On 12/12/2018 09:59 PM, Ed Hau wrote:
Thanks for all the help so far after digging for the past day I was thinking about picking up the KCMR-D12 as you had recommended and a set of AMD OPTERON 4280 to go with it. This has the AST-2050 for the openBMC port that I am also interested in. Just wanted one more round of sanity checks before putting in the order.
Yah go for it! it is almost identical to the KCMA-D8 it just has more RAM slots and a different PCI-e configuration. Should be an easy first port and one can gain experience :D Let us know if you need help!
Note OpenBMC needs an ASMB4 or ASMB5 firmware module (you use flashrom to over-write the crappy exploit ridden OEM firmware) if the board doesn't come with one they go for around $30 on fleabay.
After that if you wish to continue porting stuff I suggest a TYAN board such as the dual northbridge/sas S8225, the quad socket/sas S8812 or the affordable sas S8010 (just not the crappy SR5650 northbridge versions that lack the proper amount of PCI-e slots)
best c32 cpu - 4386 or if you don't want to have to use microcode updates the 4284 (4280 slightly slower/cheaper) I max out new new video games in a VM via IOMMU-GFX of an RX580 8GB with my 4386 equivilant 6328 so you can use this as a libre gaming pc as well - there are a variety of great AAA DRM free linux games on gog (email for reccs)
Something else that might interest you and what is a high priority firmware wise is a FOSS Broadcom NIC firmware replacement for the nic chipset that is on the blackbird/talos if you have what it takes the first person to make one gets a free talos 2 workstation valued at five thousand bucks. You can get PCI-e nics with the chipset so you don't actually need one of the boards to develop for it. It would be great to have a non-intel blob free nic since then one doesn't have to support a competitor and further ME development by getting intel nics (thats why they chose the broadcom one as it is the most promising due to a litany of documentation) and it is the only thing in the way to getting RYF for the OpenPOWER stuff afaik.