[fedora-arm] Raspberry Pi 3

[Jeffrey Ollie]

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry
Pi that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-on-sale/

[Peter Robinson]

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry Pi
that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

No, not currently, and certainly won't be in Fedora 24 unless someone
contributes a lot of stuff very quickly.

Why? There's no source (yet) for the new SoC, it's not upstream and
won't be until at least 4.7 (it has to be queued for inclusion by rc4
of the previous release to land in the next release) it supports a
boot process that is nothing like what we currently support for
aarch64 so it would need significant work for aarch64 in Fedora, and
the wifi firmware (looks similar issues that people have with Apple
Mac wifi) isn't currently in linux-firmware so it's not (as far as I'm
aware) currently able to be distributed as part of Fedora.

[Stephen John Smoogen]

Post by Peter Robinson

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry Pi
that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

No, not currently, and certainly won't be in Fedora 24 unless someone
contributes a lot of stuff very quickly.
Why? There's no source (yet) for the new SoC, it's not upstream and
won't be until at least 4.7 (it has to be queued for inclusion by rc4
of the previous release to land in the next release) it supports a
boot process that is nothing like what we currently support for
aarch64 so it would need significant work for aarch64 in Fedora, and
the wifi firmware (looks similar issues that people have with Apple
Mac wifi) isn't currently in linux-firmware so it's not (as far as I'm
aware) currently able to be distributed as part of Fedora.

At some point, I have to wonder if Raspberry Pi is just trolling us
with each hardware release.

Post by Peter Robinson
_______________________________________________
arm mailing list

[Jeffrey Ollie]

Post by Stephen John Smoogen
At some point, I have to wonder if Raspberry Pi is just trolling us
with each hardware release.

Yeah, it's really annoying that they keep using hardware bits that make it
hard for
distributions like Fedora that have strict rules about non-free software.

[Fernando Cassia]

Post by Stephen John Smoogen

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry Pi
that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

At some point, I have to wonder if Raspberry Pi is just trolling us
with each hardware release.

I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars. Plus, having those EXTERNALLY means you can update
to newer specs without switching mainboard.

Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.
Then one can hook as many external devices as needed. Want to turn the
Raspi4 into a gigabit router? just hang a pair of USB 3.0->GigE
adapters and youre done.

FC

[Marcin Juszkiewicz]

Post by Fernando Cassia
I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars.
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.

They should add USB ports first. Note that all they have is ONE
on-the-go usb controller. Anything you connect to USB share one port
bandwidth.

Note that BCM8236 (r/pi 2) was same as BCM8235 just newer ARM core was
used. I would not be surprised to see BCM8237 to be repeat + some SPI
bus for that wifi/bt chip.

[Peter Robinson]

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 8:34 AM, Marcin Juszkiewicz

Post by Fernando Cassia
I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars.
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.

They should add USB ports first. Note that all they have is ONE on-the-go
usb controller. Anything you connect to USB share one port bandwidth.

HAHA, that costs in terms of IP, space on the silicon and board routing ;-)

Note that BCM8236 (r/pi 2) was same as BCM8235 just newer ARM core was used.
I would not be surprised to see BCM8237 to be repeat + some SPI bus for that
wifi/bt chip.

To quote from the press release "For Raspberry Pi 3, Broadcom have
supported us with a new SoC, BCM2837. This retains the same basic
architecture as its predecessors BCM2835 and BCM2836, so all those
projects and tutorials which rely on the precise details of the
Raspberry Pi hardware will continue to work" ... on the plus side (and
I'm not sure this is) it should make the kernel patches to support it
tiny.

And for the wifi/BT chip if you google BCM43438 you'll see it's SDIO
and I suspect if you look at all the BCM283x SoCs there's a spare
MMC/SDIO interface hanging around somewhere.

[Clive Messer]

Post by Peter Robinson
And for the wifi/BT chip if you google BCM43438 you'll see it's SDIO
and I suspect if you look at all the BCM283x SoCs there's a spare
MMC/SDIO interface hanging around somewhere.

