6 ms·

CoreCLR ARM 32-bit progress

169 points by barhun 10y ago

jsingleton 10y ago
Nice work. It will be great to use ASP.NET Core on a Pi with official support. I tried .NET out on the Pi using Mono, years ago when it was relatively new but after the software floating point OS was deprecated. The weird hardware floating point CPU made it pretty much unusable. Even simple things like DateTime objects would fail to work correctly. Similar issues were in Java IIRC but they had a special build of that. I think Sony had a fixed build of Mono but I haven't tried it. It will be good to have official .NET support outside of Win 10 IoT.
- MrBuddyCasino 10y ago
  Interesting, imho Java makes no guarantees about FP portability if you don't enforce it with the strictfp keyword, you'd get 80bit on x87 and 64bit on other architectures. Why would this cause failing tests though? Does that mean they relied on extended precision?
  - jsingleton 10y ago
    Not sure of the specifics. Java SE is now included with the official OS (Raspbian/NOOBS) [0]. When the Pi first launched you had to use the soft FP version of the OS or Java wouldn't work but this had a significant performance penalty. They added official support for hard FP a few years ago [1]. I believe the .NET issue was similar in that the VM (CLR i.e. JVM) didn't support the hard FP version of the OS. FP on the Pi processor is a bit weird and a non-standard implementation from what I've read. P.S. In researching this post I noticed that one of my projects (a globe wake lamp) has been included in the latest project book (p108) [2]. First I've heard of this! This is actually an old version and there is a newer write-up on my blog [3]. [0]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/ [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/oracle-java-on-raspberry-pi/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/oracle-java-on-raspberry-pi... [2]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/Projects_Book_v2.pdf#110 https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/Projects_Book_v2.pd... [pdf] [3]: https://unop.uk/pi-glowbe-mark-2/ https://unop.uk/pi-glowbe-mark-2/
FlorianRappl 10y ago
This is a major step forwards. Having .NET on ARM is one of the most important milestones imho.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  It was already there, but not the main version. .NET Compact and Micro had ARM versions. There is also an Arduino (AVR) that uses .NET Micro as their OS.
  - FlorianRappl 10y ago
    Exactly :)! For the Arduino you are potentially referring to the Netduino, which allows you to write applications targeting the .NET Micro Framework.
    - teh_klev 10y ago
      Re: Netduino - I've got one of them, works really well with Visual Studio, i.e. hitting break points, stepping through code running on the board etc.
  - carussell 10y ago
    I just want to emphasize the fact that not only is the .NET Micro Framework something that exists, but that it has been available since 2009 and remains so, under the items of an arguably much more agreeable license: Apache 2.0
  - Kipters 10y ago
    One thing: the Netduino devices are ARMv7-M (Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4) devices, not AVR
su8898 10y ago
Great work. Can't help but notice most of the contributors in this issue are Samsung Electronics employees. Interesting to see Samsung in the .net world!
- sequence7 10y ago
  You can build Tizen apps in .Net now I imagine they're working to improve compatibility across all Tizen devices. Samsung is also now a member of the .Net foundation https://www.tizen.org/blogs/dh0922/2016/tizen-.net-developer-preview https://www.tizen.org/blogs/dh0922/2016/tizen-.net-developer...
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Which will be the fourth reboot on the Tizen SDK stack, so I don't know if they will actually win anything with it. They already went through Meego APIs, replaced by Bada OS C++ APIs, replaced by C and Enlightenment APIs, alongside HTML5 apps. As a developer I would be weary to invest any resources in so unstable OS design.
    - tehlike 10y ago
      aside from frequent platform changes, and the fact that very little amount of users use Tizen, I believe C# is a much better environment for app development. C# has much better tooling around it (remember how long it took to have a stable android studio, let alone have it in the first place)
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      Assuming they implement the entirety of the .NET APIs then a developer would have to invest very little to get on their platform. One would hope anyways.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
Other companies should be paying attention to Microsoft's PR department here. They've done really well at timing these kinds of announcements over the past several months, repeatedly getting their name on the front pages of places like Reddit and HN a few days after the last announcement fades away.
- barhun 10y ago
  I'm just a .NET developer who is following what's new in the field and bearing no relation to Microsoft's PR department. This issue comment was posted 6 days ago so they much likely didn't know this was possible when they were reporting news from the event Microsoft Connect(); 2016 last week.
  - TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
    And that invalidates my comment... how? Microsoft announcements appear here in a nicely-spaced way that seems to garner lots of interest and, yet, not induce fatigue. How and why this is happening is "an exercise left to the reader."
    - barhun 10y ago
      This is not an official announcement, it is not even an announcement. What the fuck are you talking about?
      - TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
        I NEVER SAID IT WAS! Good grief, people. You'd think the strawman argument wouldn't get this kind of traction on HN. I had a thought that I've seen lots of announcements -- nicely timed -- along these lines over the past few months. That's it. MOST of it has come from official sources. I was just making a freaking observation, and making an inference about it. It wasn't particularly about this post at all. Sorry for interrupting the circle jerk; I'll go back to lurking.
alexellisuk 10y ago
Looking forward to an official Docker image for this. The Raspberry Pi is probably the main board we think of when people say 'ARM' - but the Pine64 and Odroid C2 are maybe better suited - being 64-bit and the Odroid having twice as much memory. What kind of .NET runs on Windows 10 IoT though (on the RPi Model 3)??
- barhun 10y ago
  I've encountered some NuGet packages with the prefix runtime.win7-arm., so I think .NET Core has got support for Windows 10 IOT since the very beginning.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  The UWP kind. It is the same .NET Native as on Windows 10 store.
- Kipters 10y ago
  .NET Core + .NET Native, but that's on Windows, not Linux (.NET Core has been running on Windows ARM since Windows Phone 8)
headmelted 10y ago
Fantastic! I was looking into this just yesterday to see how far away it was, so the timing is really fortunate for me. Between this and the VS Code builds we should now have pretty solid support for developing .NET on Pi and/or Chromebook, so I'm really excited to get rolling with it, especially seeing as I have some free time this week. I'll try to write up my experiences too in case it helps anyone else.
lostmsu 10y ago
Still waiting for it to run on any Android device.

