[Beowulf] recommendations on ARM distro?

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Sun, 15 May 2016 09:39:50 +0200, you wrote:

>Was actually thinking of a clustered server setup using 64bit arm board
>if possible

First problem is that while the RPi3 has a 64bit cpu, there is only
support for 32bit operating systems (you need binary blobs to get
Linux running on these ARM boards, and for RPi3 they only support
32bit).  

[the Pi people chose the chip for its speed while maintaining
backwards compatibility, thus they don't support or care about 64bit]

Your next problem is that there is only 1GB RAM, and most of the I/O
goes through a single USB2 port that has reports of being buggy.

The RPi3 (or any of the Pi models) can certainly be used for
educational purposes regarding a cluster, but unlikely to be actually
useful.

If you really want a cheap 64bit ARM board there are better options
available that actually run 64bit Linux though you may need to pay a
bit more.  Best advice is to find the ARM community for your preferred
version of Linux and see what boards they support given the
problematic nature of the cheap ARM boards.


Is there hope for the future of 64bit ARM?

Maybe.

Red Hat is pushing hard for the the ARM vendors to implement the
standard BIOS/UEFI boot process for AAarch64 boards which should
remove most of the issues booting Linux on AAarch64, but the ARM
hardware side has been very slow in coming to market and the cheapest
board so far supporting a BIOS/UEFI is in the $300 range I believe.


But for now, until the AAarch64 board makers can get their act
together, for getting work done (like the 3D rendering you mention in
another message) you are better off in the Intel/AMD world.