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

Wed Dec 23 23:41:46 UTC 2015
Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>


On 12/23/2015 06:28 PM, Jim Perrin wrote:
>
> On 12/23/2015 05:01 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>> I've been lurking for a while hoping to see someone call out some
>> specs, but I don't recall seeing them. My apologies in advance of this
>> is a redundant question.
>>
>> I'm interested in inexpensive hardware to test for arm64/aarch64, but
>> I'm having trouble finding them.
> Everyone is. It's not as widely available as I'd like yet.
>
>> For example, [1] lists a X-C1 Basic dev board, but its $1495 USD [2]
>> (add $1000 USD for the Plus kit). Another example is the AMD Opteron
>> A1100 dev kit at $3000 USD [6]. As another example, I purchased both
>> an HTC 510 Desire and a Samsung Galaxy Core-Prime because both were
>> supposed to be 64-bit ARMv8 [3,4]. But after the press release and
>> conversion to the US market, they arrived as 32-bit ARMv7.
>>
>> First question... Does Cent maintain a list of inexpensive hardware
>> for testing? If so, would someone point me to it? I understand the
>> list is subjective and it will become stale over time. That's a
>> different problem (and a problem I wish I had).
>
> Not really. As the arm64 maintainer I can share the list of what I have
> for testing, and what I would recommend for cheap.
>
>
> What we build/test against currently:
>
> 1. APM mustang board, which you've already listed above.
> 2. AMD Seattle board, which you've also listed above.
> 3. Cavium ThunderX.
>
> These are mostly server platforms and aren't cheap for the home user.
>
> What I'd recommend:
>
> Keep an eye on 96boards.com. They have a Hikey, and will soon have a
> Huskey board which should work ootb. These are both far less expensive.
>
> Lenovator offers a Hikey with more ram and a larger emmc. It's roughly
> $100 (US).

Interesting.  Can you provide a URL for this board and such.  A 
Cubietruck is ~$90.  So this is a very interesting data point.

>
> Gigabyte's MP30-AR0 board (based on APM's mustang) should work with
> CentOS OOTB as well, and will hopefully be reasonably priced.
>
> Soon I'll have a pine64 board as well. I'm hoping to be able to add that
> to the list of things we support.
>
>> Second question... Or, is it possible to get SSH access to one of the
>> machines provided by Applied Micro or AMD [1,6]? GNU has a compile
>> farm (http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm) I can test with, and I'm
>> wondering if Cent does the same.
>
> Sadly, no. We don't have enough to offer up ssh access. We will be
> adding an aarch64/arm64 box to the community build service though, so
> you would be able to build against the platform, but no direct ssh access.
>
>
>> Last question... Has anyone tried using the Android TV boxes [5] for
>> testing? They appear to be inexpensive (around $100 USD) and some
>> appear to be ARMv8 with multiple 64-bit cores (Cortex-A53 and
>> Cortex-A57).
> I haven't, but keep in mind not all ARM is created equal. We've built
> things up to target the server standards, SBBR and SBSA. The TL;DR there
> for most folks is "boots via UEFI". Lots of the lower end boxen like the
> Android TV are using uboot with custom kernel support, etc. This means
> that the userspace should work, but actually booting the box would be
> questionable, depending on if the vendor's done something funky with the
> kernel, uboot, etc.
>
>> (Its definitely like Perrin said, "Hardware really is the best sort of
>> gift..." [6]).
> It absolutely is, and I'm hoping it becomes more generally available
> early in 2016. I'd love to have a larger community who can engage and
> participate.
>
>