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At my work we're planning on developing a new ARM based embedded Linux board. I want to give the hardware guys some guidance on features they could add that would make the software development easier. My list so far is:

At least one dual/tri color LED controllable by GPO
A JTAG header
An extra serial port for debug log messages
Extra GPIOs taken out to a header for monitoring by logic analyzer etc.

Can anyone suggest any features they found they later needed that would have helped if present on an initial board?

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    \$\begingroup\$ A board-is-powered LED. A heartbeat LED. The latter should be updated somewhere in the normal program logic(not a timed interrupt), so if it is not flashing, the system is probably frozen. Possibly a scary red critical-error LED. \$\endgroup\$ – Vorac Nov 26 '12 at 13:02
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Your list looks good. I'd add:

  • some means of resetting the board other than de-powering it
  • some means of recovering from bad firmware updates
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    \$\begingroup\$ For the recovery, it's hard to beat a mask ROM UART bootloader startup option. Then no matter what someone does, it's recoverable unless the hardware is physically damaged, and unlike JTAG doesn't need any specialized equipment. \$\endgroup\$ – Chris Stratton Nov 29 '12 at 17:27

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