Plenty Of ARM Changes Queued For Linux 4.13

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Plenty Of ARM Changes Queued For Linux 4.13

Arnd Bergmann has sent in his seven pull requests of the many ARM SoC and platform changes targeting the Linux 4.13 kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.13-ARM

[uid313]

Is there any list of SoC which has checkmark if its supported by the Linux kernel?

[schmidtbag]

Is there any list of SoC which has checkmark if its supported by the Linux kernel?

I think technically all of them are supported, the real question is how much of the total chip is functional, and, what it takes to get Linux to run on them, because not knowing that stuff drives me nuts. That being said, I would definitely like to see a list of every SoC with several columns of what works and what doesn't. So for example the columns could be:
A. SoC name
B. Supported distros, or, newest kernel
C. Method of booting (ie, via SD card, SATA, MMC, Windows utility, etc)
D. Audio drivers
E. GPU acceleration (maybe specify what version of GL, GLES, or Vulkan are available)
F. VPU drivers
G. NIC drivers
H. GPIO, I2C, SPI, etc
I. PCIe
J. Overclocking support
K. Integrated sensors (such as temperature)
L. USB-OTC modes
M. Popular devices known to utilize the SoC

To clarify, would be a list of what works, not what the hardware offers. There could be an asterisk in certain columns signifying something like "no longer maintained"

[starshipeleven]

Is there any list of SoC which has checkmark if its supported by the Linux kernel?

You need to look at the wikis of the project that maintains them. sunxi project has a wiki that states what works and what not, for example.

[caligula]

B. Supported distros, or, newest kernel

Good luck with that. There are hundreds of distros and boards. That matrix would have tens of thousands of cells. Besides, if a distro supports at least ARMv7 board, it could probably support some others with a U-Boot & kernel update or with a vendor provided BSP.

[caligula]

You need to look at the wikis of the project that maintains them. sunxi project has a wiki that states what works and what not, for example.

Still, noobs can't really read those sunxi / meson / amlogic wikis. They don't know which chipset the board has and how to set things up manually. For instance, the kernel might support the Allwinner chips just fine, but it won't boot a board released 2 weeks ago and their CentOS or Debian stable distro might not provide U-Boot for that board. That's why it's safest to buy a RPi 3 as the system board for that super high performance NAS / router.

[schmidtbag]

You need to look at the wikis of the project that maintains them. sunxi project has a wiki that states what works and what not, for example.

Wikis are very helpful, but only if you already own the device. When trying to search for a device to buy, it's very tedious to skim through wiki after wiki to see what suits you needs best. Some ARM devices have fantastic hardware support and offer a relatively user-friendly experience, while others are a complete nightmare or waste of time. It's difficult to know which does what it says it will, or, does what the hardware should theoretically be capable of. Having one big list telling you all of this would be nice. I'd consider starting a Wikipedia page but who knows how much people will actually maintain it, because I certainly don't feel like regularly keeping up with it.

Good luck with that. There are hundreds of distros and boards. That matrix would have tens of thousands of cells. Besides, if a distro supports at least ARMv7 board, it could probably support some others with a U-Boot & kernel update or with a vendor provided BSP.

Well I wasn't referring to sub-distros, and, I was focusing primarily on distros with official support. But remember, this is ARM we're talking about. Pretty much the only distros with active ARM repos are Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, ROS, Yocto, and Angstrom. I feel like there's one I'm forgetting but I think it was Ubuntu based anyway.

[starshipeleven]

Still, noobs can't really read those sunxi / meson / amlogic wikis. They don't know which chipset the board has and how to set things up manually.

Huh? Please explain why people that can't fucking read a wiki or find what SoC has their devboard are buying a devboard in the first place?

For instance, the kernel might support the Allwinner chips just fine, but it won't boot a board released 2 weeks ago and their CentOS or Debian stable distro might not provide U-Boot for that board.

Nor they provide any kind of pre-made image for that matter, so I don't see the issue here.

That's why it's safest to buy a RPi 3 as the system board for that super high performance NAS / router.

Yeah we all knew this was where you wanted to bring the reader, stop pushing Raspi, it's not for NAS/router jobs.

[starshipeleven]

Wikis are very helpful, but only if you already own the device. When trying to search for a device to buy, it's very tedious to skim through wiki after wiki to see what suits you needs best.

I know, my advice wasn't "wiki are the best way to have such info", more like "the info is usually there".

Besides, having such lists would be very useful for much other things too, like crossbows, slings, or knives. I mean it's not like we have such great resources for anything else.

Btw, on LEDE wiki there are tables you can use to narrow down the types of devices you want depending on hardware features and stuff (and unsupported components of the devices in the list are usually listed).

Some ARM devices have fantastic hardware support and offer a relatively user-friendly experience,

Afaik only raspi and stuff supported by LEDE/OpenWRT have anything remotely resembling that (with Raspi having a longer lead). If you try to run a distro on anything else it's so painful you'll run back to x86 in no time.

Having one big list telling you all of this would be nice. I'd consider starting a Wikipedia page but who knows how much people will actually maintain it, because I certainly don't feel like regularly keeping up with it.

So you want stuff done for free for you? Sorry but I'm not sorry.

[caligula]

Huh? Please explain why people that can't fucking read a wiki or find what SoC has their devboard are buying a devboard in the first place?

The wiki won't list specific boards, just SoCs. Some boards require manually compiled kernels cloned from git. Unfortunately many buyers are totally clueless. For that matter, when I started with my Rpi model A 256MB few years ago, I knew nothing about NEON, hard float, I2S, I2C, PWM, CAN bus, ARM cross compiling etc. So it's quite reasonable to assume that many users just want a cheaper RPi alternative and know nothing about the domain. I've got the impression that for instance Orange and Banana Pi boards are especially designed as a RPi alternative for third world countries. The $25 price tag is not right for people who earn only a fraction of what has become the norm in developed countries.