The Application Of Embedded Linux In Information Terminal

The information terminal is a kind of handheld equipments, which can be used to control other equipments in ambulation. Because of historical reason, most terminals are made up of 8bit microcontroller, their function is limited, their human interface is boring, and their communication function is weaker, therefore the urgent matter of the moment is to looks for the suitable hardware and software frame.To meet these requirements, a new information terminal with communication interface and touch-panel has been developed successfully. The hardware part of the system adopted Cirrus Logic 's EP7312 which is based on ARM720T core, system software adopted embedded Linux,QTE,and QTOPIA. In order to make system debug and upgrade LINUX core easily, a BootLoader should be designed. More details of Bootloader 's implementation ,such as how to detect SDRAM , how to operate FLASH device and how to implement command line interface have been given in this paper.The most difficult matter is how to migrate Embedded Linux and how to develop related drivers. The migration of embedded linux is described briefly.The details of device drivers' development,such as SPI interface and touch-panel have been analyzed in this paper. The realization of JFFS2 filesystem on the information terminal also has been analyzed in this paper. How to make information terminal use easily is another aim ,which has some difficulty to be resolved. For attaining this purpose, the desktop environment based on Linux System must be adopted ,and Chinese should be handled at the same time.At last, the realization of Chinese input method in QTOPIA environment has been described in this paper.