On 27.02.06 09:59 +0000, Chris Bagnall wrote:

>> I don't know exactly. But the kernel was modified for the 
>> soekris hardware.
> 
> I replaced the image on the box with the Soekris-specific one late
> last night. Interestingly, it seemed to upgrade fine via the web
> "firmware upgrade" interface once I'd renamed the image to
> generic-pc-<ver>.img.

It only compares the file name to the current platform string as a
simple protection against installing the wrong image, while still
making it possible if absolutely necessary (as you've discovered).

The kernel in the net45xx image is smaller since it only includes the
drivers that are necessary for net45xx boards, and as such it takes
up less memory. Also, the AMD Elan CPUs use a non-standard i8254
timer frequency that can result in serious clock drift (this is
corrected in the net45xx image).

Except for the WRAP boards, which have special requirements for the
boot loader, the generic-pc image should run on all embedded
platforms that the net45xx/net48xx images work with. It's just that
the latter are optimized for the particular platform.

> Differences I could find were a more responsive WebGUI (not quite
> sure why), and the "net" light on the front is steady to indicate
> interfaces up, rather than with the generic-pc image where the
> "net" light flickers with traffic.

I don't believe that is caused by the different image/kernel. That
LED is controlled entirely by hardware (from the manual: "This green
LED is a logical OR of the activity LED?s on the ethernet
connectors.").

- Manuel