ARM architecture

[phillxnet (Philip Guyton)]

@polarathene, @Warbucks, @Eraser, @emc, @Hooverdan

@polarathene Thanks again for opening this forum thread. As per my recent closing of your associated GitHub issue the following doc entry:

@polarathene

… but the Rockstor docs list only 64-bit Intel/AMD x86 CPU as supported/required.

is now inaccurate. And so we need a new issue in our doc repo:

GitHub - rockstor/rockstor-doc: Rockstor documentation

Because as from our Rockstor 3.9.2-60 “Build on openSUSE” variant only, we have been building and distributing AArm64 rpms in our testing channel. See:

@phillxnet

Oh, and did I mention we have AArm64 rpms now; natively build, as per all our rpms, on their target distro and architecture.

And as from the release of our new “Rockstor 4 Installer Recipe” GitHub repo a few days ago:

GitHub - rockstor/rockstor-installer: The kiwi-ng configuration used to create Rockstor...

We now have instructions for how to create your own “Rockstor 4 built on openSUSE”, based on Leap 15.2, installer. Where our first AArm64 profile within that installer is for the Raspberry Pi 4. If you have the knowledge and talent/interest please consider contributing other AArm64 profiles to that repository. Assuming you have the means to test the resulting installer of course. No promises we can distribute the resulting installer but it can only help others develop other profiles and allows those who follow in your footsteps to be able to sample and test Rockstor 4 on their preferred platform.

We are also hoping soon to be able to announce an official Ten64 profile, another AArm64 platfor. Which would then make our official list of Profiles:

• Leap15.2.x86_64
• Leap15.2.RaspberryPi4
• Leap15.2.Ten64 (soon hopefully)

@emc I’m afraid your hopes for the Helios4 are not met by this development as it is not AArm64 but ARMv7 32-bit which is very unlikely to be a workable target platform for us. Sorry about that but btrfs, our core filesystem, is I think, best run on 64 bit machines and up. And with the prevalence of AArm64 bit machines emerging I hope, in time, with community input, that we can cover the majority of the more favoured AArm64 devices. This does not mean we undertake to distribute or test the resulting installers but we are happy to have them added as target profiles within the above installer Recipe if they have been tested by the submitter and hopefully also reviewed by others as working.

Please also see the following relevant forum thread re the new DIY installer:

Rockstor 4 Installer Recipe - call for beta testers

I am somewhat relieved, and a little surprised, to finally be announcing our new installer recipe. And I would like to call on those interested to ‘check our workings’. We do not yet have a binary download of the resulting installer as we must first ensure we are finalised on what it is we intend to be distributing in binary form in the first place. This new repository release, and this forum threads/request, is all part of that process. So please visit the above repo and try out the instruct…

Hope that helps, and please report your AArm64 findings re the new rockstor-installer GitHub repository and, as always, pull requests of fixes are welcome for any issues you may find.