Well, ok, but unless I'm going to do some ridiculous amount of paging, I can't really take advantage of the 64-bit much. And in the meantime my 64-bit executables will suffer from larger pointers.
The stuff that arm does well (IMO) is stuff that uses Python and other high-level languages. Those tend to port with little to no effort. Yet they use a ton of indirection so the size of those pointers really matters for memory consumption.
$15 for an ARM board still seems like decent value, though.
On x86-64, Linux supports a 'x32' mode which gives all of the advantages of the 64 bit ISA, but with a 32 bit memory model, meaning that programs using lots of pointers will take up far less memory (but still get to use the extra registers & instructions), leading to faster code. You can run x32 binaries inside a 64 bit kernel (ubuntu offers several packages, for example)
OTOH I don't know if the ARM64 ISA offers many other improvements to make a similar 32-in-64 kind of mode worthwhile.
* Anyone remember the 8088?
Yeah, I kinda doubt AARCH64 is that much better.
http://makezine.com/2015/12/09/the-15-pine64-just-launched-o...
IMO this is the major downside to Raspberry Pi alternatives like the Orange Pi and this. The Raspberry Pi is more expensive, but at least there's more documentation available, an effort to merge kernel stuff upstream, and there are even people working in getting proper, blob-free Mesa drivers working: https://wiki.freedesktop.org/dri/VC4/
With that said, it's nice to see cheap ARM64 development platforms becoming available, even if they aren't as open/supported as they should be.
Unfortunately, this is using Allwinner's new A64 chip and I don't think the unofficial sunxi community that provides open source support for their hardware has even looked at supporting that chip yet. Also, whether support materializes depends heavily on how much the companies that are selling boards based on it care about open source, and well...
^^This is the ultimate take-away, yes.
Over the past year, 64-bit ARM development platforms have dropped in price from the $2999 Opteron A1100 to the $79 Dragonboard, and now to the $15 PINE64.
They do feel that no one is going to sell junk labeled as 64-bits, and I mean come on, why would the manufacturer display it's got 64-bits unless it was really important?
In case you are wondering how serious are they(pine) about software support here is a hint:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/linux-sunxi/Ze_UhiO0...
http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/491-need-help-on-pi...
TLDR: they plan to maybe send TWO boards to developers...
A reasonable amount of my network at home is run by an aging and ailing Dreamplug - ARMv5 and remarkably sturdy. I'm still looking for a viable replacement. I was hoping to jump to a Pogoplug (same SoC, but USB3) but I (soft-)bricked it upgrading uBoot.
The now-worthless Australian dollar makes most of these things much more expensive, but it really looks like my choices are expensive industrial boards with nebulous support arrangements or giving up on ARM entirely.
[1] http://www.miniusa.com/content/miniusa/en/model/countryman.h... [2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487046155045761728... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Countryman#Reception
I get it that most of these boards are just phone processors, but having wired ethernet and a decent storage mechanism allow them to be used as speedy little NAS's, video servers, desktop machines, whatever.
USB2 storage is pretty much stuck at ~30MB/sec, around the same max that is possible with SD. Its probably faster to run the storage over the gbit ethernet port.
