[Arm-netbook] ARM device - compiling linux software

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has
anybody got any recommendations for a capable board/device available
in the UK?

I like the wandboard quad myself, able to run debian armmp kernels,
seems to be reasonablly stable (i've been running the autobuilders for
raspbian jessie on them for a while with only occasional crashes which I
half suspect are due to my use of btrfs), has an a9 quad core processor,
2GB ram, SATA and serial console (full RS232 levels too so no need to
mess arround with level shifters). I'm not aware of any UK stockists but
mouser ship quickly and handle all the VAT/customs BS from their end so
there are no nasty financial surprises on delivery.

http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Wandboard/WBQUAD/?qs=cF9QIdCP5siVNjY/ywrBAA==

Other imx6q products like the cubox-i series are probablly similar but I
don't have personal experiance with them.

Stefan Monnier

2014-06-06 13:08:20 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has anybody
got any recommendations for a capable board/device available in the UK?

I'm using a cubietruck (Allwinner A20 with dual A7 cores). Works well
as well, though it's clearly less powerful cpu-wise. I liked its SATA
support better than the Wandboard's (basically, it provides 2'5" SATA
power as well, so you avoid the need for an external power supply).

The mainline Linux kernel support for cubietruck is not great but is
sufficient for sever-style uses (no video, no audio, no OTG).

Stefan

peter green

2014-06-06 13:52:58 UTC

Post by Stefan Monnier
I'm using a cubietruck (Allwinner A20 with dual A7 cores). Works well
as well, though it's clearly less powerful cpu-wise. I liked its SATA
support better than the Wandboard's (basically, it provides 2'5" SATA
power as well, so you avoid the need for an external power supply).

MMM, personally I just grabbed a 5V 3A power brick from the junk box and
added a SATA power connector so it could run both board and drive. Runs
fine though the PSU does get rather hot (I suspect this is because it's
not a very high quality PSU)

But I could see it being a pain for those who can't solder.

Stefan Monnier

2014-06-06 14:46:51 UTC

Post by peter green
But I could see it being a pain for those who can't solder.

I have done such soldering, so I *can* do it, but I prefer not to.
This way, I use a standard PSU with a standard cable.
There's no doubt that this is a very minor issue.

Stefan

Michael Howard

2014-06-06 19:12:58 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has anybody
got any recommendations for a capable board/device available in the UK?

I'm using a cubietruck (Allwinner A20 with dual A7 cores). Works well
as well, though it's clearly less powerful cpu-wise. I liked its SATA
support better than the Wandboard's (basically, it provides 2'5" SATA
power as well, so you avoid the need for an external power supply).
The mainline Linux kernel support for cubietruck is not great but is
sufficient for sever-style uses (no video, no audio, no OTG).

Have used cubietruck, seems to struggle with swapping, badly.

As you say, mainline support is not good and is obviously part of the
swapping issue I experienced. Maybe if I could get swap set up properly
on it it would do the business as the spec implies it should.

Cheers,
Mike.

--

Stefan Monnier

2014-06-07 02:34:33 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Have used cubietruck, seems to struggle with swapping, badly.

Hmm... haven't had any such problem.

Post by Michael Howard
As you say, mainline support is not good and is obviously part of the
swapping issue I experienced.

I've had some trouble with the gigabit ethernet (solved by forcing it
back to 100Mb/s), but other than that what's supported worked well.
The "not great" was more about the lack of support of various elements
(e.g. nand flash, OTG, audio, video, wifi) rather than the quality of that
which is supported.

Stefan

Michael Howard

2014-06-07 05:37:47 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Have used cubietruck, seems to struggle with swapping, badly.

Hmm... haven't had any such problem.

On one particular cmake build it hits 99% memory usage immediately, then
eats up all the sway you throw at it and eventually gives up :)
Not all the cubietrucks fault no doubt.

Post by Michael Howard
As you say, mainline support is not good and is obviously part of the
swapping issue I experienced.

Yes, the gig ethernet is dire but the cubie truck is no alone there. I
found no problem with the video (vga & hdmi) or audio but those are not
that much of interest for the task in hand.

Cheers,
Mike.

--

Stefan Monnier

2014-06-10 01:05:07 UTC

I found no problem with the video (vga & hdmi) or audio but those are
not that much of interest for the task in hand.

Then you didn't use the mainstream kernel, since they're 100% not
working there ;-)

Stefan

Michael Howard

2014-06-10 03:25:44 UTC

I found no problem with the video (vga & hdmi) or audio but those are
not that much of interest for the task in hand.

Then you didn't use the mainstream kernel, since they're 100% not
working there ;-)

That's correct, I didn't. As you say, support is sadly lacking.

--

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2014-06-10 07:28:55 UTC

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:25 AM, Michael Howard

Post by Michael Howard

I found no problem with the video (vga & hdmi) or audio but those are
not that much of interest for the task in hand.

Then you didn't use the mainstream kernel, since they're 100% not
working there ;-)

That's correct, I didn't. As you say, support is sadly lacking.

ian's committing debian-installer support soon for a number of
devices. the cubietruck is one of them. sata already in, sdcard
next.

l.

