From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,8295d69277f1696c X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.204.157.134 with SMTP id b6mr1269458bkx.5.1337066797598; Tue, 15 May 2012 00:26:37 -0700 (PDT) Path: e27ni3947bkw.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: understanding runtime support Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 00:26:37 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <25378735.47.1337066797139.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbvx4> References: <28695516.0.1336708147839.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@pbcqw9> NNTP-Posting-Host: 153.98.68.197 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1337066797 27120 127.0.0.1 (15 May 2012 07:26:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 07:26:37 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <28695516.0.1336708147839.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@pbcqw9> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=153.98.68.197; posting-account=pcLQNgkAAAD9TrXkhkIgiY6-MDtJjIlC User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Date: 2012-05-15T00:26:37-07:00 List-Id: Patrick, As I said before, "embedded" means many different things. The cheapest and easiest solution is Debian for ARM, it comes with everything you need, precompiled and ready to go. Don't be sad that it contains a Linux kernel and a glibc written in C. As for controlling a purpose-built device, it is quite possible that this purpose-built device can run Debian ARM. After all, the Raspberry Pi comes very close to what you need and it runs Debian ARM. Also, a purpose-built device might not be the most appropriate solution, maybe (just maybe) an app running on a smartphone might be better. If you insist on programming the bare metal in Ada but are a one-man company with no prior experience, then yes you are being unreasonable. As Randy pointed out, this is a *very* time-consuming endeavor even if you start from the GNAT sources. But it is doable and it has been done before (I remember writing the firmware for avionics devices in Ada, programming to the bare metal. The Ada run-time did not support tasking or memory deallocation, and could not propagate exceptions beyond the frame that raised them. We "just" lived with these constraints). I encourage anyone with enough time and expertise to donate some and send me the patches necessary to support GNAT as a cross-compiler with Debian as the host and whatever strikes your fancy as the target. (While I'm at it, I feel I can pre-announce the availability of GNAT on Debian armhf, thanks to the hard work of Tero Koskinen. Stay tuned for the official announcement.) -- Ludovic Brenta.