My ARM grab bag device list

They say the first step of coming to terms with addiction is admitting you have a problem… I have a problem with collecting ARM devices… there I said it! How big is this problem you ask? How about I list them out and let you decide!

I’ll break the list down into categories as I believe it’s big enough to do so :-/

The aarch64 set of devices currently stands at:

  • 2x Applied Mustang (different x-gene SoC revs)
  • AMD Seattle
  • 96boards HiKey (hi6220)

The ARMv7 boards list is currently:

  • Compulabs Trimslice (tegra-2)
  • Toshiba AC100 (tegra-2)
  • nVidia Jetson TK1 (tegra-124)
  • Acer Chromebook (tegra-124)
  • BeagleBoard xM (omap3)
  • Nokia n900 (omap3)
  • Nokia n950 prototype (omap3)
  • BeagleBone (am33xx)
  • BeagleBone Black (am33xx) x3
  • BeagleBone Green (am33xx)
  • PandaBoard ES Prototype (omap4)
  • PandaBoard ES B2 (omap4)
  • CubieBoard (allwinner-a10)
  • CubieTruck (allwinner-a20)
  • Banana Pi (allwinner-a20)
  • C.H.I.P. Alpha x2 (allwinner-r8)
  • Snowball (u8500)
  • Compulabs Utilite (imx6q)
  • WandBoard Quad revb (imx6q)
  • novena board (imx6q)
  • RIoTboard (imx6s)
  • UDOO Neo (imx6sx)
  • Origen (exynos-4)
  • OLPC XO 1.75 – a number of variants (mmp2) xNumerous
  • OLPC XO-4 including XO-Touch (mmp3) xNumerous
  • Linksys WRT1900AC (armada-xp)
  • Mirabox (armada-370)
  • ifc6410 (qcom)
  • Parallella Board (zynq7000)
  • Raspberry Pi 2 x3

The Cortex-M series for IoT sensors is currently:

  • TI SensorTag 2015
  • ARM mBed IoT starter kit
  • BeeWi SmartClim

Other random related bits:

  • BeagleBone Breadboard Prototyping Cape x2
  • BeagleBone CryptoCape
  • Original 256Mb Raspberry Pi model B
  • Grove starter kit for BeagleBone Green
  • Explorer HAT
  • PiGlo HAT
  • TI CC2531 802.15.4 USB dongle x3
  • numerous random sensors

So the list above is the devices that I use for hacking on. I count 41 without listing out the dozen or so ARM based XOs I have (various prototypes and models). I also don’t have in that list phones, tablets and two drones as I don’t really hack on those as it’s not like with the list above I don’t already have enough toys! So do I have a problem?

3.16 Fedora ARM kernel status

So 3.16 is has quite a few new features in terms of newly supported devices, also some what surprisingly this blog post will be out before 3.16! In terms of new device support all the SoCs listed here are exciting for a number of reasons for Fedora ARM. Aarch64 (ARM64) makes it’s first debut with support of real hardware although we’ve actually had kernel support enable for it for some time in Fedora even if only usable on the glacial Foundation emulator.

The 3.16 release is also very likely to be the kernel that ships with Fedora 21 GA and with the Alpha due in about a month we’re starting to polish and test all the platforms and devices we want to support for GA.

Anyway without any further a do let’s get into the gritty details:

  • NVIDIA Jetson TK1 support: While we’ve had the basics of this for a while all of the bits are there now.
  • EXYNOS support: This SoC is probably the most asked about platform and finally after a long wait the multiplatform support has landed upstream. We currently ship around 20 dtb files for exynos4 and 5 (Chromebook support anyone?). Testing is sought and feedback and greatly appreciated.
  • Qualcomm MSM 8×60, 8960 and 8974 support: While the multiplatform support for these devices landed upstream a few releases a go they’re now to the point they should be relatively usable so it’s time to get wider testing. This should be the beginning of supporting the venerable ifc6410 and dragonboard devices.
  • APM X-GENE support: One of our first aarch64 supported pieces of hardware. Similar to the QCom SoC the initial support has been upstream for a while but with 3.16 it becomes usable with the vast majority of basic support upstream so minimal patches are needed. More on aarch64 soon.
  • AMD Seattle support: The other of our aarch64 supported pieces of hardware if you’re lucky enough to get your mits on a device.

The other feature we’re starting to see mature is GPU and Graphics support. I’m not exactly sure yet as to what the final state of this functionality will be for Fedora 21 GA but we potentially will have suppport for:

  • nouveau/mesa support on the NVIDIA Tegra K1
  • freedreno/mesa support on the Qualcomm boards
  • etnaviv/mesa support on i.MX6 devices
  • improved modesetting support for a number of other devices. Some of this has already landed and is usable in rawhide now.

What covered above is just a high level overview of what’s new in the upcoming release. There’s been numerous other improvements in existing supported SoCs and devices all over the place that would take too long to cover off here but in short with all the shiny that’s landed in 3.16 what Fedora ARM will look like as part of the Fedora 21 GA release is quickly starting to take shape.