Re: [ECOS] What prompted the creation of the Linux Synthetic Target

[Andrew Lunn <andrew at lunn dot ch>]

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 05:45:49PM -0500, Gregg C Levine wrote:
> The explanation behind the creation of Linux Synthetic Target has
> always eluded me.

Its a much faster to use for development work than using real
hardware. You can go through the edit/compile/run/crash cycle much
faster since you don't have to wait for your slow serial link to
download the code before you run it and the debugger is much faster
since its all native.

You can do nearly everything you can do with real hardware using
synth.  There are flash drivers, serial driver, watchdog drivers,
ethernet drivers etc. Its also quite easy to emulate any special
hardware you might have on your target.

You can have many synth targets compared to the limited number of real
hardware targets you may have. The problem i've had in the past is
that the first 5 boards come of the pre-production line and the
management type people regularly steal them away from us software
engineers to show prospective customers, people who are funding you,
etc. It becomes really hard to do any work because you just don't have
the hardware on your desk.

For the must of the stuff i do, its not often i use real
hardware. Synth is just so much more convenient.

          Andrew

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