
The ARM SoC Landscape from Genode's Perspective - chelmuth
https://genodians.org/nfeske/2019-11-20-arm-soc-landscape
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als0
They should investigate ARM's Server Base System Architecture (SBSA)
specification[1,2]. It is designed to provide a standardised ARM platform e.g.
ACPI, simplified feature sets, standard SMP, power control etc. It's meant to
be as boring as possible.

It's popular enough that Microsoft and Red Hat target it to produce a single
image that will work on all ARM server SoC vendors e.g. Ampere, HXT, Marvell,
Qualcomm.

Despite the 'server' in the name it can be applied to any 64-bit ARM SoC.
There is also Server Base Boot Requirements (SBBR) that describes the boot
requirements for SBSA.

[1]
[http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc....](http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.den0029b/index.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture)

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tjoff
I had some issues following along since I didn't know what Genode was. At
first I mixed it up with the AMD Geode processor which was quite confusing.

[https://genode.org/](https://genode.org/) has it up front:

 _We understand the complexity of code and policy as the most fundamental
security problem shared by modern general-purpose operating systems. Because
of high functional demands and dynamic workloads, however, this complexity
cannot be avoided. But it can be organized. Genode is a novel OS architecture
that is able to master complexity by applying a strict organizational
structure to all software components including device drivers, system
services, and applications. The Genode OS framework is an open-source tool kit
for building highly secure component-based operating systems. It scales from
embedded devices to dynamic general-purpose computing.

keywords: capability-based security, microkernel, principle of least
authority, sandboxing, virtualization_

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zokier
I'll point out that there is now also another kid in town providing what to me
seems extremely well documented ARM SoCs: ST with their new STM32MP1. I'm very
excited to see how they will fare in the market, I hope the best because their
approach feels very agreaable to me.

~~~
Symmetry
The STM32MP1 seems a bit underpowered though with a a couple of A7s, an in-
order 32 bit core ARM put out in 2011

