Best board for ARM ?

Best board for ARM ?

[Claudio Scordino]

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Hi all.

Our company (Evidence Srl) is going to investigate the use of Xen to run 
concurrently Linux and a RTOSon a ARM device.
In particular, the RTOS will be Erika 
Enterprise(http://erika.tuxfamily.org <http://erika.tuxfamily.org/>), 
our open-source RTOS.
In the long term, we also plan to investigate and test possible 
solutionsfor real-time capabilitieson top of Xen.

We have seen at 
http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions#Hardwarethe 
whole list of supported boards.

Our question at this point is: which is the most tested and recommended 
ARM platformamong the ones listed?

Many thanks and best regards,

             Claudio Scordino


-- 

Evidence Srl
Via Carducci 56 - Localita' Ghezzano
56010 S.Giuliano Terme Pisa - Italy
http://www.evidence.eu.com



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Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Ian Campbell]

On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 16:44 +0100, Claudio Scordino wrote:
> Our question at this point is: which is the most tested and
> recommended ARM platform among the ones listed ?

Arndale and midway are probably the best. However both are difficult to
get hold of in their own way... Arndale's seem to take ages to ship,
while I don't think Midway is available to buy yet, and in any case they
are server class (i.e. not cheap).

Arndale is probably the best bet. Allwinner based stuff (aka sunxi) is
less well tested overall but might have better availability, it is also
super cheap in most cases (e.g. cubieboard2/truck).

Ian.

Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Dario Faggioli]

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[Adding Julien]

On lun, 2013-12-09 at 15:53 +0000, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 16:44 +0100, Claudio Scordino wrote:
> > Our question at this point is: which is the most tested and
> > recommended ARM platform among the ones listed ?
> 
> Arndale and midway are probably the best. However both are difficult to
> get hold of in their own way... Arndale's seem to take ages to ship,
> while I don't think Midway is available to buy yet, and in any case they
> are server class (i.e. not cheap).
> 
Since it's embedded, midway is particularly bad suited, I think, even
for prototypes (apart it being expensive and not yet available). :-)

> Arndale is probably the best bet. Allwinner based stuff (aka sunxi) is
> less well tested overall but might have better availability, it is also
> super cheap in most cases (e.g. cubieboard2/truck).
> 
Ok, thanks Ian for the info!

In case one wants to go for cubie, this is where all the information
lives, right?
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Allwinner

Is it still current? Have things got any better lately, from either
Linux or Xen side?

While this is, I think, the same for Arndale:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Arndale
which does look less "hacky", at least at a first glance...

Claudio, perhaps you can investigate how easy it would be for you to get
an Arndale board, and fallback on cubie2/truck if it's actually that
hard?

Thanks again Ian,
Dario

-- 
<<This happens because I choose it to happen!>> (Raistlin Majere)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dario Faggioli, Ph.D, http://about.me/dario.faggioli
Senior Software Engineer, Citrix Systems R&D Ltd., Cambridge (UK)


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Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Ian Campbell]

On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 17:48 +0100, Dario Faggioli wrote:

> In case one wants to go for cubie, this is where all the information
> lives, right?
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Allwinner

Right.

> Is it still current? Have things got any better lately, from either
> Linux or Xen side?

Things are improving wrt upstream Linux driver availability (for dom0
use), which is the main issue right now.

TBH I haven't reviewed the wiki page since Bamvor wrote it -- it
probably does need some TLC by now.

Ian.

Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Claudio Scordino]

Dear all,

thank you for your help.


>> Arndale is probably the best bet. Allwinner based stuff (aka sunxi) is
>> less well tested overall but might have better availability, it is also
>> super cheap in most cases (e.g. cubieboard2/truck).
>>
> Ok, thanks Ian for the info!
>
> In case one wants to go for cubie, this is where all the information
> lives, right?
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Allwinner
>
> Is it still current? Have things got any better lately, from either
> Linux or Xen side?
>
> While this is, I think, the same for Arndale:
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Arndale
> which does look less "hacky", at least at a first glance...
>
> Claudio, perhaps you can investigate how easy it would be for you to get
> an Arndale board, and fallback on cubie2/truck if it's actually that
> hard?

