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ARM Allwinner A10, Cubieboard Come To Coreboot

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  • ARM Allwinner A10, Cubieboard Come To Coreboot

    Phoronix: ARM Allwinner A10, Cubieboard Come To Coreboot

    The Allwinner A10 ARM SoC is now supported by Coreboot along with the A10-based Cubieboard...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Can anyone tell what's the advantage of Coreboot on ARM? Grub I get, since its command line is more useful than uboot's, and it can read a text conf file, but I don't see the advantage in Coreboot.

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    • #3
      The same advantages as on non-ARM, I guess? The speed, openness and the ability to choose your payload freely.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by curaga View Post
        Can anyone tell what's the advantage of Coreboot on ARM? Grub I get, since its command line is more useful than uboot's, and it can read a text conf file, but I don't see the advantage in Coreboot.
        In general, coreboot's ARM support is still under construction. There are a number of boards that are experimentally supported, but supporting more SoCs ensures that we build something for everything.

        As for the user benefits, firmware is supposed to stay out of the way, so end users won't see much of them. For developers (which are also "users" of firmware code bases), coreboot offers different design decisions in a number of places: We try to separate hardware init from "user interface" (where uboot combines both), we try to keep the hardware init part small (I think that was one of the reasons why the Qi bootloader project was started, too), we try to keep vendor branches at a minimum, and finally we don't shy away from tree cleanups across all boards and architectures (since there are few decisions that truly stand the test of time - and hardware progress).

        In the end we hope this provides a code base that is more pleasing to work with, but that's obviously both biased and a matter of taste :-)

        This is a general statement, so I don't know which of these things motivated Alexandru to do the port (if any), but http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/co...ry/076972.html points at least to the cleanup thing... If in doubt, it was "because - why not?"

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        • #5
          I would love to see a single-board computer like Cubieboard or Raspberry Pi but with ARMv8 64-bit architecture.
          Or with quad-core 2.3 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and Wi-Fi.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by uid313 View Post
            I would love to see a single-board computer like Cubieboard or Raspberry Pi but with ARMv8 64-bit architecture.
            Or with quad-core 2.3 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and Wi-Fi.
            Funny thing. I've also been looking for something with a bit more "umph". Eyeballing Wandboard Quad ( http://www.wandboard.org/ ) atm.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by log0 View Post
              Funny thing. I've also been looking for something with a bit more "umph". Eyeballing Wandboard Quad ( http://www.wandboard.org/ ) atm.
              Thanks!
              The Wandboard looks really amazing!
              It's not too expensive either!
              Could have had faster CPU and USB 3 though.

              I really wish there was a single-board computer built around the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 system-on-a-chip.

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              • #8
                Huawei Tron was announced today, it is an android games console for $120 (in china) inc gamepad with these specs:

                Android 4.2
                Tegra 4 (quadcore cortex a15 at an unknown clockspeed)
                2gb ram
                16gb storage
                802.11ac wifi
                bluetooth 3.0
                1 x usb 3.0 port
                1 x ethernet port (unknown if gigabit or not)
                micro sd card slot
                hdmi
                3.5mm stereo jack.
                Huawei game controller.

                If we could get ubuntu or another linux distro working on this it would make for a good spec low power pc.



                Source: http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/8/528...nsole-hands-on
                Last edited by hajj_3; 09 January 2014, 07:03 PM.

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                • #9
                  The Huawei Tron is also available with 32GB with an unknown price.

                  Here is a photo of the controller:



                  The circle in the middle is a touchpad.

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                  • #10
                    Odroid

                    I have an Odroid-X, which I purchase last year. It's now been superseded by the Odroid-XU ($139):



                    ...and the less expensive Odroid-U3 ($59):



                    As yet, no 64-bit Odroid board, but I would guess it will be available sometime in 2014. No idea what the price would be. I'm torn between upgrading to the XU now or waiting for a 64-bit board.

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