mONeCos - eCos distribution for Microblaze CPU

Hi developers,

It is pleasure for me to introduce first working eCos distribution called mONeCos for Microblaze CPU. I would like to say big thanks to Tomas Brabec, Michal Pfeifer and Czech Technical University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Engineering for help with doing first distribution based on eCos.

Michal Simek acknowledges PetaLogix for lending the reference board and Xilinx for providing design tool and the reference board.

I wish you many good experiences with mONeCos.

Best regards,

Michal Simek

The eCos kernel for Microblaze CPU was developed at CTU by Michal Pfeifer¹⁾ (Tomas Brabec (supervisor) and me (Michal Simek) as opponent for this diploma work). This kernel is based on PowerPC405.

• the kernel was ported to one board that brought many problems to work with
• the kernel was developed on Windows machine under cygwin
• the kernel contained lot of commented and unused code
• final application needed full software setting and drivers from Xilinx EDK

• I prepared new ecos config BSP tool for boards
• I ported the kernel to Linux
• I completely redesigned board handling which was taken from PowerPC405
• I optimized this kernel for using with BSP tool and with many boards
• I wrote some helping scripts
• I tested the kernel
• and many other things which are only small step for use but big step for work with

These facts helped with creating new eCos distribution which is optimized for Xilinx Microblaze CPU called mONeCos distribution.

This distribution contains files, which are written under restricted license, owned by Michal Simek. Private license is placed on the top of these files. You are not allowed to change and distribute these files without permission from Michal Simek. You can use these files without any restriction.

This distribution is only a release for testing purposes and should not be used for life support, aerospace or other life- or mission-critical applications. Michal Simek does not respond for any claims caused by using mONeCos distribution.

mONeCos distribution is divided into three categories. First is focused on hardware (hw folder), second on software (sw folder) and third on tools.

Hardware folder contains three sub-folders. Design folder contains reference designs used in eCos templates. Inside the pre-build folder, there is a bitstream, redboot and eCos elf file with testing application for reference designs. The folder user-design is prepared for custom designs. The folder edk_user_repository stores a BSP, which helps you setting the eCos kernel. Usage of BSP is described in special paragraf.

Software folder contains three folders. Namely ecos-2.0 containg eCos kernel, project containing projects for prepared reference boards, and user-projects prepared for your custom applications.

This folder contains a toolchain for Microblaze CPU, some helping scripts, and a packed source code for configtool.

The following documentation covers work with mONeCos distribution

• Work preparation
• Configtool
• Reference designs
  • Setup ecos BSP
  • Add custom board to mONeCos
• RedBoot
  • RedBoot usage manual
• eCos
  • Create own application
  • Useful application
  • Kernel Tests
• Script description

• Embedded Software Development with eCos by Anthony J. Massa
• eCos User's Guide - A guide for installing eCos and using the host tools.
• eCos Reference Manual - Reference documentation for all eCos packages.
• eCos Component Writer's Guide - A guide for authors of new eCos packages.
• RedBoot user guide - A guide for installing and using the RedBoot debug and bootstrap monitor.

• http://ecos.sourceware.org/ecos/
• http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/configtool.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECos