[erlang-questions] Erlang on ARM9?

[Paulo Ferreira]

On 2011/09/19, at 09:14, Guy Wiener wrote:

> Hello Erlangers,
> I am checking an option to use Erlang to control a Linux-based device (a programmable helicopter).  Is there an efficient port of Erlang that works on top of an ARM9 processor?  If so, the usage scenario will be many processes running on a single node, with frequent message-passing, some access to binary files, and no shared data (no ETS, DETS or Mnesia).  Is this scenario likely to perform well on an embedded Erlang?
> 
> Thanks,
>   Guy Wiener,
>   Dept. of Computer Science and Applied Math,
>   Weizmann Institute for Science.


Well, just it just compiles from source well. 

I have experience using a S3C2440 board at 400 Mhz and on some informal benchmarks ( ring ) it is just 7 times slower than a 2,2 Ghz core 2 Duo Mac book. 

From other erlang embedded experiences: 

	How do you control the hardware in C?  Linux device drivers are very slow, when compared to direct memory access. 
	Doing NIFs and dynamic libs may be hard.    
	ARM processors are usually supported by the latest gcc version, and that is VERY good for Erlang porting.
	If you try to compile Erlang with an older gcc version, you may get all the kind of "strange and wonderful"  errors. 
	Check the gcc version of your toolchain! 


My best regards 

Paulo Ferreira 

P.S.: Please replace "strange and wonderful" by the suitable words in your native language....