Thursday, December 20, 2012

PandaBoard, Raspberry Pi coming to Buildbot fleet

Thanks to the Python Software Foundation, a PandaBoard arrived on Trent Nelson’s desk just in time for the holidays! Santa dropped off the present for python-dev this morning, and there’s a Raspberry Pi not far behind it.

On Raymond Hettinger’s recent thread about the memory layout of dictionaries, Barry Warsaw and Christian Heimes shared concerns about how things might look on ARM devices. Christian mentioned the Snakebite environment, run by Trent Nelson, but without any ARM machines in the environment, Trent offered to host the boxes if someone donates them.

Based on the thread’s suggestions and the low cost of the devices, the PSF authorized purchase of a PandaBoard ES, featuring a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A9, along with several accessories to get it running. The PSF already had a few Raspberry Pi devices on hand, which come with a 700 MHz ARMv6, so one was dispatched to Trent.

Thanks to the PSF for making the purchase, and thanks to Trent for offering to set up the machines and add them to the environment!