| 00:32.14 | mnemoc | ManoftheSea: it was a bad translation of my thoughts in spanish :) |
| 00:32.34 | mnemoc | good night |
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| 02:58.44 | ManoftheSea | SMP would become AMP, yeah? |
| 02:58.50 | ManoftheSea | is a cool problem to have. |
| 02:59.33 | ManoftheSea | "Oh, I have too much work, time to spin up my higher steppings, I mean my 4 EXTRA CORES" |
| 03:00.18 | ManoftheSea | are the procs able to halt, when not needed? |
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| 13:21.01 | Gumboot_ | So, rhombus-tech.net actually links to #arm-netbooks (plural), and that has people in it. |
| 13:21.33 | Gumboot_ | And various people passing through. |
| 13:59.05 | A2Sheds | Gumboot_: what were you expecting? |
| 14:05.06 | mnemoc | a reference to the right channel maybe? |
| 14:26.51 | mnemoc | Gumboot_: can you invite them to move here? :) |
| 15:05.03 | A2Sheds | Gumboot_ : do you have link to that page with the typo of the IRC channel? I'll pass it along |
| 15:26.46 | mnemoc | A2Sheds: It was in the front page of the wiki, I already corrected it |
| 15:27.40 | A2Sheds | ah ok, I took the s of the end of the mailing list |
| 15:27.54 | mnemoc | :) |
| 15:38.44 | Gumboot_ | Topic could be set in that channel, so it points here, now. |
| 15:56.56 | mnemoc | only an @ of that channel can do so |
| 16:10.40 | Gumboot_ | Depends on +t; but nobody had set that mode. |
| 16:11.22 | Gumboot_ | But because I fumbled the syntax (Started a topic with the name of another channel) I did _attempt_ to set the topic in here, and at that I did fail. |
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| 17:17.31 | penguin42 | haha! No wonder it was so quiet in there |
| 17:17.41 | penguin42 | joined that a few weeks ago |
| 17:20.38 | mnemoc | welcome to the singular channel |
| 17:23.18 | penguin42 | and most singular it is |
| 17:23.30 | mnemoc | :) |
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| 17:37.40 | penguin42 | lkcl_: Somehow I get the feeling from your post yesterday that you had a really really bad day with uboot at some time |
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| 17:40.25 | lkcl_ | penguin42: *lol* not me. a friend of mine. |
| 17:40.40 | lkcl_ | actually, several people have had a really shit time with u-boot on OpenRD Ultimate |
| 17:40.52 | penguin42 | lkcl_: Yeh I've lost an afternoon to it in the past |
| 17:41.20 | lkcl_ | plus, think about it: the endemic GPL violations in china mean that there are *two* massive applications required to be reverse-engineered |
| 17:41.23 | lkcl_ | 1) linux kernel |
| 17:41.25 | lkcl_ | 2) u-boot |
| 17:41.26 | penguin42 | lkcl_: The problem is that while uboot loses people afternoons here and there, it does work on pretty much everything if you stroke it in just the right way |
| 17:41.56 | lkcl_ | yeah that doesn't strike me as particularly sensible |
| 17:43.07 | penguin42 | lkcl_: Have any preference as to an alternative? efi is unfortunately the direction it seems to be going, but you'd better add a few more $ for a larger flash |
| 17:43.11 | *** mode/#arm-netbook [+o A2Sheds] by ChanServ |
| 17:43.16 | *** mode/#arm-netbook [+o lkcl_] by ChanServ |
| 17:44.08 | mnemoc | http://kexecboot.org/ |
| 17:44.33 | lkcl_ | yeah i just saw that with a quick google search |
| 17:45.05 | lkcl_ | oo it's got documentation and eeeverything, woo-hoo! |
| 17:45.20 | mnemoc | it's from Ångström people |
| 17:46.16 | lkcl_ | ahh very good. |
| 17:46.27 | lkcl_ | that explains the handhelds. and means it'll be properly portable |
| 17:46.36 | mnemoc | yup |
| 17:47.44 | lkcl_ | http://kexecboot.org/documentation/how_kexecboot_works |
| 17:47.45 | penguin42 | There is another question of whether you actually need a boot loader |
| 17:47.55 | lkcl_ | fanntastic. good filesystem support! |
| 17:48.38 | lkcl_ | penguin42: effectively, no, but it's kinda a good idea. |
| 17:49.06 | lkcl_ | so you can offer recovery, multi-boot, upgrade and single-user modes |
| 17:49.11 | lkcl_ | or not :) |
| 17:50.34 | penguin42 | lkcl_: yeh |
| 17:50.47 | penguin42 | lkcl_: Incidentally has this EOMA board got jtag socket on? |
| 17:51.38 | mnemoc | penguin42: a10 gives jtag over the microsd slot |
| 17:51.54 | penguin42 | that's a curious place to put it |
| 17:52.19 | mnemoc | :) |
| 17:52.37 | penguin42 | so what do you have a dummy microsd card with a cable coming out? |
| 17:53.03 | mnemoc | http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9419 |
| 17:53.17 | mnemoc | then wired to a ttl to usb adapter |
| 17:54.20 | penguin42 | fun |
| 17:55.44 | mnemoc | but afaik the alpha eoma68 cards will come with extensions pins presoldered exposing real jtag and other stuff |
| 17:56.13 | penguin42 | ah good |
| 17:57.14 | penguin42 | can do all kernel fiddling and debug over jtag |
| 17:59.20 | mnemoc | you can have the serial console over the microsd too |