I checked.

Arndale says 4 weeks to ship, which may be a too long time (especially 
if not respected).

Cubie2, instead, is available in stock on several distributors.

         Claudio

Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Ian Campbell]

On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 09:11 +0100, Claudio Scordino wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> thank you for your help.
> 
> 
> >> Arndale is probably the best bet. Allwinner based stuff (aka sunxi) is
> >> less well tested overall but might have better availability, it is also
> >> super cheap in most cases (e.g. cubieboard2/truck).
> >>
> > Ok, thanks Ian for the info!
> >
> > In case one wants to go for cubie, this is where all the information
> > lives, right?
> > http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Allwinner
> >
> > Is it still current? Have things got any better lately, from either
> > Linux or Xen side?
> >
> > While this is, I think, the same for Arndale:
> > http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions/Arndale
> > which does look less "hacky", at least at a first glance...
> >
> > Claudio, perhaps you can investigate how easy it would be for you to get
> > an Arndale board, and fallback on cubie2/truck if it's actually that
> > hard?
> 
> I checked.
> 
> Arndale says 4 weeks to ship, which may be a too long time (especially 
> if not respected).

That's down from the 8-12 weeks which it was over the summer when I
ordered some at least!

BTW, what we use is the "Arndale-5250 Package-B" from www.howchip.com
("Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Cortex-A15 core 1.7 GHz").

There is a newer Arndale Octa (4xA15+4xA7) Exynos 5420 based thing which
we haven't worked with yet, I'm not sure if they are even available.
howchip says "coming soon", but for your usage I would avoid it for now.

> Cubie2, instead, is available in stock on several distributors.

FWIW I ordered a cubietruck (==cubieboard3) from cubietruck.com on
Friday just gone and it shipped today, arrival in "10-20 working days".
The shipping email says that Italy would be 15-25.

The truck has twice as much RAM, but uses the same processor as the cb2
so I hope it will be up and running pretty quickly.

Ian.

Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Roger Pau Monné]

On 10/12/13 10:45, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 09:11 +0100, Claudio Scordino wrote:
>> Cubie2, instead, is available in stock on several distributors.
> 
> FWIW I ordered a cubietruck (==cubieboard3) from cubietruck.com on
> Friday just gone and it shipped today, arrival in "10-20 working days".
> The shipping email says that Italy would be 15-25.

FYI, when I ordered mine (delivery to Spain), it took something like 5
days to arrive, which was much more faster than what I expected. It was
from this shop:

https://www.miniand.com/products/Cubieboard%20A20%20Dev%20Board

Roger.

Re: Best board for ARM ?

[Ian Campbell]

On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 10:54 +0100, Roger Pau Monné wrote:
> On 10/12/13 10:45, Ian Campbell wrote:
> > On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 09:11 +0100, Claudio Scordino wrote:
> >> Cubie2, instead, is available in stock on several distributors.
> > 
> > FWIW I ordered a cubietruck (==cubieboard3) from cubietruck.com on
> > Friday just gone and it shipped today, arrival in "10-20 working days".
> > The shipping email says that Italy would be 15-25.
> 
> FYI, when I ordered mine (delivery to Spain), it took something like 5
> days to arrive, which was much more faster than what I expected.

Right, I'll be pretty surprised if it actually takes 10-20 days in
practice, although perhaps Xmas post chaos might make a difference.

>  It was
> from this shop:
> 
> https://www.miniand.com/products/Cubieboard%20A20%20Dev%20Board

Yes, I've heard good things about them elsewhere too.

There is a list of suppliers at http://cubieboard.org/buy/ too which is
pretty big now compared with the early days...

Ian.


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