Finally, after 2 years of the announcement MorphOS appears for the EFIKA. But I gave the EFIKA already in January to another developer because I was not happy with the hardware lock registration MorphOS uses and I had no use as a Linux box. So thats it for me.

This was the final case I used for the EFIKA.

I used Debian GNU Linux 4.0 but wasn't very happy with. 128 MB were definetly not enough so everything was a bit slow.

Since MorphOS is still not available for EFIKA and I often get the question what the are the pros and cons of EFIKA I will write some short summary:

+ small size, can fit nearly everywhere
+ low power, takes about 10 watt for a full system
+ low cost, for $99 you can't get something similar

- can handle only 1 IDE drive, no SATA ports
- only USB1.1, no USB2.0 ports
- no second Ethernet port, useful for router or proxy
- RAM is soldered, not expandable via socket
- no standard form factor, you can't use default cases
- no onboard gfx

EFIKA is a nice system for many fields but lacks some features which makes it uninteresting for a small and light desktop computer.

My next step was to do some benchmarks under Linux to check the RAM performance. I used the Stream test against Pegasos and Sam440ep board.

EFIKA Linux 2.6.19

-------------------------------------------------------------
This system uses 8 bytes per DOUBLE PRECISION word.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Array size = 2000000, Offset = 0
Total memory required = 45.8 MB.
Each test is run 10 times, but only
the *best* time for each is used.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Printing one line per active thread....
-------------------------------------------------------------
Your clock granularity/precision appears to be 2 microseconds.
Each test below will take on the order of 183141 microseconds.
(= 91570 clock ticks)
Increase the size of the arrays if this shows that
you are not getting at least 20 clock ticks per test.
-------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING -- The above is only a rough guideline.
For best results, please be sure you know the
precision of your system timer.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Function----Rate (MB/s)---Avg time----Min time----Max time
Copy:--------192.4569------0.1978------0.1663------0.3896
Scale:--------187.5988------0.1855------0.1706------0.2254
Add:----------195.1688------0.2569------0.2459------0.2920
Triad:---------188.3092------0.3100------0.2549------0.4959
-------------------------------------------------------------
Solution Validates
-------------------------------------------------------------

Pegasos II G4/1GHz Linux 2.6.17

-------------------------------------------------------------
This system uses 8 bytes per DOUBLE PRECISION word.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Array size = 2000000, Offset = 0
Total memory required = 45.8 MB.
Each test is run 10 times, but only
the *best* time for each is used.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Printing one line per active thread....
-------------------------------------------------------------
Your clock granularity/precision appears to be 1 microseconds.
Each test below will take on the order of 90864 microseconds.
(= 90864 clock ticks)
Increase the size of the arrays if this shows that
you are not getting at least 20 clock ticks per test.
-------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING -- The above is only a rough guideline.
For best results, please be sure you know the
precision of your system timer.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Function----Rate (MB/s)---Avg time----Min time----Max time
Copy:--------376.0548------0.0869------0.0851------0.0907
Scale:--------361.1246------0.0907------0.0886------0.0929
Add:----------359.3918------0.1359------0.1336------0.1376
Triad:---------361.1680------0.1357------0.1329------0.1394
-------------------------------------------------------------
Solution Validates
-------------------------------------------------------------

Pegasos II G3/600MHz

-------------------------------------------------------------
STREAM version $Revision: 5.6 $
-------------------------------------------------------------
This system uses 8 bytes per DOUBLE PRECISION word.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Array size = 2000000, Offset = 0
Total memory required = 45.8 MB.
Each test is run 10 times, but only
the *best* time for each is used.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Printing one line per active thread....
-------------------------------------------------------------
Your clock granularity/precision appears to be 2 microseconds.
Each test below will take on the order of 251755 microseconds.
(= 125877 clock ticks)
Increase the size of the arrays if this shows that
you are not getting at least 20 clock ticks per test.
-------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING -- The above is only a rough guideline.
For best results, please be sure you know the
precision of your system timer.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Function----Rate (MB/s)---Avg time---Min time---Max time
Copy:--------132.6981------0.2416-----0.2411-----0.2421
Scale:-------112.7054------0.2849-----0.2839-----0.2859
Add:---------118.6606------0.4054-----0.4045-----0.4063
Triad:-------118.7202------0.4056-----0.4043-----0.4065
-------------------------------------------------------------
Solution Validates
-------------------------------------------------------------


AMCC 440EP 533 Mhz Evaluation Board Linux 2.6.18

-------------------------------------------------------------
This system uses 8 bytes per DOUBLE PRECISION word.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Array size = 2000000, Offset = 0
Total memory required = 45.8 MB.
Each test is run 10 times, but only
the *best* time for each is used.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Printing one line per active thread....
-------------------------------------------------------------
Your clock granularity/precision appears to be 1 microseconds.
Each test below will take on the order of 112887 microseconds.
(= 112887 clock ticks)
Increase the size of the arrays if this shows that
you are not getting at least 20 clock ticks per test.
-------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING -- The above is only a rough guideline.
For best results, please be sure you know the
precision of your system timer.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Function----Rate (MB/s)---Avg time----Min time----Max time
Copy:--------262.6503------0.1221------0.1218------0.1223
Scale:--------245.8928------0.1302------0.1301------0.1303
Add:----------253.5979------0.1893------0.1893------0.1893
Triad:---------251.2734------0.1911------0.1910------0.1912
-------------------------------------------------------------
Solution Validates
-------------------------------------------------------------

For further tests, Application optimizations and guides I am waiting now for a MorphOS Release.

After receiving the EFIKA I started to setup a system and installed Linux. I tested 2 cases and did some photos of the conversions.