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Date:      Fri, 4 Jul 2014 11:39:49 -0700
From:      Tim Kientzle <tim@kientzle.com>
To:        mexas@bris.ac.uk
Cc:        freebsd-arm@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: official packages for arm?
Message-ID:  <A273CC92-B007-46F4-9C6E-872A63EC8296@kientzle.com>
In-Reply-To: <201407041025.s64APml0031649@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk>
References:  <201407041025.s64APml0031649@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk>

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On Jul 4, 2014, at 3:25 AM, Anton Shterenlikht <mexas@bris.ac.uk> wrote:

> Few silly questions, please don't shoot.
> 
> 1. Why are there no official arm packages?

Nathan answered this pretty completely, I think.

> 2. Are there any specific arm considerations when
> building ports? To do with build time? To do with
> processor capabilities?

Biggest issue is simply that key ports still
don't build on ARM.  For example, a default
build of git breaks because libgcrypt requires
GCC 4.7 port, which doesn't build on ARM.


> 3. As a guideline, if using external disk
> for building ports (e.g. usb flash media,
> usb hard disk, usb SSD) is the I/O speed
> important? Or is the bottleneck the processor speed?

My impression is that I/O is the major problem.
Especially for larger packages where the compiler
can end up swapping.

> 4. Of the three external media: (1) usb flash
> drive, (2) usb hard (moving parts) disk,
> (3) usb SSD, which is faster in broad terms.
> I understand YMMV.

I haven't experimented with different USB drives.

> 5. The default RPI-B kernel is very lean:
> http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/sys/arm/conf/RPI-B?view=markup
> 
> Still there are things which (I think)
> I don't need, e.g. USB ethernet.
> Will I gain anything by removing USB ethernet
> from the kernel?

The on-board Ethernet for RPi is actually connected
through USB.  If you remove USB Ethernet, you have
removed Ethernet.

Removing what you don't need will free up more RAM,
which is always good.

Cheers,

Tim




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