ThunderX2 support in FreeBSD/arm64

[Greg V]

On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 9:55 PM, Kurt Jaeger <pi at freebsd.org> wrote:
> Hi!
> 
>>  > > > With these, 13-CURRENT works well enough for testing - so if 
>> you have
>>  > > > access to a ThunderX2, I would like to hear how well it works 
>> for you.
> [...]
>>  > HardenedBSD bought theirs from Phoenics Electronics.
>>  >
>>  > Status of HardenedBSD's ThunderX2:
>>  >
>>  I emailed Phoenics Electronics and received an email from Steve 
>> Wilson. He
>>  pointed me to these little beauties:
>> 
>>   https://www.asacomputers.com/Cavium-ThunderX.html
> 
> Well, to say the truth, I'm a bit confused by all this choice 8-}
> 
> This page:
> 
> https://b2b.gigabyte.com/ARM-Server/R181-T90-rev-100#ov
> 
> says that there's a difference between ThunderX and ThunderX2.(

Of course there is. ThunderX2 is a *massive* upgrade over the first 
ThunderX, especially in single-core performance. TX2 uses a completely 
new core (ex-Broadcom Vulcan).

You can play with the original ThunderX in the "cloud" right now:

- Scaleway VPS — I wrote the depenguination instructions: 
https://community.scaleway.com/t/freebsd-on-arm64/6678
- Packet bare metal https://www.packet.com/cloud/servers/c1-large-arm/ 
— when not sold out :D (seems like they have some available in New 
York right now) — they offer (an older version of) FreeBSD as a one 
click install

Packet also plans to have Ampere eMAG servers generally available in Q1 
2019…