Hello there
Finally I got myself a beaglebone. I believe the SD card has been flashed with the Angstrom image already. But I am more interested in learning how to write what they call the 'BSP' (board support package). Its been quite a while (more than 8 years :|) since ive done any serious embedded development so forgive me in case my questions seem to be somewhat too rudimentary. Im trying to scrape the rust off now :)
Now beginning with the questions, here they are (questions are in bold, in italics and underlined like this):
Ive come to think that starterware is one such implementation of the BSP. Am I right about it?
Additionally, is it a must to use Code composer studio for writing it? As far as I know, of the many components of the software, we have the compiler and the debugger. But is it possible to use generic tools like the bare metal codesourcery gcc toolchain for the compilation and gdb for the debugging?
Additionally how different is the starterware from the, what TI refers to as the PSP (platform)?The PSP, has u-boot and the linux kernel as its components, which is suggestive of the fact that the PSP is a much more elaborate operating environment than the starterware.
Can the starterware be instead used to boot another component, like a minimal OS? That makes it somewhat like u-boot but more like its frugal cousin. Am I right about it?
Starterware seems to also include tools which can be used to flash the SD card. So does this tool work just like a flash writer irrespective of the contents that are being written?
Lastly, some drivers would need to be installed in order to connect the bone to the host machine. Ive got a windows x64 machine. So will the driver that is mentioned in the getting started page suffice (bone_drv64 or something like that) or will I need something else as well?
Ive got more questions but lets take it one at a time :)
Keen to hear from folks here