Re:Build your own bare-metal ARM cluster
by snuxoll on Monday December 24, 2018 @04:48PM
(#18754445)
ARM server platforms are moving to adopt standard firmware solutions like UEFI (yes, UEFI sucks in many ways - but A standard is better than what we have now) to start alleviating the device tree madness, just don’t hold your breath on it being mainstream for hobbyist/maker products anytime soon.
While the article talks about not being able to run x86 binaries on Arm, this is the real drawback to the platform.
I really wish we would see a standard Arm kernel instruction set come along and get adopted by every manufacturer who isn't doing something unusual enough to justify a custom architecture.
The ARMv8 server platforms follow a common standard, SBSA. Which is essentially taking the most-hated parts of the x86 platform, ACPI and UEFI, but once you suppress the gag reflex it does get the job done, and you have a mostly x86-like experience that you just boot a generic armv8 distro and it all autodetects stuff on the fly and it all just works.
Haven't heard of any of the single-board platforms adopting it, though.
That means you'll want to choose a platform that's very well supported by its parent company if you don't want to get stuck on an obsolete kernel in a year.
Hardkernel, who design and produce popular ARM SoCs, chose to produce x86 based platforms in the future for this reason.