| 18:00.00 | mnemoc | and the bootloader supports usb to complete the picture |
| 18:02.10 | mnemoc | .... at least in theory |
| 18:12.44 | penguin42 | some of the boot loader issues are easier for an A10 board anyway - with it's own SATA and Ether on board you dont' have to worry about USB Ether puke |
| 18:35.36 | lkcl_ | yep there are actually 2 jtag ports. one is multiplexed onto one of the SDMMC ports |
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| 21:45.32 | lkcl_ | penguin42: that's why we picked it. typical usb-to-sata ICs cost about $1.50 and aren't particularly reliable anyway. |
| 21:46.12 | penguin42 | lkcl_: Yeh I've had bad experieinces with usb-ether |
| 23:25.06 | Gumboot | flicks to the channel in time to see "its own SATA and Ether on board". |
| 23:25.22 | Gumboot | Those are the two things that have stopped me buying any ARM board I've seen so far. |
| 23:26.33 | Gumboot | "in time" sounds a little too dramatic, looking at the timestamps. |
| 23:27.28 | Gumboot | And, in fact, I was trawling through logs of other channels on unrelated business, and I saw others with the same complaint. |
| 23:28.00 | Gumboot | The only thing missing would be dual ethernet. |
| 23:36.20 | penguin42 | Gumboot: Yeh, that would make a nice firewall |
| 23:37.33 | Gumboot | This was the OpenBSD crowd. The next blocker would be any firmware blob requirement. |
| 23:37.57 | Gumboot | Maybe firmware blobs are alright. Maybe it's just driver blobs that aren't tolerated. |
| 23:39.02 | Gumboot | I have mini-itx x86 box I want to rid myself of. I've been looking at ARM boards for ages but have always been put off by everything hanging off the USB bus. |
| 23:39.15 | penguin42 | Gumboot: I think this A-10 stuff is going to be free of firmware |
| 23:39.17 | penguin42 | blobs |
| 23:40.01 | penguin42 | Gumboot: TBH PCI-e would be nicer, but finding one of those that's fully documented is difficult |
| 23:42.42 | Gumboot | I actually run this box headless, so so long as it boots without graphics drivers I'm not worried about the nature of those drivers. |
| 23:43.10 | penguin42 | yeh |
| 23:45.14 | Gumboot | So how far away is an orderable A10-based device? |
| 23:45.32 | Gumboot | This isn't the same SoC as Ainol use in their NOVO tablets, is it? |
| 23:45.42 | Gumboot | I mean, the ones that aren't MIPS. |
| 23:46.07 | penguin42 | dunno - ref? |
| 23:46.22 | penguin42 | I asked aobut timescales on the list a few days ago, lkvl_ seemed to suggest low numbers of weeks |
| 23:46.51 | Gumboot | A close race with Raspberry pi, eh? |
| 23:47.08 | penguin42 | hehe I think the pi will get there 1st |
| 23:47.23 | Gumboot | I suspect that has USB ethernet. |
| 23:47.40 | penguin42 | it's also older CPU |
| 23:48.23 | Gumboot | I think Ainol were making some pretty wild CPU frequency claims, too... |
| 23:50.00 | Gumboot | http://www.ainol.com/plugin.php?identifier=ainol&module=article&action=info&articleid=426 |
| 23:50.26 | Gumboot | Oh, sweet. Last time I looked at that page it was a series of images, and couldn't be translated. |
| 23:51.14 | penguin42 | hasn't translated for me |
| 23:51.22 | Gumboot | Be careful if you're at work. Their Elf-branded product literature is more racy than might be considered SFW. |
| 23:51.48 | penguin42 | anyway, this board is an Allwinner A10, not seen the phrase 'Many core' before though |
| 23:51.51 | Gumboot | Oh. Me neither. I wonder why that is. |
| 23:52.03 | penguin42 | (which for a single core A8 core is a bit odd) |
| 23:53.28 | Gumboot | I asked around about that, and it was pretty definite that they're not going to make a multi-core Cortex A8 SoC. |
| 23:54.31 | Gumboot | One theory is that it's many application-specific cores, like an Amiga. |
| 23:54.46 | penguin42 | odd |
| 23:54.57 | Gumboot | On the MIPS SoCs Ainol were using they might have claimed "many core" from the GPU. |
| 23:55.36 | penguin42 | hmm |
| 23:56.14 | Gumboot | But I have their bottom-end device, and they advertise that as 1080P. It's an 800x480 Android tablet with no external video output. 1080P means that the decoder hardware can decode that and downscale it to the built-in screen. |
| 23:56.29 | penguin42 | haha that's incredibly shit |
| 23:56.38 | Gumboot | Basically, they just have a far more elastic notion of the truth than we're used to. |
| 23:57.06 | Gumboot | It cost 50 quid. |
| 23:57.18 | penguin42 | I guess can't argue too much at that |
| 23:57.29 | Gumboot | It's probably still not a good use of 50 quid. |
| 23:57.51 | Gumboot | I should really have made better arrangements to get myself to the shop. Had I known about the A10 at the time I would definitely have bought something. |
| 23:57.55 | penguin42 | looks around at his random collection of geeky kit in a similar price frame :-) |
| 23:58.03 | Gumboot | I've seen tablets in China with real ethernet sockets before. |