[fedora-arm] 96Boards Enterprise Edition Cello

[Jon Masters]

Hi Folks,

I wanted to just drop a quick note that we're making *great* progress
toward having early 96Boards "Cello" boards for Fedora enablement
purposes. These are (AArch64) AMD Seattle based boards:

http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html

These are SBSA/SBBR compliant boards that (from a software point of
view) look just like ARM servers. They're also low-ish cost (for a
server - $300+the cost of RAM and disk, etc.). Yes, they're not in a
standard ATX form factor. We know this. Before you rant about that,
consider that the goal here is to give developers a tiny board on their
desk that happens to meet the software requirements for server - we all
hope there will be many more server platforms that are ATX size soon.

We ought to be in a very solid position to be able to support these
quickly in Fedora. I've got plans in place to get some early boards to
key folks needed to make that happen. I've also previously booted Fedora
on an early board with a couple of tweaks that need cleanup. I'll
followup with details, and with the individuals who are getting early
boards (they know who they are) to help get this moving.

Thanks,

Jon.

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Post by Jon Masters
Hi Folks,
I wanted to just drop a quick note that we're making *great* progress
toward having early 96Boards "Cello" boards for Fedora enablement
http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html
These are SBSA/SBBR compliant boards that (from a software point of
view) look just like ARM servers. They're also low-ish cost (for a
server - $300+the cost of RAM and disk, etc.). Yes, they're not in a
standard ATX form factor. We know this. Before you rant about that,
consider that the goal here is to give developers a tiny board on their
desk that happens to meet the software requirements for server - we all
hope there will be many more server platforms that are ATX size soon.
We ought to be in a very solid position to be able to support these
quickly in Fedora. I've got plans in place to get some early boards to
key folks needed to make that happen. I've also previously booted Fedora
on an early board with a couple of tweaks that need cleanup. I'll
followup with details, and with the individuals who are getting early
boards (they know who they are) to help get this moving.

This is good news, especially that they are non-junk SBSA/SBBR-
compliant boards[1].

I ordered one of these the day they were announced. Any idea when
they'll be delivered :-?

Rich.

[1] My rant and your talk:
https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/linaro-connect-jon-masters-talking-about-the-importance-of-standards/

[Jon Masters]

Post by Richard W.M. Jones

Post by Jon Masters
Hi Folks,
I wanted to just drop a quick note that we're making *great* progress
toward having early 96Boards "Cello" boards for Fedora enablement
http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html
These are SBSA/SBBR compliant boards that (from a software point of
view) look just like ARM servers. They're also low-ish cost (for a
server - $300+the cost of RAM and disk, etc.). Yes, they're not in a
standard ATX form factor. We know this. Before you rant about that,
consider that the goal here is to give developers a tiny board on their
desk that happens to meet the software requirements for server - we all
hope there will be many more server platforms that are ATX size soon.
We ought to be in a very solid position to be able to support these
quickly in Fedora. I've got plans in place to get some early boards to
key folks needed to make that happen. I've also previously booted Fedora
on an early board with a couple of tweaks that need cleanup. I'll
followup with details, and with the individuals who are getting early
boards (they know who they are) to help get this moving.

This is good news, especially that they are non-junk SBSA/SBBR-
compliant boards[1].

Thanks for the kind works :) I'm going to keep beating the SBSA drum.
Sadly on the consumer side of 64-bit ARM, vendors just don't care about
being successful in the mainstream (because they are far too naive and
not being correctly steered to do the right thing - and actively being
steered in the wrong direction by folks like Canonical who stand to
monetize the enablemement of each and every individual platform in the
wrong way for the industry overall) - they want to make hacks for the
weekend with random firmware that makes life nasty for everyone just
because they won't spend a few cents more on some damned flash with
decent firmware and do this like a real computer should be done. On the
server side, we have Red Hat influence, and I intend to keep using that
to force people to make useful, general purpose hw. that can run a
variety of Operating Systems like a real computer should be built.

In a few years, everyone else will start to wake up, once they see that
they could actually be successful with a general purpose approach. But
it's going to take 5 years for most of them to understand. And many
consumer folks never will understand how to build a real computer.

Post by Richard W.M. Jones
I ordered one of these the day they were announced. Any idea when
they'll be delivered :-?

The goal is ramp volume production next month. I'm getting regular
updates, so once we go to volume production, I'll get you a date. I'm
also working with that team on branding for the Cello, and would like to
include Fedora as well as CentOS and RHEL(SA). I've already mentioned
that to a few folks, and we'll followup properly.

Jon.

[Sean Omalley]

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 1:14 PM
Subject: [fedora-arm] Re: 96Boards Enterprise Edition Cello

Post by Jon Masters
Hi Folks,
I wanted to just drop a quick note that we're making *great* progress
toward having early 96Boards "Cello" boards for Fedora enablement
http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html
These are SBSA/SBBR compliant boards that (from a software point of
view) look just like ARM servers. They're also low-ish cost (for a
server - $300+the cost of RAM and disk, etc.). Yes, they're not in a
standard ATX form factor. We know this. Before you rant about that,
consider that the goal here is to give developers a tiny board on their
desk that happens to meet the software requirements for server - we all
hope there will be many more server platforms that are ATX size soon.
We ought to be in a very solid position to be able to support these
quickly in Fedora. I've got plans in place to get some early boards to
key folks needed to make that happen. I've also previously booted

Fedora

Post by Jon Masters
on an early board with a couple of tweaks that need cleanup. I'll
followup with details, and with the individuals who are getting early
boards (they know who they are) to help get this moving.

This is good news, especially that they are non-junk SBSA/SBBR-
compliant boards[1].
I ordered one of these the day they were announced. Any idea when
they'll be delivered :-?

I think these are great!! It is what I have been waiting to see. I put one on my wishlist. It will be a while.. Hopefully, we get some good reports in the meantime! :)

Sean