Supported Hardware help needed


Geoffroy Van Cutsem
 

-----Original Message-----
From: acrn-users@... <acrn-users@...>
On Behalf Of Andrew Back
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 9:39 PM
To: acrn-users@...
Subject: Re: [acrn-users] Supported Hardware help needed

On 17/01/2021 16:10, Lonnie Cumberland wrote:
<snip>


If someone could please give me an idea as to what might be the best
option then I would greatly appreciate it as I want to order one of
these or something that may be recommended ASAP to start working on
things.

I'm not much further along than you and a total ACRN novice, but at the risk
of being corrected, I'd suggest sticking to officially supported hardware. In
which case, of all those you listed, the only two which would seem to be are
options (1) and (2), as they are NUC Series 7 with Intel Core i7 Kaby
Lake/Dawson Canyon (6th row in the first table).

There don't seem to be any NUC7i3, NUC8 series or Beelink models listed as
supported.
I would have the same recommendation than Andrew ;-). The easiest path initially is to stick to HW that is known to work and is being tested. I saw in a subsequent email that you have decided to go for the DNHE version, I also agree this is a good choice :-). It gives you flexibility in that you can easily add an additional disk in there (particularly interesting if you want to dedicate HW to a VM, for a pre-launched or a Real-Time VM for example).

The other nice advantage that NUC has is it's possible to add a serial port to it very easily (something that is not possible with many of the NUCs in general). For details on how to do that, take a look at those links:
- https://projectacrn.github.io/latest/tutorials/using_serial_port.html
- https://simplynuc.com/product/dawson-canyon-rs-232-serial-port-de-9p-expansion/

Note that the use of the serial port is considered a debug feature, if you build ACRN with RELEASE=1 then this is completely disabled. It's nevertheless a great asset when developing and working with ACRN initially!


FWIW I recently had success bringing up the Industry Scenario with an
UP2 Atom x7-E3950 (4GB RAM/32GB eMMC variant). Though I'm still finding
my way around and not managed to access the hypervisor CLI via serial port
yet. I suspect that 4GB RAM may be a bit limiting too.
Nice to hear that!!

4GB may be a bit limiting depending on what User VMs you want to run. But it shouldn't prevent ACRN from running at all. The UP2 board has 2 serial ports, which one are you trying to use?

Have you seen this guide? https://projectacrn.github.io/2.1/tutorials/up2.html


I also picked up a NUC7i7DNBE (board only - no case) to use with ACRN, but
haven't got started with this as yet.

Cheers,

Andrew

--
Andrew Back
http://abopen.com




Lonnie Cumberland <lonnie@...>
 

Thanks so very much for the clarification, Andrew.

That tells me exactly what I need and think that I will go ahead and get the first one on my list as it has a taller case which may allow for an additional HDD or SSD in the future.

Cheers,
Lonnie


On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 5:43 PM Andrew Back <andrew@...> wrote:
On 17/01/2021 20:59, Lonnie Cumberland wrote:

> Although I am not completely clear what the differences in (1) and (2)
> are in the ending naming of NUC Series 7 where it has "DNHE" and "DNKE".
> I think that this might have to do with the enclosure (maybe) that the
> boards are in, but could be totally wrong here.

For details see:

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000031273/intel-nuc.html

So B = board-only, K = slim case and H = tall case. The E at the end is
for extended life cycle, which might be important if you're designing
into a product and where long term availability is key.

Andrew

--
Andrew Back
http://abopen.com






Andrew Back
 

On 17/01/2021 20:59, Lonnie Cumberland wrote:

Although I am not completely clear what the differences in (1) and (2)
are in the ending naming of NUC Series 7 where it has "DNHE" and "DNKE".
I think that this might have to do with the enclosure (maybe) that the
boards are in, but could be totally wrong here.
For details see:

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000031273/intel-nuc.html

So B = board-only, K = slim case and H = tall case. The E at the end is
for extended life cycle, which might be important if you're designing
into a product and where long term availability is key.

Andrew

--
Andrew Back
http://abopen.com


Lonnie Cumberland <lonnie@...>
 

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your input on this since I think that it would be bad to spend the money and get something that falls short from being able to run even a basic setup.

I had actually been leaning toward (1) or (2) above since I found them first and then later stumbled upon the others.

Based upon the hardware matix that ACRN has listed I  was going along the lines of supporting the most use cases:

Platform (Intel x86)

Product/Kit Name

Usage Scenario - BKC Examples

SDC with 2 VMs

IU without Safety VM

IU with Safety VM

Logical Partition

Kaby Lake
(Code name: Dawson Canyon)
(Board: NUC7i7DNB)

V

V

V

V

Although I am not completely clear what the differences in (1) and (2) are in the ending naming of NUC Series 7 where it has "DNHE" and "DNKE". I think that this might have to do with the enclosure (maybe) that the boards are in, but could be totally wrong here.

