Re: FreeBSD 14: Poll armv6 deprecated or removed

From: tech-lists <tech-lists_at_zyxst.net> 
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2021 10:37:09 +0000

> On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 08:31:54PM +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> 
> >Since FreeBSD-13 will be supported until early 2026, by which time the
> >supported RPi hardware will be 10 years old, it would seem reasonable
> >to remove armv6 prior to FreeBSD-14.
> 
> I'd say if the criterion was "old" then there are other candidates with
> far fewer units in circulation with hardware almost (over?) a decade
> older, like powerpc and powerpcspe.

A major difference is that there is no one actively supporting
any RPi* for FreeBSD internals any more as far as I know, much
less for the ARM11 based RPi*'s.

By contrast there are multiple people that have been working in/on
powerpcspe for FreeBSD internals, if I understand right. (Less sure
for plain 32-bit powerpc at this point. And, absent access to
hardware, I no longer track the details for any powerpc* .)

> Literally *millions* of the rpi1b+ and its analogues were sold. They
> are durable boards, and they'll belong mainly to hobbyists. And as
> you say, they are still being made. Does FreeBSD *really* want to remove
> themselves from this audience?

Effectively the lack of active FreeBSD internals folks that target
support of RPi*'s makes the availability of RPi*'s not that relevant.
This is even more true of the ARM11 variants, with less informal
support.


FYI:

ARM11 B+ and A+ based RPi*'s are available and some are in stock:

https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-model-b-2.html?cid=usd&src=raspberrypi
https://vilros.com/collections/raspberry-pi-boards/products/raspberry-pi-model-b-plus?src=raspberrypi

Out of stock include:

https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-model-b-plus/?src=raspberrypi
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1914?src=raspberrypi

A+ only but out of stock:

https://www.okdo.com/us/p/raspberry-pi-1-model-a/

One place I looked at indicated that the A+ was discontinued:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2266?src=raspberrypi

But https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/ does not indicate
that (yet?). I got to the above places via use of
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/ and where it listed
alternative sources for buying such.


===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)