Stefan Monnier

2014-06-10 19:36:37 UTC

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
ian's committing debian-installer support soon for a number of
devices. the cubietruck is one of them. sata already in,
sdcard next.

The vanilla kernel already supports sata, usb, ethernet, and sdcard, and
in my experience these work very well (actually, I haven't tried the
ethernet with the vanilla kernel, the problems I had with Gbit ethernet
were with the 3.4 kernel).

There's further code available (in the process of being merged) for
NAND, IR, and a few more things.

OTOH if you need something like audio/video/OTG, you need to use the
sunxi-3.4 kernel which uses a fairly different codebase (uses
Allwinner's own replacement for device-tree, for example).

Stefan

Michael Howard

2014-06-06 19:13:57 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has
anybody got any recommendations for a capable board/device available
in the UK?

I like the wandboard quad myself, able to run debian armmp kernels,
seems to be reasonablly stable (i've been running the autobuilders for
raspbian jessie on them for a while with only occasional crashes which
I half suspect are due to my use of btrfs), has an a9 quad core
processor, 2GB ram, SATA and serial console (full RS232 levels too so
no need to mess arround with level shifters). I'm not aware of any UK
stockists but mouser ship quickly and handle all the VAT/customs BS
from their end so there are no nasty financial surprises on delivery.
http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Wandboard/WBQUAD/?qs=cF9QIdCP5siVNjY/ywrBAA==

Ok, thanks, will take a good look at that.

Cheers,
Mike.
--

Michael Howard

2014-06-21 14:44:34 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has
anybody got any recommendations for a capable board/device available
in the UK?

I like the wandboard quad myself, able to run debian armmp kernels,
seems to be reasonablly stable (i've been running the autobuilders for
raspbian jessie on them for a while with only occasional crashes which
I half suspect are due to my use of btrfs), has an a9 quad core
processor, 2GB ram, SATA and serial console (full RS232 levels too so
no need to mess arround with level shifters). I'm not aware of any UK
stockists but mouser ship quickly and handle all the VAT/customs BS
from their end so there are no nasty financial surprises on delivery.

Well I did give the Wandboard Quad a shot (unfortuantely). Not impressed
I'm afraid to say.

Sound support sucks badly (except for hdmi which at least works, but of
no real use to me), they are flakey (heat issues?) , tried two of them
actually. I could live with the heat issue but not the lack of audio for
my current project.

Mouser on the other hand did as you say deal with all the import crap,
they were excellent, very prompt too (amazingly prompt in fact).

I guess I'll ebay em and look for somethin else.

--

peter green

2014-06-21 14:57:33 UTC

Post by Michael Howard
Well I did give the Wandboard Quad a shot (unfortuantely). Not
impressed I'm afraid to say.
Sound support sucks badly (except for hdmi which at least works, but
of no real use to me), they are flakey (heat issues?) , tried two of
them actually. I could live with the heat issue but not the lack of
audio for my current project.

Sorry I should have been clearer, when I said I liked them I meant I
liked them as build boxes. I haven't tested them in other contexts so I
cant comment on the behaviour of hardware outside that used on a build
box. I have heard the IMX makes a lot more heat if you start pushing the
GPU than it does in CPU bound tasks.

OOI under what conditions were you seeing the flakiness? workload? case?
kernel?

Michael Howard

2014-06-21 16:05:55 UTC

Sorry I should have been clearer, when I said I liked them I meant I
liked them as build boxes. I haven't tested them in other contexts so
I cant comment on the behaviour of hardware outside that used on a
build box. I have heard the IMX makes a lot more heat if you start
pushing the GPU than it does in CPU bound tasks.

No need to be sorry, I asked for opinion and you gave it, for that I'm
grateful. Furthermore, my question was aimed at build boxes and I'm sure
I'll use them for that if the ebay monster doen't get them first.

The flakiness appears under general heay build workload scenario,
outside of a case. With a usb fan directly applied things improved
significantly.

Cheers,
Mike

--

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2014-06-21 16:18:41 UTC

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Michael Howard

The flakiness appears under general heay build workload scenario, outside of
a case. With a usb fan directly applied things improved significantly.

iMX6s are 45nm Quad Cortex A9s, and freescale (guessing here) may
have picked the "performance"option on hard macros which means they
need *four amps* on start-up, and need quite a lot of power running
100% CPU. theres a app note on power consumption by freescale and
they mention a worst-case scenario but i think this is well below
that.

l.

Erix

2014-06-09 07:18:45 UTC

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:13:57 +0100
From: Michael Howard <mike at dewberryfields.co.uk>
To: arm-netbook at lists.phcomp.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Arm-netbook] ARM device - compiling linux software
Message-ID: <539212F5.7070608 at dewberryfields.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has
anybody got any recommendations for a capable board/device available
in the UK?

