[9fans] ARM based terminal?

[9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Steve Simon]

I want to build a net booting silent plan9 terminal
which will talk to a usb keyboard and mouse, and
will drive an HDMI monitor at somthing like 1900x1200.

Am I still stuck with x86 or is there an ARM solution these days?

-Steve

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Christian Neukirchen]

steve@quintile.net (Steve Simon) writes:

> I want to build a net booting silent plan9 terminal
> which will talk to a usb keyboard and mouse, and
> will drive an HDMI monitor at somthing like 1900x1200.
>
> Am I still stuck with x86 or is there an ARM solution these days?

I have a Dockstar with a USB-DVI adapter which can drive a 1600x1200
here, but it runs Arch Linux (and not yet drawterm because I can't get
libdraw to build), and draws not very fast.  Note that USB2 "only" has
480Mbit whereas DVI supports up to 3.2Gbit, so this is a USB2
restriction really.  Also, it uses "shared memory" and the Dockstar only
has 256Mb RAM.

There are Marvell-based systems with native DVI output, but they are
(far) more expensive.  (Well, the Dockstar nowadays too.)

I'm not sure if you can get Plan9 run natively on these, there seems to
be a preliminary port of Plan9 to armv5tel, but I'm not sure how well it
runs, nor what needs to be adapted to make it run on these different
boards.

> -Steve
--
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen@gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Richard Miller]

http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-40-guruplug-display-devkit.aspx

says HDMI but I can't see a spec for max resolution

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Steve Simon]

> http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-40-guruplug-display-devkit.aspx
> says HDMI but I can't see a spec for max resolution

the rumor mill infers it will output 720p (1280x720) at best. good for
multimedia but not enough for a good terminal.

I suspose I sould have said DVI or HDMI output, most HDMI stuff
seems still to be AV rather than computer monitor orientated it seems.

There are some newish fanless intel mini-itx motherboards about, anyone
had one of these boot plan9? I had poor results from the previous generation
due to unhelpful BIOS.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

> There are some newish fanless intel mini-itx motherboards about, anyone
> had one of these boot plan9? I had poor results from the previous generation
> due to unhelpful BIOS.

Try to get your hands on a C3-based board.  They tend to predate much of
the ACPI crap that has infested the BIOS space these days.

I'm typing this on a PXE-booted EPIA-EK system with a 1GHz C3 CPU.
While this particular system has a fan on the CPU heatsink, it *never*
turns on.  My display runs at 1920x1080x16 (VESA mode).

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Jan 28 12:36:48 EST 2011, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > There are some newish fanless intel mini-itx motherboards about, anyone
> > had one of these boot plan9? I had poor results from the previous generation
> > due to unhelpful BIOS.
>
> Try to get your hands on a C3-based board.  They tend to predate much of
> the ACPI crap that has infested the BIOS space these days.
>
> I'm typing this on a PXE-booted EPIA-EK system with a 1GHz C3 CPU.
> While this particular system has a fan on the CPU heatsink, it *never*
> turns on.  My display runs at 1920x1080x16 (VESA mode).

intel branded motherboards tend to be problematic.
all the supermicro atom boards i've tried work well
as terminals.

- erik

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

I've had one on order since June. It appears to be vaporware.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 27, 2011, at 7:03 AM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:

> http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-40-guruplug-display-devkit.aspx
>
> says HDMI but I can't see a spec for max resolution
>
>

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Steve Simon]

>> http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-40-guruplug-display-devkit.aspx

> I've had one on order since June. It appears to be vaporware.

the UK website says shipping Feb 2011...

The thin client boxes look like what I want, anyone had any success
with plan9 and one of these?

-Steve

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Jeff Sickel]

Can anyone find the specs on the gumstix summit board DVI/HDMI output?  A tide+summit combo could make a nice Plan9 terminal.  Once all the drivers are in place...

-jas


On Jan 27, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Steve Simon wrote:

>>> http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-40-guruplug-display-devkit.aspx
> 
>> I've had one on order since June. It appears to be vaporware.
> 
> the UK website says shipping Feb 2011...
> 
> The thin client boxes look like what I want, anyone had any success
> with plan9 and one of these?
> 
> -Steve
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Jan 27 12:03:48 EST 2011, jas@corpus-callosum.com wrote:
> Can anyone find the specs on the gumstix summit board DVI/HDMI output?  A tide+summit combo could make a nice Plan9 terminal.  Once all the drivers are in place...

cpu speed:  depending on your glacier, it could be faster.
	definately slower than your average sloth.

- erik

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[geoff]

The Guruplug Display is not vaporware.  I ordered one just before
Christmas and it arrived a few days ago.  It's a different SoC
than the other plugs use, but I don't expect much trouble porting
to it.

The omap port (/sys/src/9/omap) already runs on the gumstix overo,
though not all peripherals work yet, but if you're still trying to
get it to boot, you're duplicating work that's already done.

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Jan 27 17:15:58 EST 2011, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> The Guruplug Display is not vaporware.  I ordered one just before
> Christmas and it arrived a few days ago.  It's a different SoC
> than the other plugs use, but I don't expect much trouble porting
> to it.

what model is it?