169 points by barhun 10y ago

Nice work. It will be great to use ASP.NET Core on a Pi with official support. I tried .NET out on the Pi using Mono, years ago when it was relatively new but after the software floating point OS was deprecated. The weird hardware floating point CPU made it pretty much unusable. Even simple things like DateTime objects would fail to work correctly. Similar issues were in Java IIRC but they had a special build of that. I think Sony had a fixed build of Mono but I haven't tried it. It will be good to have official .NET support outside of Win 10 IoT.

MrBuddyCasino 10y ago
Interesting, imho Java makes no guarantees about FP portability if you don't enforce it with the strictfp keyword, you'd get 80bit on x87 and 64bit on other architectures. Why would this cause failing tests though? Does that mean they relied on extended precision?
- jsingleton 10y ago
  Not sure of the specifics. Java SE is now included with the official OS (Raspbian/NOOBS) [0]. When the Pi first launched you had to use the soft FP version of the OS or Java wouldn't work but this had a significant performance penalty. They added official support for hard FP a few years ago [1]. I believe the .NET issue was similar in that the VM (CLR i.e. JVM) didn't support the hard FP version of the OS. FP on the Pi processor is a bit weird and a non-standard implementation from what I've read. P.S. In researching this post I noticed that one of my projects (a globe wake lamp) has been included in the latest project book (p108) [2]. First I've heard of this! This is actually an old version and there is a newer write-up on my blog [3]. [0]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/ [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/oracle-java-on-raspberry-pi/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/oracle-java-on-raspberry-pi... [2]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/Projects_Book_v2.pdf#110 https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/Projects_Book_v2.pd... [pdf] [3]: https://unop.uk/pi-glowbe-mark-2/ https://unop.uk/pi-glowbe-mark-2/

FlorianRappl 10y ago

This is a major step forwards. Having .NET on ARM is one of the most important milestones imho.