Also, If can get a basic setup working like in the YouTube video (dated a bit from what Geoffroy tells me)


Then, perhaps I can develop on the new NUC for the project that I am eager to get going with ACRN as it seems to be the most promising and closest fit to the project goals that I have in mind. One of my goals, going forward is to have ACRN running on AMD as well as a number of modern commodity Intel systems that support hardware virtualization. Still a long ways to go but still a nice goal for ACRN as well.

Unfortunately, I have not looked into the Atom series at all and am totally a novice like you but, then again, that is the best way to get started I guess.  May we be able to learn a lot and I will be happy to share what I learn with you and others as the journey goes forward.

Thanks again and have a GREAT weekend,
Lonnie


Andrew Back
 

On 17/01/2021 16:10, Lonnie Cumberland wrote:
Hi All,

Hope that everyone is going well. Seems like the mailing list is not too
active over the weekends.

I have been searching to match a NUC or similar system that will run
ACRN and have proposed a couple and have been using the ACRN hardware
list to help guide me:

https://projectacrn.github.io/latest/reference/hardware.html
<https://projectacrn.github.io/latest/reference/hardware.html>

Some of the reasonably priced systems that I have found are:

1. Intel NUC *NUC7i7DNHE *Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i7-8650U Upto
4.2GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual Monitor
Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel UHD Graphics 620

2. Intel NUC *NUC7i7DNKE* Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i7-8650U Upto
4.2GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB m.2 SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual
Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel UHD
Graphics 620

3.) Intel NUC *NUC7i3DNHE* Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Dual-Core i3-7100U
2.4GHz, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual Monitor
Capable, Windows 10 Professional 64Bit (16GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel
HD Graphics 620

But just came across these possible ones as well:

A.) Intel NUC *NUC8i5BEK *Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i5-8259U Upto
3.8GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, Thunderbolt 3, 4k
Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD)
-- Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655

B.) Mini PC,*Beelink U57 Intel Core i5-5257U *Processor (up to 3.10GHz)
Windows 10 Pro Mini Desktop Computer, 8GB DDR3L/256GB M.2 SSD, Supports
Extended HDD & SSD 2.5″/4K HD/Dual HDMI/Dual WiFi /BT4.0 -- Intel Ultra
HD Graphics 6100

If someone could please give me an idea as to what might be the best
option then I would greatly appreciate it as I want to order one of
these or something that may be recommended ASAP to start working on things.
I'm not much further along than you and a total ACRN novice, but at the
risk of being corrected, I'd suggest sticking to officially supported
hardware. In which case, of all those you listed, the only two which
would seem to be are options (1) and (2), as they are NUC Series 7 with
Intel Core i7 Kaby Lake/Dawson Canyon (6th row in the first table).

There don't seem to be any NUC7i3, NUC8 series or Beelink models listed
as supported.

FWIW I recently had success bringing up the Industry Scenario with an
UP2 Atom x7-E3950 (4GB RAM/32GB eMMC variant). Though I'm still finding
my way around and not managed to access the hypervisor CLI via serial
port yet. I suspect that 4GB RAM may be a bit limiting too.

I also picked up a NUC7i7DNBE (board only - no case) to use with ACRN,
but haven't got started with this as yet.

Cheers,

Andrew

--
Andrew Back
http://abopen.com


Lonnie Cumberland <lonnie@...>
 

Hi All,

Hope that everyone is going well. Seems like the mailing list is not too active over the weekends.

I have been searching to match a NUC or similar system that will run ACRN and have proposed a couple and have been using the ACRN hardware list to help guide me:


Some of the reasonably priced systems that I have found are:

1. Intel NUC NUC7i7DNHE Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i7-8650U Upto 4.2GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel UHD Graphics 620

2. Intel NUC NUC7i7DNKE Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i7-8650U Upto 4.2GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB m.2 SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel UHD Graphics 620

3.) Intel NUC NUC7i3DNHE Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Dual-Core i3-7100U 2.4GHz, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4k Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Professional 64Bit (16GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel HD Graphics 620

But just came across these possible ones as well:

A.) Intel NUC NUC8i5BEK Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Quad-Core i5-8259U Upto 3.8GHz, 32GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, Thunderbolt 3, 4k Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (32GB Ram + 512GB SSD) -- Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655

B.) Mini PC, Beelink U57 Intel Core i5-5257U Processor (up to 3.10GHz) Windows 10 Pro Mini Desktop Computer, 8GB DDR3L/256GB M.2 SSD, Supports Extended HDD & SSD 2.5″/4K HD/Dual HDMI/Dual WiFi /BT4.0 -- Intel Ultra HD Graphics 6100

If someone could please give me an idea as to what might be the best option then I would greatly appreciate it as I want to order one of these or something that may be recommended ASAP to start working on things.

Thanks in advance, and have a great weekeend
Lonnie