Re: Questions about the openblocks AX3/4
Tomomi Matsumoto wrote:
> Mr. Green,
>
> At first, I am very sorry that my reply is late. (misfiltered)
>
No problem, right now i'm just exploring options. Things probablly won't
reach
the stage of actually buying stuff until after wheezy releases (which
going by
the last couple of releases won't be until after christmas). With wheezy in
freeze the build hardware raspbian has (8x freescale IMX53 quickstart
boards)
is sufficient for the moment.
> Thanks for your inquiry and interest in our product:
>
>
>> 1: the website says it's only available in japan, is that a strict
>> policy or can it be bent?
>>
>
> In the near future we'll sell AX3 overseas. As of now we are selling
> samples to developers only, thus I would like you to give us your
> profile
My name is Peter Michael Green, i'm a phd student at the university of
manchester
I started using arm linux systems for embedded functions and got
involved with
the debian arm porters (I'd been contributing to debian on and off for a
while
before that but i'd never got deeply involved with any specific group
previously).
and started helping with the effort to get the armhf port up to release
status.
As part of doing so I got to know the arm porters and with their
encouragement
I went through the application process and became a dd.
Some time after that I got involved in the raspberry Pi community and
specifically got involved with a project to rebuild debian for armv6
hardfloat for use on the Pi. That project became know as raspbian
and is the reason i'm now investigating build hardware options.
(like debian themselves we build stuff natively)
> and some informations; Contact informations,
You already have my email address, i'll give you further contact
information if and when I decide to buy one.
> detail usage of AX3,
> the possibility to publish or give us the result report document(s).
>
If I were to buy openblocks systems (i'm looking at several options)
they would be used as build hardware for raspbian. Our build logs
including information on time take are public now and I would expect
them to remain so as and when we move to new build hardware.
>> 2: Are the controllers for all the sata and ethernet ports built into
>> the SoC? (from looking at marvell's site i'm guessing the answer is yes
>> but i'd like to know for sure) If not how are the controllers for them
>> connected? PCI? PCIe? USB?
>>
>
> Yes. All SATA and Ethernet ports are built into the SoC.
>
This is very good to hear and a definate plus point for the platform.
>> 4: Is kernel support upstreamed? if not do you maintain support for
>> recent kernels?
>>
>
> As of today we are not upstream kernel support. We are just trying to
> maintain the kernel as resent one, based on the newest version brought
> uus by Marvell.
>
> A SOHO developer (not our staff) offered to do that, though this has not
> made it yet.
>
Good to hear
A couple more questions
5: is 3GB just the largest ammount of ram you have tested or is there
some limit that prevents using larger modules? (I ask because i've seen
other armardaXP based stuff claim to support more)
6: what speed are the SATA interfaces?
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