[Arm-dev] What's the best support hardware model ?

Tue Dec 1 13:07:35 UTC 2015
Gordan Bobic <gordan at redsleeve.org>

On 2015-12-01 12:59, PixelDrift.NET Sam wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 11:46 PM, Gordan Bobic <gordan at redsleeve.org> 
> wrote:
>> On 2015-12-01 12:36, Karanbir Singh wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 01/12/15 12:32, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 2015-12-01 12:12, Karanbir Singh wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 01/12/15 10:11, Andreas Reschke wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi there,
>>>>>> I want to replace some servers (SOHO, Mail-, web-, Infrastructure,
>>>>>> X86_64, all with CentOS) with ARM-Servers. I've a /home-Server 
>>>>>> with
>>>>>> Odroid XU4 (Cloudshell) with Fedora running fine.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Are there other ARM-Devices running CentOS easy?
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> there are -no- ARMv7 grade server hardware available, there are 
>>>>> single
>>>>> board units, none of which are capable of running infrastructure
>>>>> services for any reasonable performance. the cubietruck seems the 
>>>>> most
>>>>> 'capable' but still falls well short of reasonable performance.
>>>>> 
>>>>> There are however ARMv8 based server's that are available, the APM
>>>>> Mustang class of boards are well supported in CentOS Linux 7 and 
>>>>> are
>>>>> perhaps the most widely available.
>>>>> 
>>>>> this does however take into consideration my own interpretation of 
>>>>> what
>>>>> might be considered 'reasonable performance'.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ARMv7 server grade hardware does exist. It wasn't so long ago that
>>>> I was helping the guys at Boston get RedSleeve 6 getting up and
>>>> running on their Viridis servers:
>>>> 
>>>> https://www.boston.co.uk/solutions/viridis/default.aspx
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I believe the viridis platform has been discontinued for a few years 
>>> now,
>> 
>> 
>> Has it? I seem to recall getting RSEL6 running on it 4 years ago,
>> and it has had a refresh since then. If it has been discontinued
>> it must have been relatively recently.
>> 
>> And decent ARMv8 hardware is not actually that easily available, at
>> least in UK. There's a lot of posturing and press releases but very
>> little actual hardware to show for it. And if you can ever find it
>> commercially it is disproportionately expensive for what it is.
>> 
>> Gordan
>> 
> 
> My experience has been identical.
> 
> There appears to be a lot of talk around ARMv8, but I have been unable
> to find any hardware at close to reasonable prices (keen for
> suggestions).
> 
> I have been considering the Nvidia Shield while I wait for decent
> server hardware to turn up, can anyone provide feedback on this
> hardware?

If you don't mind it being in laptop form factor, the Samsung Chromebook 
2
is really quite difficult to beat. I just got the 13" variant (had to
order it from US, it's not available in other markets), and I am 
extremely
pleased with it (4+4 cores, 4GB of RAM, 1080p screen).

Of other for factors, the top of the line SolidRun Cubox is really good.

I have RSEL running on both so getting CentOS working on them should be
reasonably trivial.

Gordan