Re: ARM i.MX6 based Utilitie-Pro board supported?

Am Sat, 17 May 2014 14:10:45 +0400
Boris Samorodov <bsam_at_passap.ru> schrieb:

> 17.05.2014 12:50, O. Hartmann пишет:
> 
> > I'm looking for a smart FreeBSD Router/Gateway solution based upon the ARM
> > architecture.
> 
> I'd wonder why it's ARM. I'd think that a MIPS arch is more appropriate
> for a router.

Well, I had once an ARM based computer and I like the architecture - but there isn't a
strict prefrence (except that I would also prefere MIPS over Intel as I preferred Alpha
over Intel in the past as I did with a DECstation (MIPS driven) over Intel based systems).

Looking around, I find a lot of very small ARM vased SoCs with a very low power
consumption but with still enough performance. I have no clue how a 4-core ARM with 1.2
GHz would compete against a MIPS based equivalent.

I'm not bound to ARM. MIPS is also all right, as long as some of my requirements/wished
are met. The "router" is just a synonyme for a bunch of aspects I have in mind when
thinking of low power SoCs.

if the same CPU performance and low-power consumption is met as a 4-core WANDBOARD does,
then I'm fine with other architectures. But I'd like to have FreeBSD rather than Linux
and this is what I'm concerned about.

> 
> > One of the necessities ist the existence of two GBit NICs which are hard to find on
> > most experimental ARM platforms today combinded with at least two CPU cores.
> 
> I have a IMX6 based wandboard-quad with 1Gb NIC. It's theoretical
> maximum speed is 40 MB/sec., while current driver achieves about
> 20 MB/sec.

I did not realise that the throughput is that low, theoretically.

> 
> > I found the Utilities Pro board [1], four cores, two GBit NICs and WiFi along with 2GB
> > RAM and I was wondering whether this board is supported by FreeBSD. I couldn't find
> > anything useful since I'm a novice with ARM CPU naming and Utilities Pro is not
> > mentioned in the list of compatible and supported ARM based equipment in [2]. Well,
> > not being mentioned doesn't mean "not supported" since the components have to be
> > supported anyway, but as I said, I do not know what Utilities Pro equipt to their
> > solution. maybe someon of the FreeBSd users already made some experiences with this
> > board/solution.
> 
> You may find and get more info at the arm_at_ ML.
> 

Thank you very much. 

regards,
Oliver