I have an EFM32 board having Cortex M3. This board is having an Memory Protection Unit. Will it be a good idea to port Linux on it? I am discouraged because of this answer: Linux on ARM Cortex-M3 series, especially since I need a fast boot-up and efficiently running OS.
Asked
Active
Viewed 1,417 times
1
-
What do you mean by 'MPU'? – user36129 Nov 09 '13 at 06:57
-
Its Memory Protection Unit, link added – gpuguy Nov 09 '13 at 07:02
-
7Technically Linux needs a MMU, not a MPU. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 09 '13 at 07:08
-
1How much RAM does your system have? A reasonable minimum for Linux is 64 Mb for a very limited system. – Wouter van Ooijen Nov 09 '13 at 10:11
1 Answers
2
As others have alluded to in the comments of the question, I think what you are actually looking for is an MMU (Memory Management Unit) not an MPU (Memory Protection Unit). Among other things, a memory management unit is responsible for translating virtual memory addresses to physical memory addresses.
A memory protection unit really just keeps code executing in one mode (typically an unprivileged mode) from clobbering someone else's memory (usually the kernel's memory). This prevents a user program from bringing down the whole system.
If you are looking for a Unix-like operating system that you can run on hardware without an MMU (like Cortex-M based hardware), you might want to consider NuttX (http://nuttx.org/)
Verax
- 188
- 5