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The aim of the embedded Linux specialist SYSGO is to simplify the development effort for embedded systems with Linux. The development environment ELinOS, which is made available for this purpose, provides developers with powerful tools that greatly simplify the implementation of embedded systems under Linux.

The PowerPC variant of ELinOS initially supports the reference platforms MBX860 from Motorola with PowerQUICC processor as well as the SBC8260 board from EST with the PowerQUICC II processor. Both reference platforms are widely used in the embedded market and offer particular advantages for I/O-intensive applications in the field of telecommunications. For better support of the PowerPC family, ELinOS has been adapted in numerous functions. An important component of the embedded distribution ELinOS for PowerPC is the generic firmware ppcboot, which can be used for adaptation to different board designs. Also new is the support of the Linux target kernel version 2.4.

The PowerPC variant of ELinOS also contains a complete toolchain consisting of GNU compiler, debugger, assembler and linker, which initially serves as a basic package for application development around Linux. The memory requirements of a complete embedded system can be scaled down to 0.5 MB ROM and 4 MB RAM for PPC or 2 MB ROM for x86, which should be interesting for the development of systems with low-memory capacity.

To further simplify the development of embedded Linux systems, ELinOS offers numerous pre-configured standard profiles covering the most important embedded situations. The examples contained on the CD are clearly documented and can be loaded into the development environment if required and modified to suit the specific application. This makes it possible for developers with little or no experience to develop their own embedded applications within a short time. This also applies to the boot strategies required in the embedded field. ELinOS includes pre-configured boot situations for, among other things, ROM, floppy, flash disk or network boot, also in the PowerPC variant.

ELinOS is aimed at newcomers and those who want to use embedded Linux for different processors. With a single development environment, embedded systems can now also be generated for PowerPC processors without any additional training effort. In order to ensure the widest possible range of applications for the development environment, ELinOS can be run on all current Linux distributions.

More information at www.sysgo.com/elinos