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How to Port Linux When the Hardware Turns Soft

Issue 153

From Issue #153
January 2007

Jan 01, 2007  By David Lynch
 in
Porting Linux to run on the Pico E12 and beyond.

“The bigger game was 'pinball'. You win one game, you get to play another. You win with this machine, you get to build the next. Pinball was what counted.” —Tracy Kidder Soul of a New Machine. I won at pinball.

I got Linux up and running on new hardware, and other opportunities with other hardware and with other embedded OSes have occurred. Board bring-up for the E12 was hard. Somewhere on Kernel-Newbies I read advice to newbie kernel hackers to lurk on the mailing lists for a few years before attempting anything serious—advice I am glad I did not take. I did not start this as a complete novice. I had a lot of experience that made this much easier. It was thrilling, mythical and magical. I can call myself a Linux Kernel Developer—though maybe not too loudly around Linus Torvalds, Andrew Morton or Alan Cox. But, it was not more difficult than many other software tasks—just more rewarding.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Dr Trout at Pico for paying me for projects I would do for free.

Resources for this article: /article/9462.

David Lynch is a software consultant. Programming is like art or music, he does it because he loves it. He is always seeking new and challenging software projects such as embedded board bring-up—preferably Linux/open source (www.dlasys.net).

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