Hacker News Reader

Comment by visualphoenix | Hacker News Reader

Looks like the new odroid c4 (raspberry pi competitor) has this g31 chip. [0,1]

Might be interesting to try building a cluster with these. [2]

I wonder how much remaining work there is for full upstream support on these AmLogic chips? The problem with arm chips has always been limited upstream distro support.

The Linux-Sunxi folks have been working for years to get the Allwinner stack up to snuff... it’s taken a long time.[3]

Is there any community around the AmLogic and Rockchip stuff as solid and coordinated as the Allwinner folks?

[0] https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-c4/

[1] https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/04/23/50-odroid-c4-raspber...

[2] https://blog.tjll.net/distributed-homelab-cluster/#network-c...

[3] https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

View on HN

I remember doing some web development work for HardKernel/ODROID back in ~2010 and I just did it for free (I loved the idea of an "Android Game Boy," plus Chris Pruett at Google recommended it for gaming and game development[1]), and they ended up sending me an ODROID-S out of the blue. I was totally surprised and felt I didn't really deserve it (MSRP was like $200-300 and I was a poor college kid), and I'll never forget the gesture.

HK earned a longtime fan with that move for sure, haha. :)

[1] http://replicaisland.blogspot.com/2010/01/fragmentation-more...

Is there a mailing list or wiki tracking the status of these components and patches for the kernel for HK? Like the one for Sunxi?

http://www.linux-meson.com/ ?

Thanks! This looks like exactly what I was looking for!

Re graphics, #panfrost on freenode

If you're interested in HK's kernel patches, you can simply download their repository (`git clone https://github.com/hardkernel/linux.git`), then add the upstream kernel repository (`git remote add upstream git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable`), then fetch it and just compare the tags (e.g. `git cherry -v vX.Y.Z X.Y.Z-A`).

There's a good community for the odroid-c4 with an Ubuntu 20.04 image with linux 5.7 and support for the Mali G31 with Wayland. I got an odroid-c4 with flash emmc storage and Realtek RTL8811AU wifi dongle from ameridroid to avoid this shipping costs from overseas.

https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=202&t=38557

Oof. That’s exactly what I worry about... who is compiling this “Ubuntu”... is it official upstream? What Kernel patches are they carrying?

You could also try https://www.armbian.com/odroid-c4/

While i don't have one, i use Armbian on several other systems, and it tends to be stressless. As long as one doesn't use their noob-friendly software installer scripts, which tend to break something. Anyways, it is essentially Debian, or Ubuntu depending on the image you have choosen.

edit: I'd go one step further even. If it isn't supported by Armbian, I'd avoid it. Because they tend to be first in delivering a cohesive solution like you'd expect from a distro, and not some patched together pile of something which just runs, is rarely or never updated, and won't run the stuff YOU want to run.

Only downside, they lag a bit behind in integrating all that vendor-/boardspecific stuff. But then, who really cares about that when running Debian? :)

I recently used Armbian for a project (my HW is better supported than openwrt which gave up on the board that I use). Documentation is ok, but I found most of the clues at their forums. The IRC channel was also helpful.

And finally the output kernel/image just works.

[4] http://www.linux-meson.com/ ?

> Might be interesting to try building a cluster with these.

Anyone who used to read slashdot just got popped back into the late 90s.

yes. a beowulf cluster. these day's it'd be a kubernetes/nomad cluster. doesnt roll off the tongue like it used to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com