On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 11:23:25AM +0200, Julien Cristau wrote: >On 06/29/2018 09:16 AM, Uwe Kleine-König wrote: >>> >>> [DSA Sprint report]: >>> https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/02/msg00004.html >> >> In this report Julien Cristau wrote: >> >>> In short, the hardware (development boards) we're currently using to >>> build armel and armhf packages aren't up to our standards, and we >>> really, really want them to go away when stretch goes EOL (expected in >>> 2020). We urge arm porters to find a way to build armhf packages in >>> VMs or chroots on server-class arm64 hardware. >> >> If the concerns are mostly about the hardware not being rackable, there >> is a rackable NAS by Netgear: >> >> >> https://www.netgear.com/business/products/storage/readynas/RN2120.aspx#tab-techspecs >> >> with an armhf cpu. Not sure if cpu speed (1.2 GHz) and available RAM (2 >> GiB) are good enough. The machine can run mainline Linux[1]. I think >> U-Boot doesn't support this machine in mainline though. >> >Rackable, while good, is only part of it. The main part is remote >management. I'm not seeing any mention of ipmi or anything like that in >the datasheet? > >2G is also way too little memory these days for a new buildd.
Nod - lots of packages are just too big for that now. So, here's a summary of the current build/porter machines we have for the arm ports. armel/armhf *only* build machines ================================= We're mostly using dev boards to build 32-bit arm stuff yet. * 7 Marvell Armada XP machines: dev boards supplied in a box, 4GiB RAM - see http://photos.einval.com/gallery/2014_marvell_buildd These are nice powerful little machines, but they're a PITA to manage for power (won't cold boot without a button push) and serial (USB serial exposed only). We have 6 of these as build boxes and 1 porter box, and I have a spare ready to go into service if desired. They *don't* have NEON, so we also still have: * 1 Freescale imx53 dev board as a porter box - old, slow Cortex A8 machine with only 1GiB of RAM. This works better for serial, but remote power issues again - needs a button push to cold boot. Will happily retire this once we have NEON available by default. Each of these dev boards only has support for 1 disk, so disk failures are painful. arm64 build machines ==================== These are all more normal computers, with better support for remote power and serial, DIMM slots, multiple disks, etc. * APM Mustang (X-Gene 1): officially EOL, but working fine for now. Normal server-class machine (although supplied in a small desktop case!) with some onboard server management stuff. We currently have one of these. We used to have more loaned/hosted by Linaro, and I've had an offer of more of these if we're interested. They'll build and run A32 (32-bit instruction set) as well as A64. * Gigabyte MP30-AR0 (X-Gene 1): server systems based on the Mustang core - see https://b2b.gigabyte.com/Server-Motherboard/MP30-AR0-rev-11#ov Capable of building/running A32 and A64. * AMD Seattle (Opteron A1100): officially EOL too, but working fine. Same as the Softiron 3000, 2U rackmount case. Capable of building/running A32 and A64. One of these has just been configured to build armhf only. Future options ============== I understand DSA's reluctance to continue supporting dev boards as build platforms - I've been the one working on some of these machines in the machine room at Arm, and it's painful when you can't reliably reboot or get onto the console of crashed machines. We've also had a spate of disk failures recently which has caused extended downtime. I'm just in the middle of switching the arm64 machines here to using SW RAID to mitigate that in future, and that's just not an option on the dev boards. We want to move away from dev boards for these reasons, at the very least. So, at the moment as far as I can see we're happy with our current arm64 build machines. They are ageing, so obviously I'm continuing to look out for new options there as well. *But* my priority is new options for 32-bit building too. Following standard Debian practice, we want to build *natively* (i.e. not using cross-building or using hardware emulation). Building 32-bit code on a 64-bit platform should not be an issue so long as the platform can also execute that 32-bit code directly. I am not aware of any 32-bit Arm *server* platforms shipping today. Some have existed in the past (e.g. Calxeda), but almost universally people have moved on to 64-bit now. The awkward thing that is now becoming more common in the arm64 server world is that quite a few of the vendors are not seeing any value in A32 support so they're leaving it out of their CPUs. We'll need to be careful about that. Options I can see today for new publically available machines are here. I'm sure I'll have missed something obvious - please feel free to improve on this list! * Macchiatobin [1] - based on the Marvell 8040 SoC (4-core Cortex A72), supports both A32 and A64. Standard format (mini-itx) board mountable in a rack case. DIMM slot supports up to 16GiB, 3 SATA ports, multiple onboard NICs. Supported in mainline upstream kernel. Console on USB :-/. Readily available to buy. * Synquacer [2] - based on the Socionext SC2A11 SoC (24-core Cortex A53), supports both A32 and A64. Standard format (ATX) board mountable in a rack case. DIMM slots supports up to 4x16GiB, 2 SATA ports, onboard NIC. Supported in mainline upstream kernel. I'm hoping to get some of these machines donated to us from Linaro. * Qualcomm Centriq [3] - based on Qualcomm's Falkor CPU. Only supports A64 - no A32 support. All the big features you'd want in a big expensive server (management, RAM, I/O). Development machines available, but difficult to get hold of for the general public. Supported in mainline upstream kernel, some of it backported for Stretch (9.5) in #896775. * ThunderX 2 [4] - Cavium's second generation of AArch64 server CPU. Only supports A64 - no A32 support. All the big features you'd want in a big expensive server (management, RAM, I/O). Development machines available, but difficult to get hold of for the general public. Supported in mainline upstream kernel. * HiSilicon D05 [5] - HiSilicon's latest AArch64 server CPU and board. AFAIK only supports A64 - no A32 support. All the big features you'd want in a big expensive server (management, RAM, I/O). Development machines available, but difficult to get hold of for the general public - I've been trying for a while with HiSilicon. Not sure about upstream kernel support. While they're on the lower end of this list, I think the Macchiatobin and Synquacer are probably our best bets *at the moment*, particularly when considering A32 support. In suitable rack cases with PDU and serial console, would those work for DSA's needs? [1] http://macchiatobin.net/ [2] https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/24/gigabyte-synquacer-96boards-enterprise-platform-is-powered-by-socionext-sc2a11-24-core-armv8-soc/) [3] https://www.qualcomm.com/products/qualcomm-centriq-2400-processor [4] https://www.cavium.com/product-thunderx2-arm-processors.html [5] http://open-estuary.org/d05/ -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. st...@einval.com Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I...
