Re: Status of RPi 3 (b) ?

[Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Thu, 5 Jan 2017, Emilian Bold wrote:
> > The downside is the RPi is supposed to be about 2x the speed of the RPi2
> 2x seems a bit much.

Duly noted. Expectations lowered. :->

> NetBSD still runs in 32 bit mode so you gain little from the Cortex-A53. 
> Notably the bump from 900MHz to 1.2GHz.

Ah, ha, was that the deal? I knew the clocks got bumped and I sort of got 
the impression that the hardware with the RPi3 was "ARMv8" and the older 
ones were "ARMv7hf" (guessing that means they have a hardware math-copro) 
and IIRC, the original RPi was ARMv6. My limited understanding is that 
ARMv9 is the first 64-bit instruction set for ARM. I still haven't figured 
out what ARMv7hfhb means, though (the "hb" part).

Anyhow, no big deal, it's not like I can put more RAM on the board and get 
all froggy about how it's not supporting it.   :-)

> The new GPU does run at 400MHz vs 250MHz.

That's pretty nifty if I ever tried to run X11 on one. It sounds like it'd 
make a heckuva X-Terminal. From what I have read about the VideoCore GPU, 
it's a bit more open and easier to work with vis-a-vis something like a 
Radeon or nVidia board. Of course, that's probably just vendor hype.

> Considering you have to run current- I would focus on the Pi 2 which does
> run a stable 7.x.

Thanks, Emi, I'll take your advice. I'm on the port-arm list, now. So, 
I'll just lurk until I see folks crowing about RPi3 working mobetta then 
jump on the bandwagon at that point.

Until then, being a NetBSD-head, I'm happy to use my RPi3 to reproduce, 
confirm, or double check problems that other folks run into on -current as 
needed.

-Swift