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References: <001d01ced02e$aaf29260$00d7b720$@Kitz@xs4all.nl>
 <44bo2ekdj8.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>
Subject: Re: FreeBSD distribution for ARM processors.
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:19:29 -0500
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On Thu, Oct 24, 2013, at 8:24, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> "John W. Kitz" <John.Kitz@xs4all.nl> writes:
> 
> > Can someone please explain the rationale behind not providing a distribution
> > for arm based systems, as it seems somewhat illogical to me that
> > distributions are available for ia64, powerpc, sparc64 (see
> > http://www.freebsd.org/where.html) which are considered Tier 2 architectures
> > while the official reason for arm being a Tier 2 architecture is the fact
> > that no distribution is provided for it (see
> > http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/arm.html).
> 
> The ARM port is mostly used for embedded work, for which a formal
> distribution would not be helpful. There really aren't many standards
> for peripherals beyond i2c, so it wouldn't be possible to support
> different ARM-based devices with a single distribution.
> 

ARM-based may soon be coming to a datacenter near you. We might have to
find a way to support them like any other arch. Of course embedded will
likely continue to be unpredictable.