Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 15:03:10 -0800 From: Russell Haley <russ.haley@gmail.com> To: ticso@cicely.de Cc: =?UTF-8?Q?Hagen_K=C3=BChl?= <hagen@nornagest.de>, "freebsd-arm@freebsd.org" <freebsd-arm@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Durable/serious arm hardware ? Message-ID: <CABx9NuT6TDnsGdTvb=pFetzjgUw2jGkjb0eQ5tMgdxvGbtPPoA@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20170124194641.GH85666@cicely7.cicely.de> References: <45d41ec7-3004-ea6c-560e-50bdff9b997a@caliopea.com> <CAKAfi7yjJ0vsvc7DORL00KaWOpr=H36F-hz8NY-FoW_jdybTHQ@mail.gmail.com> <20170123211201.58eb947e@kvoth.localdomain> <20170124194641.GH85666@cicely7.cicely.de>
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On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 11:46 AM, Bernd Walter <ticso@cicely7.cicely.de> wr= ote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 09:12:01PM +0100, Hagen K=C3=BChl wrote: >> On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 01:07:37 -0600 >> Jim Thompson <jim@netgate.com> wrote: >> >> > We have a little two port router based on the same SoC as the BBB. I >> > selected that platform as one of the better supported platforms on >> > FreeBSD. It still took a lot of (months of) work to make the freebsd >> > (and subsequently pfSense) for it into something that could be a >> > "product". All the FreeBSD work is in the tree. Most vendors don't >> > do that. That's not a humble brag, it's a statement of truth. >> > >> > We're currently in discussions with a vendor to get the Ethernet >> > driver for our next ARM product, since, ..., it's not in the tree. >> >> It's great that you're doing this work, especially committing it back >> into the tree. >> >> What I would also be interested in, is a solution for an ARM based >> wireless access point running FreeBSD. Right now I have one of my >> Raspberry Pis set up to do it, but the wireless performance leaves >> something to be desired. >> >> Do you have any tips on what to use for that? > > I wished we had PCI-Express support for the iMX6. > A Novena Board (probably not easy to source in the long run), or a > Technexion board have Mini-PCIe slots in which you can fit WiFi cards. > SDIO-WiFi (unsupported right now) and USB-WiFi are not the best > solutions for various reasons. There are a few good iMX6 boards out there. There are quite a few things not supported unfortunately. <notice of amateurs opinion> SDIO wifi seems to be very common now, with quite a few chip vendors using it (But Mr. Chadd would be a better person to verify that). Using SDIO saves a PCIe or USB slot and can more than support 802.11n for throughput (from my understanding). </notice of amateurs opinion> The SDIO driver is in the dev tree, but Mr. Losh seems to be working on the arguably higher priority u-boot fragmentation. On a personal note, I just moved into a house and may soon have a spare room for a lab and some time to try and help out with SDIO or iMX6 stuff. Here's to wishful thinking! ;) Russ > On the other hand, if you can live with the mass storage constrained > MIPS based Atheros SoCs you end up with many good options. > The only downside is that running / on USB stick turned out to be > unrelyable for unknown reasons on any Atheros SoC based board I've tested= . > >> > The SoC vendors all have Linux on the brain. They see a much larger >> > market there. Convincing them to dedicate resources to FreeBSD can be >> > challenging. One of the things we've been able to do with pfSense is >> > to show real volume for a FreeBSD based application. I can go to a >> > SoC vendor (TI, Marvell, etc) and talk about committing to, say, N x >> > 10K+ unit volumes. That tends to help get their attention. The >> > Foundation helps a lot here, too, which is why I won't take >> > "donations" for pfsense and instead direct people to donate to the >> > FreeBSD Foundation. >> > >> > In closing, the board you name are all "developer / hobbyist" boards, >> > and may not have the level of engineering in them that it takes to >> > make into a product. At least two of them are price-supported, where >> > a non-profit gets some portion of the BoM discounted, which makes for >> > a very low-price board, but also brings some short-cutting (try to >> > get a warranty claim on a BBB or RPi). >> > >> > Jim >> _______________________________________________ >> freebsd-arm@freebsd.org mailing list >> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-arm >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-arm-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > -- > B.Walter <bernd@bwct.de> http://www.bwct.de > Modbus/TCP Ethernet I/O Baugruppen, ARM basierte FreeBSD Rechner uvm. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-arm@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-arm > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-arm-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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