linux Erlang/OTP status (gumstix)

[Pascal Brisset]

Marthin Laubscher writes:
 > Did you use the same cross-compiling environment to build erlang as
 > suggested by gumstix for development and build-root purposes, or did you set
 > up something different?

I used their repository. Type "svn co gumstix-buildroot" and "make".
Come back a few hours later, and you have arm-linux-gcc, libc, the
bootloader, and the root filesystem image.

 > Are you using any of the GPIOs on the gumstix from Erlang?

Haven't tried, but you can probably use the file-based interface
(/proc/gpio/) directly from erlang.

 > Did you do any work on HiPE for the port?

I disabled it.

 > Have you tried to cluster gumstix-based nodes? With any success?

I checked that Erlang distribution works normally between a
gumstix node and a x86 node.

 > Beyond shell responsiveness, do you have any feedback on the performance of
 > Erlang on the 200MHz PXA250(?) in applications, compared for example to a
 > 200MHz x86.

Here's a quick apples-to-oranges comparison on two random benchmarks:

  System                      Laptop      Gumstix
  CPU                        Pentium M     PXA255
  Freq                        900 MHz     200 MHz
  Bogomips                     1765         200
  Cache                      1024 KiB    32+32 KiB 
  Mem                         256 MiB      64 MiB
  Kernel                      2.6.3        2.6.10
  OTP                         R10B-7       R10B-8
  ackerman(3,11)               13 s        412 s
  cheap-concurrency(3000)     0.6 s         26 s

That's pretty good if you also take the size, weight, power
consumption and price into account.  Maybe someone can provide
figures for a similar x86 embedded SBC or a Blackdog.

-- Pascal