[Arm-dev] List of 64-bit hardware for testing?

Fri Dec 25 18:58:21 UTC 2015

On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 11:31 AM, Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On 12/25/2015 11:18 AM, Troy Dawson wrote:
>
> Hi,
> Have you looked at the pcduino3 nano lite.
> $15 and it looks like it meets all your specs.
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/pcDuino-pcDuino3-Nano-Lite/dp/B00ZEPZGQO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451059734&sr=8-1&keywords=pcduino3+nano+lite
>
> It has everything in the kernel and uboot and works with Fedora 23 with no
> modifications.
> I've got Yor Linux armv7 build working on it, so I'm quite certain it will
> work with CentOS arm build, but I have not tested it.
>
> There are two downsides to this board.
> 1 - the sata (and power cable) are sold separately
>
>
> Ah, I see it does have a sata port.  I missed that the first time.
>
> And it looks like it has the 5V power out that will hopefully power any HD
> up to 1A.
>
> If it uses the same uboot as the pcduino 3 nano, then I can take the
> Cubietruck image and dd the appropriate uboot and boot.
>
> Have you tested it?   The big test is to only have uboot on a 4Gb mSD and
> the whole image on the Sata HD and see if it switches over like the
> Cubieboard does.  Otherwise there is a lot of customization needed.
>
>
Yes, I've tested it.  It used the same uboot and kernel dtd as the pcduino
3 nano.
I have a couple of the pcduino 3 nano machines and ordered a couple of the
lite's, so I've used both.  I used the nano uboot on the lite and it worked
with no modifications.  I also did nothing with the kernel and it worked
great.

> I am assuming those 3 posts off to the side are for the serial console.
> Nice that they put it off to the side.  But that would mess up a case
> somewhat.
>
>
> 2 - It has the worst name I can think of.
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 5:33 AM, Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The features that have attracted me to ARMv7 are:
>>
>> 1) Power consumption
>>
>> My ROI on power savings was 15 mo. with the Cubieboards over my current
>> Intel SFF boxes.  And along with that is lower UPS requirements and
>> heating.  I have 5 boards, plus drives powered from one USB power supply.
>>
>> 2) Board size
>>
>> With boards the same or smaller than a 25" drive, I truly have an
>> appliance that can be placed anywhere.
>>
>> Now there are few ARMv7 boards that meet my exacting requirements: 1 or 2
>> MB ram (depending on appl), 2+ core, and SATA interface.
>>
>> If all I have is USB, then I get the USB/SATA adapter cost and powering
>> thrown into the equation.  Also a board that has been moved into the
>> mainline kernel and distro support.  RPi stands out as being a pain.
>> 4-port LAN features require kernel customization.
>>
>> I was talking with one manufacture that was meeting my main req at
>> $15/board.  But they went for a mass-market target and dropped the DIY
>> one.  I will be talking to them again next month. But their board is not in
>> the general sunxi effort.  Yet.
>>
>>
>> On 12/25/2015 01:33 AM, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>
>>> The big problems I have with the majority of the development boards are:
>>>
>>> 1) Memory
>>> On 32-bit ARM, the RAM was always limited to 4GB, which would be find if
>>> there were a significant number of devices available that ship with 4GB of
>>> RAM (minus the various necessary memory holes). But that simply isn't the
>>> case. I can think of hundreds of devices with <= 1GB of RAM. I can think of
>>> only about 4 with 3-4GB of RAM (of which at least 2 are deprecated and
>>> unavailable), including ARMv8 which is not limited to 4GB. And two of those
>>> four are laptops.
>>>
>>> 2) Memory Type
>>> We've been being told since forever that the main reason why ARM devices
>>> don't come with DIMM sockets is because they are 32-bit and DIMMs have 64
>>> data lines. Well, with ARMv8 we have those 64 data lines, and yet there are
>>> precious few devices available featuring DIMM sockets for memory. There are
>>> in fact probably more dev boards in SODIMM form factor than there are those
>>> featuring DIMM memory sockets.
>>>
>>> 3) Board Form Factor
>>> There are painfully few ARM boards in *TX form factor. Off the top of my
>>> head I can think of a total of 5, of which one is positively ancient and
>>> probably no longer available (Atmel, IIRC), one is deprecated, the
>>> manufacturer of the 3rd appears to have gone bust, one is on the
>>> underpowered side (VIA APC) and the 5th is exorbitantly expensive (at €800
>>> there is no incentive at all to buy an ARM board instead of a much more
>>> powerful, more fully featured and better supported Xeon board).
>>>
>>> Worse, these variously deficient devices aren't exactly cheap, either
>>> (well, apart from the Raspberry Pis). I find the lack of supply of boards
>>> with sensible features quite thoroughly baffling, especially since the rock
>>> bottom features (if they cut any more corners they'd be perfect spheres)
>>> don't match the relatively high prices.
>>>
>>> Instead of leveraging decades of industry standardization on the basics
>>> such as memory sockets, form factor (including power supplies), almost
>>> every ARM board manufacturer seems to be intent on reinventing their own
>>> wheels, and doing a pretty poor job of it, even though these problems have
>>> been thoroughly solved for decades.
>>>
>>> Not that I think any manufacturers are listening...
>>>
>>> Gordan
>>>
>>> On 24/12/15 21:20, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 12/23/2015 07:45 PM, miniNodes Info wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Lenovator HiKey board Jim mentioned can be found here:
>>>>> http://www.lenovator.com/product/90.html That is a 2gb RAM, 8gb eMMC,
>>>>> 8-core ARM64 board.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No sata for all that power.
>>>> And draws a lot more power too.
>>>>
>>>> I will continue to wait to see what the Cubietruck plus will be and how
>>>> much.  They put out the blog on it back in July.  And then Hans will
>>>> have to get one to make the uboot for it...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   They also offer a 1gb RAM version as well:
>>>>> <http://www.lenovator.com/product/86.html>
>>>>> <http://www.lenovator.com/product/86.html>
>>>>> http://www.lenovator.com/product/86.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Also worth mentioning, the Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c finally has been
>>>>> restocked and has availability now, located here:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.arrow.com/en/products/dragonboard410c/arrow-development-tools#page-1
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Even less in terms of interfaces.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> The URL for the PINE64 board is simply
>>>>> <http://pine64.com> <http://pine64.com>http://pine64.com.  That
>>>>> product is still being
>>>>> developed and funded via Kickstarter, so there is no general
>>>>> availability on that one quite yet.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, for now, I will stay with the armv7.
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
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