Re: [fedora-arm] EOMA68-A20 CPU Card and Improv Engineering Board available for sale
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 09:23:30PM +0000, luke.leighton wrote:
>> hoooray, hooray, finally we're on to a non-CE/non-FCC beta run. $75
>> plus tax & shipping via our 3rd party partners. specs at the link
>> below. anyone on debian-arm or fedora-arm who would like to order one
>> and would like a preorder code so as to be able to jump the first-come
>> first-served queue (i have a few available) please contact me directly
>> for instructions ok?
>>
>> http://eoma68-a20.qimod.com/improv.html
>
> I have to admit this website and the ones linked from it leave me
> more confused than when I started.
awesome! there's a lot of history behind this project - it's been in
development for over 2 years.
> Is this a PCMCIA card?
no.
> That sounds like an interesting form factor,
> but in that case how does the serial console work?
http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68
> Assuming it's a development board, not a PCMCIA card:
good call.
> - Why not give it more RAM?
because when we put out a call for funding nobody answered. as i am
not a PCB design expert we had to go with what was practical and
available, and that meant going with a reference design. that
reference design, at the time, nobody had ever tried 2gbyte of RAM, it
was with an A10 not an A20, and we were not about to risk what money
*was* available on the offchance that 2gb of RAM *might* work.
later we will do a 2gb version with a 1gbit ETH PHY. but for that to
happen we will need sales of _this_ card first. you can always
upgrade, and either reuse the old one in other products or sell it on
ebay.
> The A20 can address up to 2GB which
> I consider to be an absolute minimum for serious work.
then i recommend you get a cubieboard2. same CPU, same features,
roughly same size.
> - Why not include a CP2102-type UART-USB chip so you can just plug it
> directly into USB to get a serial console. IMHO serial ports are
> requirements for development boards, not something that everyone
> should be forced to buy separately.
that is a decision that is made by I/O Board designers. if you would
like a CP2102-type UART-USB chip on-board then you can, in this
particular case, download the schematics and PCB design files which
will be released under the GPL and you can make the necessary
modifications yourself, then either submit them back to the designers
or you can sell the boards yourself.
> - Precisely what patches are required to get the upstream kernel to work?
see http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort
> Rich.
>
> --
> Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
> virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines. Boot with a
> live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into KVM guests.
> http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v
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