I like the wandboard quad myself, able to run debian armmp kernels,
seems to be reasonablly stable (i've been running the autobuilders for
raspbian jessie on them for a while with only occasional crashes which
I half suspect are due to my use of btrfs), has an a9 quad core
processor, 2GB ram, SATA and serial console (full RS232 levels too so
no need to mess arround with level shifters). I'm not aware of any UK
stockists but mouser ship quickly and handle all the VAT/customs BS
from their end so there are no nasty financial surprises on delivery.

http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Wandboard/WBQUAD/?qs=cF9QIdCP5siVNjY/ywrBAA==

Hi Mike,

First of all, I don't have your experience & skill, but there is something
I don't understand.
If you previsouly used Axx Allwinner platforms in the past for making your
packages I presume you're mainly using this platform as "production"
platform.
So if you are turning now to a Wandboard that has a FreeScale processor how
will you manage? Are you going to use cross-compiling technic?

If so, how/what do you think of the Radxa mini board on thes matters?
What is your opinion?
It looks cheaper than the Wandboard?
http://radxa.com/specification/

Sorry in advance if I'm "out of subject".
Thanks in advance for your comments.
Regards
Erix
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Michael Howard

2014-06-09 08:25:30 UTC

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:13:57 +0100
From: Michael Howard <mike at dewberryfields.co.uk
<mailto:mike at dewberryfields.co.uk>>
To: arm-netbook at lists.phcomp.co.uk
<mailto:arm-netbook at lists.phcomp.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Arm-netbook] ARM device - compiling linux software
Message-ID: <539212F5.7070608 at dewberryfields.co.uk
<mailto:539212F5.7070608 at dewberryfields.co.uk>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Post by Michael Howard
Looking for another ARM device to assist in software builds, has
anybody got any recommendations for a capable board/device

available

Post by Michael Howard
in the UK?

I like the wandboard quad myself, able to run debian armmp kernels,
seems to be reasonablly stable (i've been running the

autobuilders for

Post by peter green
raspbian jessie on them for a while with only occasional crashes

which

Post by peter green
I half suspect are due to my use of btrfs), has an a9 quad core
processor, 2GB ram, SATA and serial console (full RS232 levels

too so

Post by peter green
no need to mess arround with level shifters). I'm not aware of

any UK

Post by peter green
stockists but mouser ship quickly and handle all the VAT/customs BS
from their end so there are no nasty financial surprises on

delivery.
http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Wandboard/WBQUAD/?qs=cF9QIdCP5siVNjY/ywrBAA==
Hi Mike,

Hi Erix,

First of all, I don't have your experience & skill, but there is
something I don't understand.
If you previsouly used Axx Allwinner platforms in the past for making
your packages I presume you're mainly using this platform as
"production" platform.
So if you are turning now to a Wandboard that has a FreeScale
processor how will you manage? Are you going to use cross-compiling
technic?

Well, all the devices are Cortex A9, all ARM v7 instruction set
architecture, so I don't have any problems there.

I use a combination of compiling methods. Preferably, for softwares that
are cross friendly (e.g. linux kernel), straight forward cross-compiling
on a desktop PC(s) running Debian using the emdebian tool chains. For
some softwares, not so cross friendly, I start the build on a native
device but use Distcc to distribute to the desktop(s) cross-compiler and
other native ARM v7 devices. On very rare occasions I've had to do a
complete native build but not recently.

If so, how/what do you think of the Radxa mini board on thes matters?
What is your opinion?
It looks cheaper than the Wandboard?
http://radxa.com/specification/

Does look neat and yes, does appear to be cheaper. Might take a punt on
one actually, see if it cuts the mustard. Thanks for pointing it out.

Sorry in advance if I'm "out of subject".

No need to be sorry, glad to hear from you.

Cheers,
Mike.

--
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Stefan Monnier

2014-06-10 01:11:26 UTC

Post by Erix
It looks cheaper than the Wandboard?
http://radxa.com/specification/

Does look neat and yes, does appear to be cheaper. Might take a punt on one
actually, see if it cuts the mustard. Thanks for pointing it out.

The RK* thingies are fairly cheap, indeed, but I managed to brick one
with a simple "dd" from Android and still haven't managed to unbrick it.

From that point of view the Allwinner ones are very friendly (since you

can boot from uSD even with a completely broken nand flash).

Stefan

Paul NeoStormer

2014-06-10 02:25:15 UTC

Yeah, RockChip ones are always a little dodgy (hence why they're the
cheapest), never had a problem with an Allwinner that couldn't be fixed.

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Stefan Monnier <monnier at iro.umontreal.ca>

Post by Michael Howard

Post by Erix
It looks cheaper than the Wandboard?
http://radxa.com/specification/

Does look neat and yes, does appear to be cheaper. Might take a punt on

one

Post by Michael Howard
actually, see if it cuts the mustard. Thanks for pointing it out.

The RK* thingies are fairly cheap, indeed, but I managed to brick one
with a simple "dd" from Android and still haven't managed to unbrick it.
From that point of view the Allwinner ones are very friendly (since you
can boot from uSD even with a completely broken nand flash).
Stefan
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peter green

2014-06-14 23:47:39 UTC