topic Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board? in i.MX Processors

A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

Geoff1z — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:15:48 GMT

I'm interested to know if anyone is working on a port or eCos (or other fast boot OS) for the i.mx53 QSB. Linux just doesn't meet our requirements, I'd be happy to be proven otherwise but it seems the best we could hope for on a tuned linux implementation would be about 700ms.

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

XXiao1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:32:32 GMT

what service do you need immediately after the boot up? network? storage? video on screen?

while 700ms is challenging if you don't need much right at the bootup moment it's still possible.

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

Geoff1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:46:52 GMT

We need to capture images from a cmos sensor preferably through the h.264 encoder to memory.

If necessary we could capture the images raw to memory and pass them through the encoder later (not preferred but possibly the only way).

Achieving the fast boot with linux would be a good answer as its not clear how we might access the hardware encoder from a different OS since they seem to be only supported via linux drivers. i.e. eCos has the boot speeds but integrating in support for the hardware encoder may be a headache.

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

XXiao1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 02:41:34 GMT

while capture images in real time is quite normal, but i don't see why it requires a 700ms boot up time?

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

Geoff1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:01:00 GMT

We wish to capture images in about 200 - 300 ms from power up (i.e. power applied, not from sleep, from a true cold start).

It appears from various discussions I've had that linux cannot be coerced to boot faster than about 700ms. So that leaves:

do something tricky while booting linux
boot a different OS (like eCos) that doesn't have linux's limitations
boot no OS and run bare metal

Hope this makes sense.

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

XXiao1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:14:49 GMT

this is less imx535 related, we can discuss this offline i think

Re: A Quick Boot OS for the Quick Start Board?

Geoff1z — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:49:10 GMT

sure gjsmith@vardr.com