So the Turing Pi 2 landed and I went to get it up and running… and then I ran into an issue I should have realised earlier, so much earlier.
What’s a Turing Pi 2?
The TP2 is an intelligent backplane that lets you manage four boards installed in the four slots on top. There’s a Linux running controller underneath all of it which lets you ssh into it or web into it and control the boards. Very cool, especially as you can pack it all into a Mini-ITX form factor.
Especially as there’s space for four NVMe SSDs on the back for super nippy nodes. Add to that a whole set of instructions on how to bring up Kubernetes and more. It felt like it was just what the office needed…
Getting cracking
Raspberry Pi CM4s though are hard to get and I pulled out my precious one so I could get going bringing up a single node. Heat sink installed on CM4 and plugged into one of the CM4 adapter boards… I’d got a Pico PSU to power the board and added a chunky 12V adaptor to feed that with the requisite juice.
Fun things during bring up:
- The nmap script you need to run (if you don’t want to plug in over USB/Serial) to find the BMC IP address (DHCP allocated) is… interesting. (I would love a teeny OLED screen to display details like that on a TP3).
- Finding you couldn’t SSH in as root.
- Finding there’s a new firmware which will let you do SSH as root.
- Using the web interface to upload a new firmware and reboot…
- And going back to the script to find out where the TP2 is now.
- Logging in and as quickly as possible fixing the IP address.
Operating the operating system
And now it’s time to install an OS on the CM4… popping a micro SD card out the instructions say you could just burn an OS on it but recommend that you use BMC to install. Fair enough, but… this depends on RPIboot and it just wouldn’t see the CM4 - It may be the cable (as you are recommended to use an A to A cable but none on hand - tho I did use a tested C to A but no..).
Oh I said, but of a roadblock for now, maybe I can install an NVMe SSD on the bottom of the board.
And it was then that I found the CM4 had the weakest support of any board supported by the TP2 (You can mix Jetsons, CM4s and others in the slots). The CM4 can only use a mini PCIe SSD in one slot. For various reasons I’d assumed that NVMe would work, just slowly, but no despite having a Tofu board where the CM4 was having lots of NVMe fun, it wasn’t to be.
The Dream was in danger
I wasn’t going to be making a four node CM4 cluster with whizzy SSD all round. So I carefully boxed everything up for now (and I am awaiting a Mini ITX case too) and pondered.
Then there on the Turing Pi site was the answer: The Turing RK1, their own Rockchip based board, of which they have - we hear - just recieved engineering samples. These boards have 8 cores, good speeds - the CM4 geekbench results vs the RK3588… single/multi CM4 1197/2945 cs RK3588 3118/9642. It looks like a cracking board.
Yes it costs more, but you will be able to get the RK1 with 32GB of RAM for $210 and that beats the CM4 which you just can’t get. The specs are packed and best of all, it will work with NVMe Gen3 abd 4 PCIe lanes. So whizzy SSD too.
Now, I just have to wait.
Aaaaaargh…. WAITING - MY SWORN ENEMY.