Yes, the wifi is SDIO attached and a UART, (ALT3/UART0 IIRC), to the
BT.

Clive
-- 
Clive Messer <***@gmail.com>

[Peter Robinson]

Post by Fernando Cassia

Post by Stephen John Smoogen

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry Pi
that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

At some point, I have to wonder if Raspberry Pi is just trolling us
with each hardware release.

I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars. Plus, having those EXTERNALLY means you can update
to newer specs without switching mainboard.

If they're aiming it at IoT products, which they seem to be doing:
1) dedicated bandwidth to BT/WiFI
2) more stable
3) cheaper when on board
4) generally less problematic

Post by Fernando Cassia
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.
Then one can hook as many external devices as needed. Want to turn the
Raspi4 into a gigabit router? just hang a pair of USB 3.0->GigE
adapters and youre done.

Again of no use for the target market, both USB-3 and SATA are
expensive from the $ to license the IP and the cost of board
components not to mention the power use, besides there's other issues
with the bcm823x design where the bandwidth is about as strong as an
asthmatic ant with heavy shopping. If SATA/usb3/GigE networking is
what you want there's dozens of ARM SBCs that are an order of
magnitude better than a RPi. Basically you get what you pay for....

[poma]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Fernando Cassia

Post by Stephen John Smoogen

Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, 64 bit processor. Is this finally the Raspberry Pi
that Fedora will run unmodified on? Sure hope so...

At some point, I have to wonder if Raspberry Pi is just trolling us
with each hardware release.

I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars. Plus, having those EXTERNALLY means you can update
to newer specs without switching mainboard.

1) dedicated bandwidth to BT/WiFI
2) more stable
3) cheaper when on board
4) generally less problematic

Post by Fernando Cassia
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.
Then one can hook as many external devices as needed. Want to turn the
Raspi4 into a gigabit router? just hang a pair of USB 3.0->GigE
adapters and youre done.

Again of no use for the target market, both USB-3 and SATA are
expensive from the $ to license the IP and the cost of board
components not to mention the power use, besides there's other issues
with the bcm823x design where the bandwidth is about as strong as an
asthmatic ant with heavy shopping. If SATA/usb3/GigE networking is
what you want there's dozens of ARM SBCs that are an order of
magnitude better than a RPi. Basically you get what you pay for....

Technically -and- financially wise,
what is most complete/compatible/friendly hardware/software arm based product/solution
towards Fedora/GPL?

[Fernando Cassia]

Post by Peter Robinson
1) dedicated bandwidth to BT/WiFI
2) more stable
3) cheaper when on board
4) generally less problematic

Post by Fernando Cassia
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.

Again of no use for the target market, both USB-3 and SATA are
expensive from the $ to license the IP and the cost of board
components

Cypress disagrees wrt usefulness of a USB 3.0 port for IoT
http://www.cypress.com/products/ez-usb-fx3-superspeed-usb-30-peripheral-controller

"USB 3.0 provides a 5 Gbps link that supports uncompressed HD video
transfer and enables applications such as DSC, DVC, webcams, security
cameras, machine vision, medical imaging, and surveillance equipment"

Well, the TI USB 3.0 driver IC costs between $2 and $4 a piece
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?site=us&lang=en&Keywords=SN65LVPE502&stock=1

" not to mention the power use, besides ..."
I get your point wrt maximum power supply over the usb 33.0 bus, BUT
USB 3.0 actually features BETTER power saving than 2.0...

http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2013/feb/implementing-usb-30-in-mcu-and-microprocessorbased-systems

"The new protocol also means USB 3.0 devices do not have to remain
powered at all times to answer the host polling. In a link with a USB
3.0 host and peripherals, the peripherals can enter and remain in
low-power states for extended periods"

Oh well... my point only was to stick to the "KISS PRINCIPLE". Deliver
a cheap simple board and let users add functionality to it externally
over USB 3.0 like lego blocks, without complicating its design w
features that the user might not need (I surely couldn't care less
about Bluetooth).

