Here's some interesting words in part 3 of that embedded article http://www.embedded.com/design/opensource/208700267?printable=true (Note: I'm taking GKRA's advice and using print display-mode)
""" The MMU is not just for big, full virtual memory systems; even small embedded programs benefit from relocation and more efficient memory allocation. Any system in which you may want to run different programs at different times will find it easier if it can map the program's idea of addresses onto whatever physical address space is readily available. Multitasking and separation between various tasks' address spaces used to be only for big computers, then migrated into personal computers and small servers, and are increasingly common in the vanishingly small computers of consumer devices. However, few non-Linux embedded OSs use separate address spaces. This is probably not so much because this would not be useful, but is due to the lack of consistent features on embedded CPUs and their available operating systems. And perhaps because once you add separate address spaces to your system you're too close to reinventing Linux to make sense! This is an unexpected bonanza for the MIPS architecture. The minimalism that was so necessary to make the workstation CPU simple in 1986 is a great asset to the embedded systems of the early 21st century. Even small applications, beset by rapidly expanding code size, need to use all known tricks to manage software complexity; and the flexible software-based approach pioneered by MIPS is likely to deliver whatever is needed. A few years ago it was hard to convince CPU vendors addressing the embedded market that the MMU was worth including; now Linux is everywhere. """ Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
