How I came into it

In 2009 I decided to start experimenting with SBCs. Soon I came across Technology Systems and got the TS-7250. It still powers the control unit for the (partial) solar heating of our house. It was all done in "non embedded" style and I am still fine with the functionality.

But something was not right: I had a Linux system and did use it like a micro controller. So I started the journey, I am still on. Impressed by the work of Mathieu Crapet, I soon got a working Linux-2.6.34.7 that used a rootfs on usb.

Using owfs and sysfs for controlling GPIOs did make the whole stuff really simple and straightforward.

That was too easy and the linux-3 kernel series came out so I wanted to give this a serious try.
Here is the result:

But how I got is worth its own Blog story.