[Arm-dev] List of 64-bit hardware for testing?
Robert Moskowitz
rgm at htt-consult.com
Fri Dec 25 19:07:50 UTC 2015
On 12/25/2015 01:58 PM, Troy Dawson wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 11:31 AM, Robert Moskowitz
> <rgm at htt-consult.com <mailto: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 just ordered one. I will see how it goes and make an acrylic standoff
arrangement for it and a drive. I wnet cheap on delivery so I won't see
it until the 4th.
I am going to see if with Centos, I can control the adunino connectors
and have some sensors working off the board.
But I really want to find an affordable 4 core as I have mentioned before.
>
>
> 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 <mailto: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
>>
>>
>> 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. 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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