Question Anyone using ARM CPUs/SOCs?

[whm1974]

I've been looking at Pine64.org products, mainly the upcoming Pinebook Pro and PineTAB, also about reading the ROXK64 Pro as well. Awhile back I was considering getting Raspberry Pi 3B+ for getting into SBCs, I really not sure what I could use for it for. And yes a low cost notebook, even ARM based ones will be far more useful for.

Other then my cheap smartphone, I have no experience with non-x86 systems. So how much usability with reasonable performance I can expect out ARM SOCs such at the Rockchip RK3399 Hexa-Core such as the Pinebook Pro and ROCK64 Pro uses

While I intend to buy the Pinebook Pro, I am wondering about ARM SOCs and ARM based PCs in general using Linux.

 

[Nothingness]

Sorry for asking the obvious, but what do you intend to do with your machine?

As far as Linux goes on ARM, be very careful choosing the right hardware with explicit Linux support (and preferably from mainline kernel, not some hacked one by the SoC provider) as opposed to Android (as most 96boards SBC for instance...). Also video drivers might be a real issue as most of them are (unsupported) binary blobs.

 

[whm1974]

They will be sending units ahead of time to Linux developers of three distros including Manjaro, before the offical release of the Pinebook Pro.

From reading about their products, they are meant to be use with Linux and BSD.

 

[whm1974]

By the way www.System76.com is working on a high end ARM based Laptop and desktop.

 

[killster1]

well laptops are so inexpensive i guess battery life might be the only reason to purchase such a netbook notebook etc. With that said i think the 8 core s912 arm cpu works well for my uses. snappy and almost no power used.

 

[cfenton]

My only experience is with a Raspberry Pi 3B and the performance is about what you'd expect for a $35 computer. It's bad, and I wouldn't use it as a day-to-day computer, but it works. Web browsing feels significantly worse than it does on any of my x86 computers. It's more like using a five year old smartphone browser. While the ROCKPro64's Rockchip RK3399 would be a bit faster, it's still using an SOC from 2015.

 

[Nothingness]

If that was for everyday use and for me, I would not pick anything below Cortex-A76.

 

[whm1974]

If that was for everyday use and for me, I would not pick anything below Cortex-A76.

Right.

By the way the www.system76.com guys are working on producing ARM based laptops and desktops. I just found out about this early this morning. Although I am assuming that they will cost then the Pinebook Pro.

 

[killster1]

Right.

By the way the www.system76.com guys are working on producing ARM based laptops and desktops. I just found out about this early this morning. Although I am assuming that they will cost then the Pinebook Pro.

but what is the point of the laptops? i checked them out if they are 200-300 new i can see why but 999? ummm why.

 

[whm1974]

but what is the point of the laptops? i checked them out if they are 200-300 new i can see why but 999? ummm why.

I'll watch the video again, but I think these will use very high end ARM SOCs. If they will produce much lower cost ARM notebooks I may consider getting one.

 

[killster1]

I'll watch the video again, but I think these will use very high end ARM SOCs. If they will produce much lower cost ARM notebooks I may consider getting one.

will it meet or match a i7 8th gen intel? im eyeing all day the i7 8th gen 8750h i see for about 700 i can get a used one with 1060 512gb ssd 16gb ram. I have a hard time deciding which one to get if i want to really get one with a gfx card it will drain the battery so fast. If they had a ARM soc laptop that matched 8550u for lower price id be tempted.. (8550u with 16gb etc no gfx is 4-500) ;/ usually use a laptop for 1 year or less and give it away to a family member.

if the ARM lappys had incredible battery life and a lower cost i can see buying them but if they are slower whats the good thing? silent operation?

 

[whm1974]

Speaking of battery life, just much of that can be squeezed into ARM notebooks anyway?

 

[DrMrLordX]

it's still using an SOC from 2015.

This is a problem I have with a lot of the ARM SBCs in general. If you want to buy an SBC based on something recent like an A12x, Kirin 980, or Snapdragon 855, you either can't do so or wind up buying an SBC that is intended as an Android development platform. And yes driver support for the GPU is kind of limited too.

It would be fun to tinker around with a modern A76-based ARM SoC system, but not when it's an Android dev platform.

 

[whm1974]

Well if I had a boatload of money and good working relationships with ARM vendors and design time, I would commission/sponsor an ARM SOC designed and intended for both tinkerers and FOSS users. Ranging for use in SBC to PCs.

Would be tickled pink I could come up with something that rivals Intel's Core M3Y SOC.

But alas, I don't have either.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@whm1974 a custom SoC wouldn't even be necessary unless you insisted on FOSS drivers for the GPU. All we would need is something like the HiKey 980 with proper Linux support. It would not be ideal for PCs, but it would be a starting point to understand the potential of A76 CPUs (and beyond) as desktop or laptop machines. The trick is getting proper Linux support. Currently you get fun stuff like this when trying to run Linux on a HiKey 970:

https://discuss.96boards.org/t/linux-on-this-board/4801

Qualcomm will continue selling their products in Win10 laptops, though A76 hasn't made it into any of them yet. Best you can do is an 850-based device like the Yoga C630 (81JL0004US, for example) which is A75-based. Not sure if you can get Linux running on one of these, but for now my guess would be "no". Also it looks like compiler support under Win10S is pretty limited except for things you might run under emulation. If you want to use Visual Studio then you're set. Not sure if WSL works in Win10S?

