[GTA04] When is the next and more powerful openmoko releasing

Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller hns at computer.org
Thu Sep 16 19:50:03 CEST 2010


Hi,

>> And, we know that fast boot is possible. At least someone has done it for the Beagle Board:
>> http://swiftbeagle.googlecode.com/files/beagleboard_project_hui_keji.pdf
>> They claim that they have achieved 3 seconds from power up to login: on
>> the serial console. Well, running X11 also needs some time.
> 
> From my point of view, boot time especially if it is in 1 minute is not
> really important. More important how fast it will run while usual usage,

Yes, it is below 1 minute. To give you an indication, I have done a test
on one of our development systems: BeagleBoard C2 i.e. 600 MHz CPU,
256 MB RAM, unoptimized full blown Debian Lenny, all files loaded from
SDHC card):

1 seconds	Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.4ss (Aug 19 2010 - 02:49:27) 
2 seconds	U-Boot 2010.03-01183-g43b5706-dirty (Sep 15 2010 - 16:19:43)
11 seconds 	[    0.000000] Linux version 2.6.32 (hns at iMac.local) (gcc version 4.2.4) #48 PREEMPT Tue Jun 8 14:21:52 CEST 2010
21 seconds	INIT: version 2.86 booting
37 seconds	Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 bb-debian ttyS2 bb-debian
			login: 


> how easy is boot system to understand and fix, and how much it deviates

There is a boot ROM which loads the X-Loader which loads U-Boot.

> from desktop systems. I do not want use busybox shell under any

Well, that largely depends on what you install.

> conditions, but running all that services to boot up fully-functional
> system will take much more time than 3 seconds. (authors use uclibc and
> busybox, hack init scripts like disable log, disable u-boot menu,
> disable logs, remove everything from kernel)
> 
> The way authors of paper archive such boot times influence later speed
> of device. For example, they propose to use XIP, which will cetrainly
> decrease kernel speed. Other example is that they 'compiling everything
> with -Os', it may greatly decrease performance in favor of boot time.


That is true. Therefore we leave such optimizations to the software
community. I could imagine a simple and small distro that only allows
to make phone calls but boots in <10 seconds. And a full desktop-like
PDA/Smartphone that takes 60 seconds for the GUI to appear.

Regarding memory we currently plan to use this memory chip:

http://www.micron.com/products/ProductDetails.html?product=products/mcp/multichip_packages/MT29C4G48MAZAPAKQ-5+IT

Nikolaus




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