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

Fri Dec 25 17:00:24 UTC 2015
Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>


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

I looked at this when it was earlier mentioned here and did not see a 
sata on it, so dropped it.  can you point me to the sata board?  I would 
have to see how it compares to the Cubieboard2.

> 2 - It has the worst name I can think of.

It is kind of funky.

>
>
> 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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