And of course Apple is Apple. If you are content to buy an iPad Pro then you can develop for A12x, but you will only ever deploy those applications on Apple devices.

 

[whm1974]

@whm1974 a custom SoC wouldn't even be necessary unless you insisted on FOSS drivers for the GPU. All we would need is something like the HiKey 980 with proper Linux support. It would not be ideal for PCs, but it would be a starting point to understand the potential of A76 CPUs (and beyond) as desktop or laptop machines. The trick is getting proper Linux support. Currently you get fun stuff like this when trying to run Linux on a HiKey 970:

https://discuss.96boards.org/t/linux-on-this-board/4801

Qualcomm will continue selling their products in Win10 laptops, though A76 hasn't made it into any of them yet. Best you can do is an 850-based device like the Yoga C630 (81JL0004US, for example) which is A75-based. Not sure if you can get Linux running on one of these, but for now my guess would be "no". Also it looks like compiler support under Win10S is pretty limited except for things you might run under emulation. If you want to use Visual Studio then you're set. Not sure if WSL works in Win10S?

And of course Apple is Apple. If you are content to buy an iPad Pro then you can develop for A12x, but you will only ever deploy those applications on Apple devices.

Well I was thinking more of the lines of more already existing ARM SOC that is modified and improved.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Well I was thinking more of the lines of more already existing ARM SOC that is modified and improved.

That certainly isn't a bad idea, assuming you're working with IP blocks that aren't patent-protected somehow. It would potentially make development of OS and compiler environments for the platform easier as well. Realistically-speaking, though, I think it would be easier to get some stripped down boards based on Kirin 980 and Snapdragon 855 (or what have you) and throw money at expanding support for that hardware in Linux.

 

[whm1974]

That certainly isn't a bad idea, assuming you're working with IP blocks that aren't patent-protected somehow. It would potentially make development of OS and compiler environments for the platform easier as well. Realistically-speaking, though, I think it would be easier to get some stripped down boards based on Kirin 980 and Snapdragon 855 (or what have you) and throw money at expanding support for that hardware in Linux.

Well I would much highly prefer to work with the RISC-V folks and starting work on developing a BSD style GPU. It is my understanding that the MIPS ISA has been opened up.

However that would likely take much longer then working with ARM SOC vendors.

 

[whm1974]

Well I would much highly prefer to work with the RISC-V folks and starting work on developing a BSD style GPU. It is my understanding that the MIPS ISA has been opened up.

However that would likely take much longer then working with ARM SOC vendors.

 

[Thala]

@whm1974

Qualcomm will continue selling their products in Win10 laptops, though A76 hasn't made it into any of them yet. Best you can do is an 850-based device like the Yoga C630 (81JL0004US, for example) which is A75-based. Not sure if you can get Linux running on one of these, but for now my guess would be "no". Also it looks like compiler support under Win10S is pretty limited except for things you might run under emulation. If you want to use Visual Studio then you're set. Not sure if WSL works in Win10S?

All current ARM Windows devices support Windows 10 professional and not only Win10s. Regarding 64bit ARM compiler support you can use both MSVC or Clang for typical Win32/UWP projects and GCC when you target WSL/Ubuntu.
Debugger support is also available via remote debugging with Visual Studio or on-device-debugging via WinDbg or GDB under WSL.

 

[whm1974]

I was right, the MIPS ISA has been opened up:
https://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/mips-goes-open-source-challenges-arm-and-risc-v
However from what I understand, MIPS SOCs are a bit dated since it lost market share to ARM.

 

[DrMrLordX]

All current ARM Windows devices support Windows 10 professional and not only Win10s. Regarding 64bit ARM compiler support you can use both MSVC or Clang for typical Win32/UWP projects and GCC when you target WSL/Ubuntu.
Debugger support is also available via remote debugging with Visual Studio or on-device-debugging via WinDbg or GDB under WSL.

Huh! I didn't know MS had made Win10 Pro available for ARM devices. Learn something new every day. That means WSL is an option if you make the upgrade. Any word on when Snapdragon 855/8cx Win10 machines will hit the market? Sampling dates are Q1 and Q3 2019 (respectively).

I was right, the MIPS ISA has been opened up:
https://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/mips-goes-open-source-challenges-arm-and-risc-v
However from what I understand, MIPS SOCs are a bit dated since it lost market share to ARM.

Makes sense. Longoon/Godson used MIPS (often without permission).

 

[Nothingness]

Any word on when Snapdragon 855/8cx Win10 machines will hit the market? Sampling dates are Q1 and Q3 2019 (respectively).

These are production dates, not sampling which has already started.

 

[Thala]

Huh! I didn't know MS had made Win10 Pro available for ARM devices. Learn something new every day. That means WSL is an option if you make the upgrade. Any word on when Snapdragon 855/8cx Win10 machines will hit the market? Sampling dates are Q1 and Q3 2019 (respectively).
.

You can even download latest version of Windows on ARM as an installable ISO here: https://uup.rg-adguard.net/
The community made them work on the Raspberry PI 3 and on the Lumia 950 for example. Of course there are some issues with the drivers.
And yup, i have WSL with Ubuntu running on my Envy X2 (Snapdragon 835).

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Thala Might be working looking into once the 855 is available, then. Given the heat coming down on Huawei these days, I don't have high hopes for Kirin 980 desktop/laptop systems making it to the US anytime soon.

These are production dates, not sampling which has already started.

Ah I got bad info then. Thanks.