Re: On the MPC85xx development boards

Hi again!

Thanks to everybody who answered my original mail about a week ago.

The tips were very helpful. For your knowledge, we decided to go with option 2 this time (http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/Develop/NetComm/8540EVAL.htm).

Cheers,
Mikko

P.S. For those who absolutely need an optical 1 Gbps Ethernet interface on board, options 1 and 4 seem to be the only alternatives.

Mikko Alutoin wrote 24.06.2004:

Hi folks!

I would be happy to receive some comments on pros & cons of different
development boards for MPC85xx cause I'm in the process of selecting
 one.
The final design will be using MPC8560 to implement a 1 Gbps
 Ethernet card
for a router. ATM support will be needed later on.
The development environment includes a Linux PC and Abatron BDI2000
emulator.

Here are the boards that I am aware of:

1)	MPC8560ADS by Motorola
2)	CW8540DSEVAL by Motorola
3)	SBC8560 by Windriver
4)	Silicon Tx GP3 8560
5)	MPC8540 RDK by GDATech

Are these boards all there is?

I am under the impression that 1, 2, 4 and 5 (but not 3) come with a
 Linux
BSP included? Is this correct?

Being the lazy person that I am, I'm trying to minimize the work to get
Linux up and running on the board. I wonder which board/package gives me
least headache? Are there any pitfalls that I should know about?

Let us assume that the final product will not be based on a commercial
Embedded Linux distro, but a custom 2.6 kernel with busybox & uclibc.
Should that effect the choice in any way?

Forgive me if the questions seem a bit foolish. The bottom line is
 that I
have not used any kind of development boards in the past and I would
 like
to receive some insight on which one of the above to choose.

Cheers,
Mikko

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