[fedora-arm] Who's using Kirkwood?

[Peter Robinson]

> I'm using Kirkwood, with a couple of Dreamplugs. I've been working to get
> F17 and/or F18 to work on it (it turns out the Dreamplug doesn't have NAND
> and the orion_nand kernel module was hanging).

Works if you blacklist the module.

>> My thought is that the latest plugs are moving to ARMv7, and so as the
>> cutting edge Linux distro, we should make plans for deprecating support
>> over the coming releases. This is not a call to drop support today. If I
>> can get numbers on how many people care, that will help.
>
>
>
> I would hate to have to move back to Debian on my plugs. I use Fedora on my
> desktop and RHEL and CentOS on my servers, so I really like the option of
> having the same on my Dreamplugs and Synology NAS (and other ARMv5's I may
> purchase in the future). Global Scale is still actively selling ARMv5
> devices, and Synology (I have a 212) is still actively selling NAS's with
> Kirkwood, so it is far from a dead architecture.

In my opinion when we move to primary arch it doesn't make sense to
have ARMv5. That said there's nothing to stop it from remaining as a
secondary arch like it is at the moment if there's people that are
interested in stepping up and helping out!

As for the devices, ARM is actively pushing customers still using the
older spec devices to the likes of the A5 and A7 devices. They are
more performant for about the same price. The other issue is that the
older style RAM needed for the older chipsets is now getting a lot
more expensive so I doubt there will be new devices on the market for
long as it's cheaper in parts to move to the A5/A7 chips

> I do understand your point about Fedora being cutting edge (though last I
> checked Fedora still runs on a Pentium 4 :-), and maybe BusyBox or Debian is
> a better choice anyway for "small computers", but I'd hate to not have a
> Fedora option, as I think there are a lot of Kirkwood's out there.  And
> while Kirkwood is a subset of a small subset (ARM computers), I still
> consider it pretty cutting edge! ARM is still pretty new, and there are a
> lot of plugs out there that don't even know that Fedora is an option :-).
>
> Anyway, my two cents. I have a couple of Dreamplugs and just starting to get
> active in the ARM and Fedora ARM communities. I'm still learning a lot, but
> am certainly willing to chip in where I can on testing (though probably will
> need some hand-holding at first).

I think it will be around for a little while longer, and there's
nothing to say that it can't continue as a secondary if ARMv7 gets
promoted to primary :-)

Peter