- erik

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Bakul Shah]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:14:04 EST geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com  wrote:
> The Guruplug Display is not vaporware.  I ordered one just before
> Christmas and it arrived a few days ago.  It's a different SoC
> than the other plugs use, but I don't expect much trouble porting
> to it.

The dreamplug seems tempting for a gateway machine. $149.
2xGBe, 2xUSB2, 1xeSATA, wifi, .5GiB RAM, 1GiB flash, etc.
Shipping in Feb.  This and the guruplug display have the same
Armada 168 processor (88AP168).

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Nick LaForge]

The Armada 168 does do WUXGA (1920x1200), so don't bother with that TI
Pandaboard, especially since TI still thinks it's okay to implement
ethernet using the usb bus.

It is kind of a bummer that omap based boards like Gumstix don't
include GBe, though the feature is admittedly superflous on a SoC
targeted for mobile phones.

I do like the fact that the omap is pretty much unbrickable.  I wonder
if Erik has been able to reflash his plug....

Nick

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[erik quanstrom]

> I do like the fact that the omap is pretty much unbrickable.  I wonder
> if Erik has been able to reflash his plug....

it's not a flash problem.  bad caps ... again.

- erik

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Steve Simon]

The closest thing I can find to what I want is this:

	http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13500_ca/13500_ca.PDF

But it uses the undocumented SiS Volari Z11 VGA controller.

There is a linux driver for this chip but that's all,
and by all accounts its not enough.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Jan 28 11:13:28 EST 2011, steve@quintile.net wrote:
> The closest thing I can find to what I want is this:
>
> 	http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13500_ca/13500_ca.PDF
>
> But it uses the undocumented SiS Volari Z11 VGA controller.

what does this have that the openrd doesn't, other
than dvi.  it does seem to lack gbe.

- erik

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[smiley]

"Steve Simon" <steve@quintile.net> writes:

> Am I still stuck with x86 or is there an ARM solution these days?

You might take a look at the Beagle Boards.  They're OMAP-based and
completely open source hardware.  So, if you feel up to it, you can tack
on pretty much anything you like.

>
> -Steve

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[John Floren]

At Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:26:33 +0000,
Steve Simon wrote:
>
> I want to build a net booting silent plan9 terminal
> which will talk to a usb keyboard and mouse, and
> will drive an HDMI monitor at somthing like 1900x1200.
>
> Am I still stuck with x86 or is there an ARM solution these days?
>
> -Steve
>

Gumstix overo on a tobi board is a good candidate; we're working on
getting it going nicely at bap9ug. You get USB, ethernet, DVI-D, and
audio. As of now it's *booting* but I don't think graphics are quite
there yet. It's extremely tiny, though, which is a major benefit, and
it netboots just fine. As Erik pointed out elsewhere in the thread,
the Overo chips are NOT fast but hey, it's a Plan 9 terminal. Except
when you're compiling ghostscript (ugh), you'll probably never notice.


John

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Nick LaForge]

> You might take a look at the Beagle Boards.  They're OMAP-based and
> completely open source hardware.  So, if you feel up to it, you can tack
> on pretty much anything you like.

Except high throughput peripherals like video.

Cortex A8 based SoCs found in the Gumstix Overo and the Beagleboard
only sport a 720p video core.

A9 based SoCs do 1080p, and you can try one out by getting a Pandoraboard.

I don't really need 1080p though, and we already bought Overos.

Nick

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Nick LaForge]

I mean 'Pandaboard'.

Nick

On 1/27/11, Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You might take a look at the Beagle Boards.  They're OMAP-based and
>> completely open source hardware.  So, if you feel up to it, you can tack
>> on pretty much anything you like.
>
> Except high throughput peripherals like video.
>
> Cortex A8 based SoCs found in the Gumstix Overo and the Beagleboard
> only sport a 720p video core.
>
> A9 based SoCs do 1080p, and you can try one out by getting a Pandoraboard.
>
> I don't really need 1080p though, and we already bought Overos.
>
> Nick
>

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On 27 Jan 2011, at 8:50 pm, Nick LaForge wrote:

> I mean 'Pandaboard'.
>
> On 1/27/11, Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A9 based SoCs do 1080p, and you can try one out by getting a
>> Pandoraboard.

heh, speaking of the pandora[1] has anyone looked at it with an eye
to getting plan 9 on it? It's pocket sized with a fair-sized display,
600MHz omap 3530, 256MB ram, wifi, bluetooth, etc.

[1]: http://openpandora.org/

Re: [9fans] ARM based terminal?

[Nick LaForge]

Dyslexia and confirmation bias.  Wikipedia says I have source amnesia.

I do remember reading about the thing, but only that.

However nice it may be, I can't justify buying yet another N900-parity SBC.

Nick

On 2/1/11, Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> On 27 Jan 2011, at 8:50 pm, Nick LaForge wrote:
>
>> I mean 'Pandaboard'.
>>
>> On 1/27/11, Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A9 based SoCs do 1080p, and you can try one out by getting a
>>> Pandoraboard.
>
> heh, speaking of the pandora[1] has anyone looked at it with an eye
> to getting plan 9 on it? It's pocket sized with a fair-sized display,
> 600MHz omap 3530, 256MB ram, wifi, bluetooth, etc.
>
> [1]: http://openpandora.org/
>
>