[Meego-porting] MeeGo and ARMv6+VFP

[Jussi Liukkonen]

Currently MeeGo does not really address headless environments -- and this is reflected in the HW requirements. I expect that the low-spec ARM chips (being very low cost components) continue to find uses in embedded low-spec devices, many of which may be headless (e.g. a router) or only sport a separately controlled LCD (e.g. a fridge).

I'm thinking that "EmGo", "eGo", or whatever as an embedded profile with 1) a minimal core configuration, 2) low-spec/flexible HW requirements, and 3) assuming no UX beyond console would probably find industrial uses outside of the handset / netbook / IVI domains. (Think routers, set-top boxes, telco exchange units, et cetera.)

I do not represent any such interest at the moment, but I have worked for various companies who have had such environments, and might have wanted to use "the industry standard Linux distro" in them. Now they use WindRiver, OpenEmbedded, NetBSD, or roll-your-owns.

Now, if the current ARMv6 advocates are building smartphones or similar UX-equipped devices, this solution pattern might or might not apply to them.

Br,
Jussi

On 24.11.2010, at 12.33, Carsten Munk wrote:

> If there's still a large portion of ARMv6 devices planned in 1.2 to
> 1.4 timeframe: One of the ideas of MeeGo is this vision of connected
> devices. And embedded devices is naturally part of it - I would say.
> And I have some ideas to avoid us having a horde of devices that has
> nothing in common and catch this problem early on.
> 
> My proposal is for you who intends to build for ARMv6 and other
> devices (X86, non-SSSE3?) to organise together in project "EmGo" (made
> up name) and gain acceptance as a sub-project of MeeGo by TSG. I can't
> claim this is a good idea or a direction we should go in, but here's
> my idea:
> 
> Principles:
> * EmGo provides a sub-set of MeeGo API suitable for a modern embedded
> profile. EmGo devices are not MeeGo compliant. Compliance program for
> EmGo systems and applications should be in place.
> * EmGo defines a baseline (for ARM) of ARMv6+VFP, maybe for X86 too (non-SSSE3?)
> * EmGo re-uses the source packages of MeeGo Core, recompile for
> baseline and providing the APIs needed.
> * EmGo applications must be both MeeGo and EmGo compliant. I should be
> able to run an EmGo application on my MeeGo device.