On Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 12:14:54PM +0000, Gordan Bobic wrote: > On 05/03/16 12:00, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > >On Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 11:57:11AM +0000, Gordan Bobic wrote: > >>On 05/03/16 11:22, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > >>>I wanted to permanently get rid of u-boot because I want to see if we > >>>can turn these boards into real (SBSA/SBBR) server hardware that can > >>>run RHEL. > >> > >>Would putting UEFI image for chainloading onto the SD card not > >>fulfill this requirement without the loss of flexibility incurred by > >>losing the 1st stage u-boot loader? > > > >I'd really just like SBSA hardware without complications. If we can > >get that I'll purchase dozens of these boards for OpenStack > >development. If not, I'll be recommending Huskyboards :-) > > From what little I can find on the spec, it really doesn't look like > the Huskyboard is anywhere nowhere even near the same league as the > Gigabyte board. Not standard *TX form factor, one DIMM slot on the > underside of the board, IIRC, non-standard power input connector. > It's as awful a hack-job as most of the ARM dev kits. "hack-job" is a bit severe. The Huskyboard is a development board, not a server board. It has two SO-DIMM slots, so I guess it should take 8 or 16 GB of laptop memory, which is fine for our development needs. Not something you'd want in a production server of course. It will also have SBSA out of the box, so it'll just run RHEL (and, one day, Windows). It has a nicer processor - the AMD Seattle. It's also half the price of the Gigabyte. > OTOH, the MP30-AR0 is standard Micro-ATX in every way, and can take > up to 128GB of RAM (it's a bit surreal of amazing to suddenly go > from bashing my head against the limits of tiny memory on ARM bords > to one that I can just fill up with 128GB of RAM I have lying > around!). Believe me, I'm appreciating the 32 GB in this Gigabyte board, and may upgrade it to 64 GB. Previously I had only 16 GB in any ARM system (Mustang) which is usable, but a bit tight when you're doing lots of virt. > Softiron Overdrive 3000 comes close in terms of spec, but unlike the > Gigabyte, I cannot just click it into the shopping cart, hand over > my payment details and expect it to be in my hands 48 hours later. > And it is probably more expensive than even MP30-AR0. Existence is definitely good. That's why I'm evaluating the Gigabyte. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines. Supports shell scripting, bindings from many languages. http://libguestfs.org