/1225186761208401920).
But with some issues (https://twitter.com/antonblanchard/status/1231781090081165313) from February.
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: MPC7500 on June 17, 2020, 09:36:07 am
Preview Linux on the Microwatt PowerPC CPU (https://shenki.github.io/boot-linux-on-microwatt/)
Title: Re: Practical hardware and operating systems on Microwatt?
Post by: ClassicHasClass on June 19, 2020, 02:10:31 pm
Nice. I'm going to have to get one of these up and running.