It seems I'll have to shell out the extra bucks needed for one of these puppies
while waiting for the elusive RasPi 4 or RasPi5 w USB 3.0...

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G143452239825

Wonder if Fedora ARM would boot on that at all...
FC

[Peter Robinson]

Post by Fernando Cassia

Post by Peter Robinson
1) dedicated bandwidth to BT/WiFI
2) more stable
3) cheaper when on board
4) generally less problematic

Post by Fernando Cassia
Much more interesting, IMHO would be the addition of a SATA port AND USB 3.0.

Again of no use for the target market, both USB-3 and SATA are
expensive from the $ to license the IP and the cost of board
components

Cypress disagrees wrt usefulness of a USB 3.0 port for IoT

I don't disagree it's not useful, but this discussion is _NOT_ useful
because _WE_ can't change the HW!

Post by Fernando Cassia
Well, the TI USB 3.0 driver IC costs between $2 and $4 a piece

$2-4 is 10% of the cost of a Raspberry Pi 3, please apply some
context, again not useful in this thread.

Post by Fernando Cassia
" not to mention the power use, besides ..."
I get your point wrt maximum power supply over the usb 33.0 bus, BUT
USB 3.0 actually features BETTER power saving than 2.0...

Actually that is a "it depends" because a GigE PHYS uses an order of
magnitude more power than a 100Mb PHY. It's not just about the bus but
what you plug into it. That is a big problem even with the RPi2 and
one of the reasons they upped the PSU requirements in the RPi3.

Post by Fernando Cassia
Oh well... my point only was to stick to the "KISS PRINCIPLE". Deliver

Your point is still pointless because it's nothing that can be changed
by people on this list.

Post by Fernando Cassia
It seems I'll have to shell out the extra bucks needed for one of these puppies
while waiting for the elusive RasPi 4 or RasPi5 w USB 3.0...

Buy a device that best fits your needs, if that's usb-3 then don't buy
a RPi device.....

Post by Fernando Cassia
http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G143452239825
Wonder if Fedora ARM would boot on that at all...

I've had some reports it works, we don't currently have a u-boot but
there is upstream Device Tree support for it enabled in out kernel.
Further reports are welcome.

Peter

[Jos Vos]

Post by Fernando Cassia
I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars. Plus, having those EXTERNALLY means you can update
to newer specs without switching mainboard.

I fully understand it. Devices with external stuff that can (either
accidentally or not) be removed or exchanged by users are in all kinds
of situations useless, as they dramatically decrease the robustness
of the appliances and at the same time increase the support costs.

This is not about developers that manage their own hardware, but about
real-life appliances made with a Pi. So for me it's the first Pi that
can really be used for some appliances, due to the built-in wifi.

Still wondering why they stick to 100 Mbps Ethernet, as I think 1 Gbps
is almost the same price these days.

[Peter Robinson]

Post by Jos Vos

Post by Fernando Cassia
I just dont understand why they insist on having everything onboard
(specially wireless) when usb dongles for wifi and BT can be had for a
couple of dollars. Plus, having those EXTERNALLY means you can update
to newer specs without switching mainboard.

I fully understand it. Devices with external stuff that can (either
accidentally or not) be removed or exchanged by users are in all kinds
of situations useless, as they dramatically decrease the robustness
of the appliances and at the same time increase the support costs.
This is not about developers that manage their own hardware, but about
real-life appliances made with a Pi. So for me it's the first Pi that
can really be used for some appliances, due to the built-in wifi.
Still wondering why they stick to 100 Mbps Ethernet, as I think 1 Gbps
is almost the same price these days.

Because it's usb2 attached, via a usb hub. The BCM283x SoCs have a
single usb2 controller for all the USB-A ports on the device (most
SBCs have a controller per port) and that controller is buggy so
couldn't even sustain the theoretical 480Mbps of usb2, which is shared
with whatever else is attached to the hub. So basically it would only
be a waste of money for increased cost so why bother.

