Changes/aarch64SBCImages

aarch64 SBC (Single Board Computer) Disk Images

Summary

We will deliver the first supported SBC disk images for aarch64.

Owner

• Name: Peter Robinson
• Email: pbrobinson@fedoraproject.org
• Name: Paul Whalen
• Email: pwhalen@fedoraproject.org
• Release notes owner:
• Responsible WG: ARM SIG

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 27
• Last updated: 2017-08-08
• Tracker bug:

Detailed Description

Single Board Computer (SBC) images for 64 bit ARM (aarch64) devices such as the Pine64 or Raspberry Pi 3 will be supported. Initial images will be Minimal, Server and Workstation images for an initial set of tested SBC devices:

• Pine64 (all variants)
• Raspberry Pi 3 (64 bit mode)
• 96boards HiKey
• 96boards Dragonboard 410c
• ARM Juno

Other potentially supported (dependent on time and ability to test) devices include:

• Marvell EspressoBoard
• nVidia Jetson TX1/TX2
• OrangePi Win/Win Plus/PC2/Prime/Zero Plus2
• BananaPi m64
• Nano Pi NEO2
• Odroid-C2
• Rockchips Firefly 3399
• Rockchips ROCK64
• Geekbox

In the same manner as ARMv7 SBC images there will be a single image per Minimal, Server and Workstation consumable on all supported devices. There will be the ability to expand out the number of images produced such as other spins or labs as desired or demand proves.

Benefit to Fedora

Expand the benefit of cheap ARM SBCs to more powerful 64 bit variants

Scope

• Proposal owners: The ARM SIG will prepare the changes required for the disk images and u-boot uEFI support to be able to boot the images in a standardised methods.

• Other developers: N/A

• Release engineering: Release engineering will need to enable building of aarch64 disk images. This is already complete, it was originally done as part of Fedora 26 but the last bits required of the feature didn't quite land in time for F-26 GA. There might well be small tweaks required of kickstarts or pungi configs but those will be done by the feature owners and sent to rel-eng as a pull request.
  • List of deliverables: N/A

• Policies and guidelines: No new policies or guidelines required.

• Trademark approval: No trademark approval required.

Upgrade/compatibility impact

No upgrade compatibility required. These are new supported devices so there is no upgrade process required.

How To Test

Support will be added for writing these images using arm-image-creator and the ARM Installation Guide will be updated to reflect the new device support.

User Experience

Users of aarch64 SBCs will be able to use their devices with a standard Fedora user experience with all the features and functionality expected and experienced by existing supported aarch64 platforms (Cloud images and Enterprise SBBA compliant devices) and similar to that of ARMv7 disk image users.

The boot process will be identical to other Fedora architectures with the u-boot firmware supporting uEFI which loads GRUB2 and provides 100% Fedora experience with SELinux, docker and all other functionality enjoyed on other architectures.

Dependencies

The SBC images have already been created, a number of devices have already been tested. The only remaining dependency is to complete and stabilise the u-boot uEFI implementation and test it on as many SBC devices as possible. The plan is to start with a small collection of initial devices that are well tested and expand the supported devices out as possible.

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: N/A
• Contingency deadline: N/A
• Blocks release? No
• Blocks product? No

Documentation

All documentation will be added or updated via the ARM Landing Page.