Which Minimal distro to use to boot an embedded system?

Hi,

Originally Posted by edbarx Confirming my pessimism, the manufacturer did not reply let alone giving me the information. Thanks to all of you who dedicated some of your time to reply to this thread. The idea of using telnet and ssh looks interesting... There is another possibility, which is examining whether the hard disk has partitions but I doubt it. If it can boot from a hard disk, that would be great.... Probably, I am dreaming....

From http://www.jtgsystems.com/store/inde...product_id=171

Network and Protocol 1 RJ-45 10/100M via Ethernet, Support TCP/IP PPPOE DHCP DNS

That same link shows that the DVR supports IE browser;

IE Browser Support Client Software Support

I suspect you should be able to link in via IP, not sure if static or DHCP. That way you will most likely get a Web admin page. Try it on your network and locate the IP. Then place that IP in address bar to see. You might try 'ssh' or 'telnet' to that IP to see if you can login.
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

I opened the DVR to look inside. The CPU has a heatsink that looks efficiently made. It is about 1.5 inches square and as much high. It is made in a way as to maximize the surface contact area with air. The deseign of the heatsink would mean that the underlying CPU has a heat dissipation that requires more chip to air contact which in turn implies more processing power.

Next time I will take a note of the chip numbers to find out what they do if I find the information. I did not find the CPU's number. I also didn't connect the HD to a computer to see what partitions it contains and what their content is.

Suggestions are welcome and thanks for anyone posting in this thread.

If you're new to it, be careful with chip numbers. The standard format is
<Letters>, <numbers>, <Letter(s) & Number(s)>

Section 1 is manufacturer, section 2 is device type (optionally with a process alpha thing in the middle, e.g. 74hct246) and the last bit is anything - features, packaging and/or revisions. Look at all chips (Not just the heatsink, and we can figure out what is in there. Even the package and leg count rules a few things in or out. A decent photo would help.

I found the EN-6704V. I think I can answer this fully.

The cpu is probably a SoC with a few arm-7 cores. The GPU is probably a Mali - again with a few cores. I would recommend NO LINUX OS except what is on it. The reason is simple. Whatever kernel is there will have several proprietary modules built in and when you swap OS, you lose these.

The EN-6704V things are available for $30 in alibaba.com. There are a number of Chinese manufacturers of SoC devices for the consumer market. Here's a few of them compared in tablets.
http://tablet.mcbub.com/

I have a tablet with an RK3188 - nice tablet, if slow GPU. I ran the software down for that. There are three or four proprietary modules in the OS (Android). I counted three for the rk3188 and at least one for the Mali GPU. The IP for those parts is cheap, allowing SoC manufacture. Rockchip supply Android-4.2.2 with no updates. Whoever built mine bought the Rockchip rk30 board, a screen, a few mouldings, One guy got CM installed on something similar by cp-ing the modules and hexediting the version magic. Not for the faint of heart!

The question to ask when you consider buying one of these is: "Where do I download software updates from?" and check the website.

@edbarx: Shameless Plug: [mod] removed url[url]
We provide the ability to build a distro for many different targets/processors.
We also provide Pro Services (what I do) to customize for your specific HW.
I've done work on ARM9's w/256MB RAM, to 2xCortex-A9's in Zynq-9000 parts.

if you can load a kernel and initrd on it then maybe busybox will be enough for you.

The forum rules do not permit advertising. Please visit http://www.linuxquestions.org/advertising/ for more information on advertising. Feel free to contact the forum admin if you have any questions about this policy.

Originally Posted by EmbeddedSteve @edbarx: Shameless Plug: [mod remove] We provide the ability to build a distro for many different targets/processors. We also provide Pro Services (what I do) to customize for your specific HW. I've done work on ARM9's w/256MB RAM, to 2xCortex-A9's in Zynq-9000 parts.