[Clive Messer]

Post by Peter Robinson
the wifi firmware (looks similar issues that people have with Apple
Mac wifi) isn't currently in linux-firmware so it's not (as far as
I'm aware) currently able to be distributed as part of Fedora.

I'm not going to get into a discussion, I know why you don't like the
Broadcom license.....

Anyone who does want the wifi firmware/nvram.txt to use with the
brcmfmac driver, I've packaged it....

http://www.squeezecommunity.org/repo/fedora/23/SRPMS/brcm43430-firmware
-1.0-3.fc23.src.rpm

http://www.squeezecommunity.org/repo/fedora/23/armhfp/brcm43430-firmwar
e-1.0-3.fc23.noarch.rpm

Regards

Clive

[Peter Robinson]

Post by Clive Messer

Post by Peter Robinson
the wifi firmware (looks similar issues that people have with Apple
Mac wifi) isn't currently in linux-firmware so it's not (as far as
I'm aware) currently able to be distributed as part of Fedora.

I'm not going to get into a discussion, I know why you don't like the
Broadcom license.....

It's actually got nothing to do with me, we ship what goes into the
upstream linux-firmware repository. There's generally agreed legal
requirements for re-distribution of firmwares that go into that
upstream repository and if they don't conform to that requirement they
can't be redistributed by linux distros. This is nothing to do with
me, Fedora (or Red Hat legal) liking or disliking the license, I can
only presume, and may well be wrong here, that's it's the Linux
Foundation legal team that deal with those, either way they're not
there so it's a problem.

Peter

[Jared K. Smith]

Post by Jeffrey Ollie
64 bit processor.

From what I hear, they're still shipping it with 32-bit version of Noobs,
and running it in 32-bit compatibility mode. It sounds like they're just
interested in the speed bump in the newer SoC, and not in the 64-bit
capabilities.

--
Jared

[Zoltan Hoppar]

Hi,

I just want to mention that Olimex do completely FOSS solutions, and
trying to keep it so. Even more I don't get it why we fighting with
RSPi, and try to find like this:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY%20Laptop/
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/a64-olinuxino-64-bit-arm-oshw-designed-completely-with-kicad-is-live/
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/h3-olinuxino-nano-update-it-work-with-8gb-ddr3l-too-so-this-small-board-can-have-1gb-ram-also/

...and there is a chance to get more contributors:
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/tuxcon-2016-free-open-source-software-and-hardware-event-in-plovdiv-is-9-10-of-july/

With that project, as they release every bits of the design, possibly
we can win-win for each side more I think...

Zoltan

Post by Jared K. Smith

Post by Jeffrey Ollie
64 bit processor.

From what I hear, they're still shipping it with 32-bit version of Noobs,
and running it in 32-bit compatibility mode. It sounds like they're just
interested in the speed bump in the newer SoC, and not in the 64-bit
capabilities.
--
Jared
_______________________________________________
arm mailing list

[Jeffrey Ollie]

Post by Zoltan Hoppar
I just want to mention that Olimex do completely FOSS solutions, and
trying to keep it so. Even more I don't get it why we fighting with

Not that there's anything wrong with Olimex's products, but they certainly
do not have the marketing and community that the Raspberry Pi has. If
you're relatively inexperienced with electronics or Linux, it's worth a lot
to have a community like the Raspberry Pi has for solutions and help. If
you live in even a moderately sized metropolitan area there's probably a
Linux user group or hackerspace nearby that you can turn to for in-person
help, encouragement, and maybe even training.

[Jeffrey Ollie]

Post by Jared K. Smith

Post by Jeffrey Ollie
64 bit processor.

From what I hear, they're still shipping it with 32-bit version of Noobs,
and running it in 32-bit compatibility mode. It sounds like they're just
interested in the speed bump in the newer SoC, and not in the 64-bit
capabilities.

That's what they said in their announcement. Given that the Pi3 has 1Gb of
RAM the additional memory overhead of 64 bit might not be worth it.