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

Fri Dec 25 19:07:50 UTC 2015
Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>


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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