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<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking -->
<!-- $Id$ -->
<sect2 arch="arm"><title>CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support</title>
<para>
ARM systems are a lot more heterogenous than the i386/amd64-based PC
architecture, where all systems share a common system firmware (BIOS or/and
UEFI) which handles the board-specific basic hardware initialization in a
standardized way.
The ARM architecture is used mainly in so-called "systems-on-chip" (SOCs).
These SOCs are designed by many different companies with vastly varying
hardware components even for the very basic functionality required to bring
the system up. Systems using them usually lack a common system firmware
interface and as a result, on ARM systems the Linux kernel has to take care
of many system-specific low-level issues which are handled by the
mainboard's BIOS in the PC world.
</para>
<para>
At the beginning of the ARM support in the Linux kernel, this resulted in
the requirement of having a seperate kernel for each ARM system in contrast
to the "one-fits-all" kernel for PC systems. As this approach does not
scale to a large number of different systems, work has started to be able to
provide a single ARM kernel that can run on different ARM systems. Support
for newer ARM systems gets implemented in a way that allows the use of such
a multiplatform kernel, but for several older systems a seperate specific
kernel is still required.
Because of this, the standard &debian; distribution only supports
installation on a selected number of older ARM systems in addition to the
newer systems which are supported by the ARM multiplatform (armmp) kernel.
</para>
<para>
The ARM architecture has evolved over time and modern ARM processors provide
features which are not available in older models. &debian; therefore
provides two ARM ports, the &debian;/armel and the &debian;/armhf port.
&debian;/armel targets older ARM processors without support for a hardware
floating point unit (FPU), while &debian;/armhf works only on newer ARM
processors which implement at least the ARMv7 architecture with version 3 of
the ARM vector floating point specification (VFPv3). &debian;/armhf makes
use of the extended features and performance enhancements available on
these models.
</para>
<!--
<para>
While it is technically possible to run the &debian;/armel userland programs
on modern ARM processors, they cannot make use of several
performance-enhancing features of the newer processors, so if your hardware
fulfills the requirements of running the &debian;/armhf port, you should use
it instead of the &debian;/armel port. Mixing of armel and armhf packages
on the same system is not possible, so you have to decide which port to use
before installing the system.
</para>
-->
<para>
Technically, several ARM CPUs can be run in either endian mode (big or little),
but in practice the vast majority of currently available systems
uses little-endian mode. Both &debian;/armhf and &debian;/armel support
only little-endian systems.
</para>
<sect3 arch="arm"><title>Platforms supported by Debian/armel</title>
<para>
The following platforms are supported by &debian;/armel; they require
platform-specific kernels.
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>IOP32x</term>
<listitem><para>
Intel's I/O Processor (IOP) line is found in a number of products related
to data storage and processing. &debian; currently supports the IOP32x
platform, featuring the IOP 80219 and 32x chips commonly found in Network
Attached Storage (NAS) devices. &debian; explicitly supports two such
devices: the <ulink url="&url-arm-cyrius-glantank;">GLAN Tank</ulink> from
IO-Data and the <ulink url="&url-arm-cyrius-n2100;">Thecus N2100</ulink>.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Kirkwood</term>
<listitem><para>
Kirkwood is a system on a chip (SoC) from Marvell that integrates an ARM
CPU, Ethernet, SATA, USB, and other functionality in one chip. We
currently support the following Kirkwood based devices: OpenRD
(OpenRD-Base, OpenRD-Client and OpenRD-Ultimate), <ulink
url="&url-arm-cyrius-sheevaplug;">plug computers (SheevaPlug, GuruPlug and
DreamPlug)</ulink>, <ulink url="&url-arm-cyrius-qnap-kirkwood;">QNAP
Turbo Station</ulink> (all TS-11x, TS-21x and TS-41x models), and LaCie
NASes (Network Space v2, Network Space Max v2, Internet Space v2, d2
Network v2, 2Big Network v2 and 5Big Network v2).
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Orion5x</term>
<listitem><para>
Orion is a system on a chip (SoC) from Marvell that integrates an ARM CPU,
Ethernet, SATA, USB, and other functionality in one chip. There are many
Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices on the market that are based on an
Orion chip. We currently support the following Orion based devices: <ulink
url="&url-arm-cyrius-kuroboxpro;">Buffalo Kurobox</ulink>, <ulink
url="&url-arm-cyrius-dns323;">D-Link DNS-323</ulink> and <ulink
url="&url-arm-cyrius-mv2120;">HP mv2120</ulink>.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Versatile</term>
<listitem><para>
The Versatile platform is emulated by QEMU and is therefore a nice way to
test and run &debian; on ARM if you don't have the hardware.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 arch="arm"><title>Platforms supported by Debian/armhf</title>
<para>
The following platforms are supported by &debian;/armhf using the
multiplatform (armmp) kernel:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Freescale MX53 Quick Start Board, Codename "LOCO"</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The IMX53QSB is a development board based on the i.MX53 SOC.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
|
