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Author Topic: why do we have so many arm 32 bit repositories?  (Read 1197 times)

aus9

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why do we have so many arm 32 bit repositories?
« on: June 24, 2023, 03:21:19 AM »
I can not remember what the answer was or is...anyhow

ref recent post for 14.x
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,26307.0.html
says for 32 bit its arm7

older post ref
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,24196.0.html
says RPi0 and RPi1:  use arm6
says RPi2, RPi3 and RPi4: use arm7

but we have
http://tinycorelinux.net/14.x/
arm6
arm7
arm7l

I can not remember what diff arm7l is.

currently looking at on a RPi4 32 bit
Code: [Select]
uname -m
arm7l

can we get rid of any of those arms?

thanks for reading


Offline Paul_123

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Re: why do we have so many arm 32 bit repositories?
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2023, 08:04:15 AM »
Because there are 3 different 32bit kernels.   Technically, they are all the same binaries, but to keep the kernel trees separate, we keep them in separate directories.




Offline neonix

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Re: why do we have so many arm 32 bit repositories?
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2023, 01:18:23 PM »
If I'm correct:
armv7hf is hard fload -ARM7 processors with floating point support
arm7l is little endian
armv8 support both 32-bit and 64-bit

2012 Raspberry Pi ARMv6
2015 Raspberry Pi 2 ARMv7
2015 Raspberry Zero ARMv6
2016 Raspberry Pi 3 ARMv8
2019 Raspberry Pi 4 ARMv8
2021 Raspberry Zero 2 ARMv8

Maybe someone could put this information in dokuwiki.

Offline Paul_123

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Re: why do we have so many arm 32 bit repositories?
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2023, 10:24:45 PM »
For a bit more completeness.  Most of the quad core processors can run in 32 bit or 64 bit modes.  All of the processors support hardfloat.
  • Raspi 1 Model A, B, B+, Zero, ZeroW are all Single core 32 bit armv6 cpu's
  • Raspi 2 Model B Rev < 1.2 is only 32bit armv7
  • Raspi 2 Model B Rev 1.2 can run in 32bit armv7 and 64bit armv8 modes
  • Raspi 3 Model A, B, B+, And Zero2W can run in 32bit armv7 and 64 bit armv8
  • Raspi 4 Model B  Will run a 32 bit kernel in what raspi name the kernels as armv7l   These boards can also run in 64bit armv8.

Now how does that relate to the piCore Repos.  All of the 32bit userspace code is built to support armv6 processors, and all 64bit userspace code is built to support armv8 processors.   We do not have images or repos that support a 64bit kernel running 32bit userspace.
  • armv6 - 32bit armv6 kernel and 32 bit userspace code
  • armv7 - 32bit armv7 kernel and 32 bit userspace code
  • armv7l - 32 bit armv7l kernel for the raspi 4 and 32 bit userspace code
  • aarch64 - 64bit armv8 kernel, with 64bit userspace code,