Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 13:41:47 -0400 From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org> To: Elias Chrysocheris <elias_chr@otenet.gr>, "John W. Kitz" <John.Kitz@xs4all.nl> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD distribution for ARM processors. Message-ID: <44wql2in1g.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> In-Reply-To: <201310241957.23078.elias_chr@otenet.gr> (Elias Chrysocheris's message of "Thu, 24 Oct 2013 19:57:22 %2B0300") References: <001d01ced02e$aaf29260$00d7b720$@Kitz@xs4all.nl> <44bo2ekdj8.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <000901ced0c3$6bf791b0$43e6b510$@Kitz@xs4all.nl> <201310241957.23078.elias_chr@otenet.gr>
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For the original poster, I should point to FreeBSD's ARM support list, wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/ Elias Chrysocheris <elias_chr@otenet.gr> writes: > On Thursday 24 of October 2013 17:14:57 John W. Kitz wrote: >> Gilbert, >> >> Thanks. Do you expect this current position to change in the near future? >> >> The reason I'm asking is the fact that I get the impression that there may >> be developments in the area of hardware development such as the cubietruck >> (see >> http://cubieboard.org/2013/09/14/cubietruck-is-put-into-trial-production/) >> which move ARM based systems closer to general purpose platforms based on >> architectures such as i386, AMD, SPARC, etc. and which might warrant such a >> change provided that it is feasible from a perspective of distribution >> packaging of course. >> >> Regards, Jk. >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Lowell Gilbert [mailto:freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org] >> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 3:24 PM >> To: John.Kitz@xs4all.nl >> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org >> Subject: Re: FreeBSD distribution for ARM processors. >> >> "John W. Kitz" <John.Kitz@xs4all.nl> writes: >> >> > Can someone please explain the rationale behind not providing a >> > distribution for arm based systems, as it seems somewhat illogical to >> > me that distributions are available for ia64, powerpc, sparc64 (see >> > http://www.freebsd.org/where.html) which are considered Tier 2 >> > architectures while the official reason for arm being a Tier 2 >> > architecture is the fact that no distribution is provided for it (see >> > http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/arm.html). >> >> The ARM port is mostly used for embedded work, for which a formal >> distribution would not be helpful. There really aren't many standards for >> peripherals beyond i2c, so it wouldn't be possible to support different >> ARM-based devices with a single distribution. >> >> Be well. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >> > > Well, there are a lot of ARM processors, hmmm... microcontrollers or SoCs, out > there. And the differences between them are a lot more... The only common thing > they have is the ARM Core. The addressing space, the way they talk to the > embedded peripherals and a lot more are different on each of them. There are > also no specifications for the peripherals those boards should contain and how > they communicate to the main chip. There are even a lot more GPUs embedded in > those chips that it virtually makes it impossible for a single FreeBSD ARM > release to be deployed to all of them. One of the reasons for ARM's popularity is the fact that it can be easily licensed. As a result, a lot of ARM processors share chip space with specialized hardware. In other words, the whole point of using ARM is often quite specifically to make nonstandard hardware. > There are, though some very helpful tries to run FreeBSD in many of these ARM > boards. You can follow the FreeBSD-arm mailing list and the FreeBSD-embedded > list to keep track of what is the improovements on that area. Ganbold > Tsagaankhuu makes a great effort for some of them. And I really wish I had the > knowledge to contribute in this effort, as I own an ODroid-U2 that I would > really wish to see it running FreeBSD. Sure. Dealing with the ARM instruction set and memory interface is no big deal, but every new ARM system is essentially a different port, albeit often a minor one. > Cubieboard, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black (and many more) on > the other hand, I thing the effort of those teams is in a very good road to > success! So, I really urge you to follow these mailing list. I think you missed a word in that first sentence, probably a verb. But I assume you were pointing out that all of those platforms (and a bunch more) do run FreeBSD now. It's just not practical to have a single distribution that would run on more than just one type of platform.
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