pjmlp 10y ago
It was already there, but not the main version. .NET Compact and Micro had ARM versions. There is also an Arduino (AVR) that uses .NET Micro as their OS.
- FlorianRappl 10y ago
  Exactly :)! For the Arduino you are potentially referring to the Netduino, which allows you to write applications targeting the .NET Micro Framework.
  - teh_klev 10y ago
    Re: Netduino - I've got one of them, works really well with Visual Studio, i.e. hitting break points, stepping through code running on the board etc.
- carussell 10y ago
  I just want to emphasize the fact that not only is the .NET Micro Framework something that exists, but that it has been available since 2009 and remains so, under the items of an arguably much more agreeable license: Apache 2.0
- Kipters 10y ago
  One thing: the Netduino devices are ARMv7-M (Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4) devices, not AVR

su8898 10y ago

Great work. Can't help but notice most of the contributors in this issue are Samsung Electronics employees. Interesting to see Samsung in the .net world!

sequence7 10y ago
You can build Tizen apps in .Net now I imagine they're working to improve compatibility across all Tizen devices. Samsung is also now a member of the .Net foundation https://www.tizen.org/blogs/dh0922/2016/tizen-.net-developer-preview https://www.tizen.org/blogs/dh0922/2016/tizen-.net-developer...
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Which will be the fourth reboot on the Tizen SDK stack, so I don't know if they will actually win anything with it. They already went through Meego APIs, replaced by Bada OS C++ APIs, replaced by C and Enlightenment APIs, alongside HTML5 apps. As a developer I would be weary to invest any resources in so unstable OS design.
  - tehlike 10y ago
    aside from frequent platform changes, and the fact that very little amount of users use Tizen, I believe C# is a much better environment for app development. C# has much better tooling around it (remember how long it took to have a stable android studio, let alone have it in the first place)
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    Assuming they implement the entirety of the .NET APIs then a developer would have to invest very little to get on their platform. One would hope anyways.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

TheRealDunkirk 10y ago

Other companies should be paying attention to Microsoft's PR department here. They've done really well at timing these kinds of announcements over the past several months, repeatedly getting their name on the front pages of places like Reddit and HN a few days after the last announcement fades away.

barhun 10y ago
I'm just a .NET developer who is following what's new in the field and bearing no relation to Microsoft's PR department. This issue comment was posted 6 days ago so they much likely didn't know this was possible when they were reporting news from the event Microsoft Connect(); 2016 last week.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
  And that invalidates my comment... how? Microsoft announcements appear here in a nicely-spaced way that seems to garner lots of interest and, yet, not induce fatigue. How and why this is happening is "an exercise left to the reader."
  - barhun 10y ago
    This is not an official announcement, it is not even an announcement. What the fuck are you talking about?
    - TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
      I NEVER SAID IT WAS! Good grief, people. You'd think the strawman argument wouldn't get this kind of traction on HN. I had a thought that I've seen lots of announcements -- nicely timed -- along these lines over the past few months. That's it. MOST of it has come from official sources. I was just making a freaking observation, and making an inference about it. It wasn't particularly about this post at all. Sorry for interrupting the circle jerk; I'll go back to lurking.

alexellisuk 10y ago

Looking forward to an official Docker image for this. The Raspberry Pi is probably the main board we think of when people say 'ARM' - but the Pine64 and Odroid C2 are maybe better suited - being 64-bit and the Odroid having twice as much memory. What kind of .NET runs on Windows 10 IoT though (on the RPi Model 3)??

barhun 10y ago
I've encountered some NuGet packages with the prefix runtime.win7-arm., so I think .NET Core has got support for Windows 10 IOT since the very beginning.
pjmlp 10y ago
The UWP kind. It is the same .NET Native as on Windows 10 store.
Kipters 10y ago
.NET Core + .NET Native, but that's on Windows, not Linux (.NET Core has been running on Windows ARM since Windows Phone 8)

headmelted 10y ago

Fantastic! I was looking into this just yesterday to see how far away it was, so the timing is really fortunate for me. Between this and the VS Code builds we should now have pretty solid support for developing .NET on Pi and/or Chromebook, so I'm really excited to get rolling with it, especially seeing as I have some free time this week. I'll try to write up my experiences too in case it helps anyone else.

lostmsu 10y ago

Still waiting for it to run on any Android device.