It’s genuinely extraordinary what the hobbyist is now capable of. While it would have seemed all however impossible a few years ago, we’re delighted to report that yet one more devoted hardware hacker has handled to spin up their own custom-made Linux single-board computer. designer [Ian Kilgore] tells us the only goal when establishing CATFOOD (yes, that’s the name) was to get confidence with at-home board production, so it appears like a success to us.
To those who’ve been keeping an eye on this kind of thing, it will most likely come as no surprise to hear [Ian] was influenced by the work of [Jay Carlson], who probably kicked off this whole pattern when he put together a bunch of homebrew Linux boards in an effort to compare different System-in-Package ICs. His exceptionally in-depth review of the experience as well as lessons discovered along the method has emboldened other take on souls to take up the challenge.
The USB-C powered board utilizes an ARM i.MX 6ULL processor as well as features DDR3, NAND flash, as well as an Ethernet interface. That last one was the greatest deviation from the recommendation design, which indicated it took a bit fiddling to get right. For any individual playing along at home, [Ian] collected up the lessons discovered while establishing CATFOOD, bringing the whole discovering experience full circle.
If you’re thinking about a lot more homebrew Linux SBCs, we’d extremely suggest reading up on the WiFiWart established by [Walker]. Over the program of about six months, we got to enjoy the open hardware board go from idea to a diminutive very first prototype.