svn commit: r346598 - head/sys/modules

[Ed Maste]

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 at 13:26, Rodney W. Grimes
<freebsd at gndrsh.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
>
> Very cool, now how do I get a PCIe slot into a RPI3!!! lol  :-)

I know you're joking but the comment does highlight an issue in the
AArch64 world - there's a lack of good mid-range developer platforms.
FreeBSD runs on Cavium/Marvell ThunderX and ThunderX2 and now on
Ampere eMAG with the WIP discussed in PR 237055. These platforms have
room for lots of memory, very high core/thread counts (32 to 256), and
a good complement of PCIe interfaces. The specs go far beyond those of
a typical desktop software development platform, and the price does
too. We also run on small embedded boards like the RPi, Pine64, etc.
just fine, but there's not much in the middle. What we really need is
something like a Mini-ITX form factor 4 to 8 core system that can take
8 to 32GB of RAM, has a PCIe slot or two, and is readily available
selling for well below $1000 US.

> I am hopeing some of that PCIe WIP might include some of the
> bits needed or do we already have PCIe slot on RockPro64 code that works?

I don't think this will do anything for RockPro64, it's just a
workaround for limitations in our current arm64 PCI code for some
functionality unused by ThunderX* but required for eMAG.