New Blackbird firmware
New firmware for the Blackbird is available from the Raptor wiki. This version fixes the Petitboot crashes that plagued users of the LSI SAS module, essentially replacing the "2.01 beta" that Raptor put out to fix the problem. If you were affected, you may wish to update in order to pick up the officially blessed fix.
Also, Raptor is hinting that more updates regarding the Blackbird's availability will come in November. I suspect this may have something to do with the shortage of SATA controllers which is also delaying some Talos II and T2 Lite orders; you can order a T2 without a SATA card, but the Blackbird has SATA on-board. Hopefully the logjam will break up soon.
There's something funny up with this announcement. The "What are we up to now...." is a huge tip-off. Also, since when does the BMC need to emulate anything using QEMU? That sounds like a hint towards a change of CPU architecture.
ReplyDeleteIf I were optimistic I would think Raptor have taken the opportunity to rework the blackbird's design, integrating the Kestrel BMC replacement. They demoed a sidecar that could IPL a T2 but maybe it's time to actually implement it, perhaps on the simpler Blackbird?
The BMC can be emulated with recent versions of QEMU, so I don't think this necessarily has anything specific to do with this announcement.
DeleteThat said, Kestrel was originally prototyped on the Blackbird (soldering required). The Blackbird has the same FSI debug port, so the hardware shown in the video should work fine on it (the systems are really quite similar despite the form factor difference).
I'm afraid my coffee isn't doing the heavy lifting it needs to this morning, so bear with me. The firmware update fixes a Petitboot crash that affected users of LSI-manufactured serial-attached SCSI cards and paves the way for Kestrel to replace the current BMC, but the delays in shipped Blackbirds are most likely the fault of a shortage of SATA controllers instead? Or are new shipments of Blackbird being delayed to implement Kestrel onboard as well? If it's too early to tell, that's also okay.
DeleteI think it's too early to tell, though I still think a component shortage is the simplest explanation. But that would be cool (or at least worth waiting for) if they were indeed delaying them for Kestrel, or possibly doing both in the same stroke since they're delayed anyway.
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