3 ms·

Even if it takes a while, it's much more convenient to native compile than cross-compile for linux distro maintainers and those who are compiling ARM packages.

by Alupis 8y ago

Even if it takes a while, it's much more convenient to native compile than cross-compile for linux distro maintainers and those who are compiling ARM packages. Cross-compilation gives you performance, but a lot of other headaches... and currently using a quad or hex-core ARM takes quite a long time... so this would give a significant performance boost, especially with the 32GB of ram it seems to have.

emidln 8y ago
Speak for yourself. I'll take faster builds in exchange managing a cross compilation toolchain any day of the week.
- Alupis 8y ago
  Perhaps for building a webapp or something... For linux distros, they download the source, apply some patches, then let their build server/farm have at it. Managing a cross compilation toolchain in addition to cross compilation flags and what-not for joe-random-package with quirks quickly becomes a nightmare. Version upgrades will break everything, or pull in build-system linked libraries when they're not supposed to, etc. This sort of high-core count arm server alleviates a lot of headaches - it gives you faster build times as well as native builds. It also does away with a lot of complexity in your build pipeline, since you don't have to carefully isolate the build environment to prevent rouge linking x86 binaries. Most linux distros that offer ARM versions already build natively... so this just gives them better build times, or more concurrent builds. That's a win.
ojn 8y ago
That's a _really_ narrow use case for a business to make a product like this, and those distro vendors are already building on Cavium or Qualcomm platforms with significantly higher performance than this hardware. Besides, with Cortex-A53, any single-threaded step in a build (linking, etc), is going to be very slow. It's a sort-of cool product, especially if it comes at a good price point. But it's unlikely to make a huge difference in the overall market.

by Alupis 8y ago

emidln 8y ago

Speak for yourself. I'll take faster builds in exchange managing a cross compilation toolchain any day of the week.

Alupis 8y ago
Perhaps for building a webapp or something... For linux distros, they download the source, apply some patches, then let their build server/farm have at it. Managing a cross compilation toolchain in addition to cross compilation flags and what-not for joe-random-package with quirks quickly becomes a nightmare. Version upgrades will break everything, or pull in build-system linked libraries when they're not supposed to, etc. This sort of high-core count arm server alleviates a lot of headaches - it gives you faster build times as well as native builds. It also does away with a lot of complexity in your build pipeline, since you don't have to carefully isolate the build environment to prevent rouge linking x86 binaries. Most linux distros that offer ARM versions already build natively... so this just gives them better build times, or more concurrent builds. That's a win.

ojn 8y ago

That's a _really_ narrow use case for a business to make a product like this, and those distro vendors are already building on Cavium or Qualcomm platforms with significantly higher performance than this hardware. Besides, with Cortex-A53, any single-threaded step in a build (linking, etc), is going to be very slow. It's a sort-of cool product, especially if it comes at a good price point. But it's unlikely to make a huge difference in the overall market.