CentOS/RHEL 64bit And ARM Questions
I am digging a bit into RHEL 7 roadmap info.
It seems there are statements that RHEL 7 will only support 64 bit. Is this corrent, and what for CentOS 7?
Also the ARM info I found was the target is ARMv8 which is 64 bit, not the ARMv7 which is 32bit.
Any clearification is appreciated.
11 thoughts on - CentOS/RHEL 64bit And ARM Questions
“just the facts”, Robert,
main page:
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html/7.0_Release_Notes/index.html
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html/7.0_Release_Notes/chap-architectures.html
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html/7.0_Release_Notes/chap-capabilities_and_limits.html
So goodby to 32 bit hardware. Thus RHEL/CentOS 6 will be around a while longer.
We will have to see where the ARM talk goes. RIght now ‘most’ hardware is armv7, not v8.
Redsleeve will be active for a while, thus.
Then there is this:
http://www.karan.org/blog/2014/03/26/the-arm-plan-for-CentOS/
<<>>
and, there is AArch64. :=)
the world is changing to 64 bit, so you might just as well
‘go with the flow’.
next, you can look forward to 128 bit. ((GBWG))
With ARM it is in large matter what is available now. A large number of boards are armv7. I am working with the Cubieboard, but the Beaglebone boards are also armv7.
ARMv8 is coming. Cubieboard has said they are designing a board based on the Allwinner A80 which is armv8. So soon enough it will happen. But at what price? TBD.
So for some time we will have armv7 to support. So that blog seems to say that there will be a CentOS for it.
Keep in mind that we have a 32bit SIG for CentOS 7. So you should be able to update if you want to.
With el6, arm was out of reach. It required too many code changes to really call it ‘CentOS’ as an end product. CentOS 7 seems to (per the beta and rc) require far less changes, so we’ll be actively taking a look at both v7 and v8 to see what’s feasible.
What is ‘SIG’? Will I be able to do an install of CentOS7 on i386 system?
Gathered as much. I believe it is called Redsleeve rather than CentOS :)
Starting to see v8 systems in plans, but I have not seen prices. I can afford v7 systems. Got myself a Cubieboard2 with case and power for $90
in the US. If I had been willing to order from China, I may have saved
$10 and waited 6-8 weeks. I have a couple SATA drives for starters, but even a 500GB sata is only $40. But the Cubieboard2 is for testing both Android and Fedora, at 1Gb memory it is a little light for a full CentOS
server. Thus the Cubietruck which comes in at ~$20 more, but still a v7. What will their Allwinner A80 based system cost? Should know that before the summer is out. But v7s will be the platform for ‘simple’
things like NASs and PBXs, etc. Now if I can only find a 4 port board to add, then I could be building a router as well…
A SIG is a CentOS Special Interest Group. So yes, when the 32bit SIG
releases a 32bit port of CentOS 7 you’d be able to install it. It may not be on the exact same schedule as core CentOS (and they wouldn’t be able to guarantee binary compatibility, for obvious reasons).
–keith
Special Interest Group. http://wiki.CentOS.org/SpecialInterestGroup Basically groups who can take the core distro code and modify/rebuild it to suit their purpose.
In this instance, they’re rebuilding to target 32bit hardware. You’ll be able to install on an i686 system assuming you meet the ram needs, etc. Yes. An actual i386 system hasn’t been supported in a number of years
(since el4 maybe? lacking cmov instructions and a load of other fun bits).
Look at http://www.redsleeve.org/
NOTE: CentOS-7 is now available in i686 (32 bit) in Beta, ArmV8 (64 Bit) in Beta, and armv7hl (32 bit) in Pre Alpha:
http://seven.centos.org/