Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 20:18:50 +0200 From: "John W. Kitz" <John.Kitz@xs4all.nl> To: "'Lowell Gilbert'" <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>, "'Elias Chrysocheris'" <elias_chr@otenet.gr> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: FreeBSD distribution for ARM processors. Message-ID: <000001ced0e5$80957610$81c06230$@Kitz@xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <44wql2in1g.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> 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> <44wql2in1g.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>
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Elias, Much appreciated. Regards, Jk. -----Original Message----- From: Lowell Gilbert [mailto:freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 7:42 PM To: Elias Chrysocheris; John W. Kitz Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD distribution for ARM processors. 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-product >> ion/) 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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