This page describes compares build hardware options for arm hard float both currently available and possiblly available in the future.

In general red means poor, yellow means ok and green means good. These judgements are somewhat subjective but I (plugwash) belive them to be reasonable. Currently for ram i'm giving red for 1 GB (anything less than 1GB is IMO not worthy of being used as an autobuilder at all), yellow for 2-3 GB and green for 4 GB or more. For cores i'm giving red for 1, yellow for 2 and green for four or more. For clockspeed i'm giving red for less than 1 GHz, yellow for exactly 1 GHz and green for more than 1 GHz. For Sata i'm giving red for no port at all or a USB based port, yellow for a 1.5 Gbps native port and green for a 3Gbps or higher native port. For ethernet i'm giving red for no port or a USB based port, yellow for a 100Mbps or 10Gbps native port and green for a 1Gbps native port. For price i'm giving green for under $500 per node, yellow for $500-$1000 per node and red for over $1000 per node. For availability i'm giving green for ready availability from stock, yellow for available but with issues or no lead time information and red for not yet released. For kernel support i'm giving green for full support in debian kernel's, yellow for either adequate (ethernet, SATA (either native if present or an external usb controller if not) and some means of getting a console work) but not full support in debian kernels or a vendor kernel that is reasonably up to date and red for no usable support in debian and a vendor kernel that does not seem to be getting updates.

Note: prices may be approximate and/or outdated and are given for guidance only.

Board vendor

SoC vendor

Product

Ram

Cores

Clock

Sata

Ethernet

Price

Status / Availability

Form factor

kernel suppport

Currently used by

Freescale

IMX53 quickstart board

1GB

1

1 GHz

1x Native 1.5 Gbps

1x Native 100 Mbps

$162.04

In stock at mouser and digikey

3x3 inch devboard

Hardware needed for autobuilder works with debian kernel, but some other onboard hardware doesn't.

Debian Raspbian

Texas instruments

PandaBoard

1GB

2

1 GHz

none

1x USB based 100 Mbps

$169.21

In stock at mouser and digikey

4.0x4.5 inch devboard

Ubuntu

Texas instruments

PandaBoard ES

1GB

2

1.2 GHz

none

1x USB based 100 Mbps

$178.48

In stock at mouser and digikey

4.0x4.5 inch devboard

878.9844