DietPi OS for Quartz64

[MichaIng]

Of course on DietPi RPi images, all those files below /boot exist, just like on RPi OS. Note that our images differ in this regards from board to board. For RPi images, we use their official kernel build (with all overlays etc), and it requires all these files on a FAT partition strictly. So you can modify/setup it exactly like RPi OS. For Quartz64 we use an unmodified mainline kernel (with U-Boot and extlinux), hence here are the sources: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ker...ing-stable

Here is our workflow to build kernel, U-Boot and create a DEB package from it: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/blob/...artz64.yml
As you can see, we use a custom defconf, so adding the two config keys there would be easy. Having a look at them:

• https://www.kernelconfig.io/CONFIG_USB_HIDDEV
  
• https://www.kernelconfig.io/CONFIG_HIDRAW
  

Both "If unsure, say Y." means that those are enabled by default, AFAIK. But we can try defining them explicitly and see whether it helps.

EDIT: Okay, I added them, builds are running: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/actio...6907978685
You can find the firmware-soquartz.deb package here, once finished: https://dietpi.com/downloads/binaries/testing/

[stormwyrm]

Again, thank you so much for your prompt responses! Things are getting into shape and it's already pretty much usable as my backup GNU/Linux desktop.

[MichaIng]

Builds are done. To test:

Code:

cd /tmp
curl -fO https://dietpi.com/downloads/binaries/testing/firmware-soquartz.deb
dpkg -i --force-confdef,confold firmware-soquartz.deb
rm firmware-soquartz.deb
reboot

[stormwyrm]

Builds are done.

Excellent. I just installed and tested it, and I was able to use my Yubikeys to log onto GMail with 2FA. Please keep up the good work!

[MichaIng]

Great. These will be installed on all Quartz64 systems with next DietPi update (tomorrow).

[stormwyrm]

Any hints on how to get hardware accelerated HD video working? It seems that one should at least be able to play H.264 1080p videos, if not 4k, with the hardware acceleration available on the RK3566. As it is out of the box MPlayer and VLC are not set up to use any hardware acceleration and so can't even play 720p video properly. Are there any relevant packages that I need to install and command line switches/configuration set up to use on any of the usual media players to do it?

[MichaIng]

Any hints on how to get hardware accelerated HD video working? It seems that one should at least be able to play H.264 1080p videos, if not 4k, with the hardware acceleration available on the RK3566. As it is out of the box MPlayer and VLC are not set up to use any hardware acceleration and so can't even play 720p video properly. Are there any relevant packages that I need to install and command line switches/configuration set up to use on any of the usual media players to do it?

The Mali G52 should be supported by Mesa drivers, and the latest entry in changelog for this GPU is from v22.3.y, which is shipped by Debian Bookworm: https://packages.debian.org/source/bookworm/mesa

Which graphics API are MPlayer and VLC using (or supporting)? In case, mesa-va-drivers (VA-API) or mesa-vulkan-drivers might be needed. The basic KMS/DRM/EGL libraries should have been installed together with the X server.

If this all does not help, you could try our Trixie image, where Mesa 23 and newer video player packages are available: https://dietpi.com/downloads/images/

[stormwyrm]

If this all does not help, you could try our Trixie image, where Mesa 23 and newer video player packages are available: https://dietpi.com/downloads/images/

Well, I did this and managed to get 720p and 1080p working well at least but I had to use mpv instead. I can't figure out how to configure mplayer or vlc to do hardware acceleration properly yet. I tried to do 4k video but it seems that the system isn't up to it, getting a lot of dropped frames.

[MichaIng]

If this all does not help, you could try our Trixie image, where Mesa 23 and newer video player packages are available: https://dietpi.com/downloads/images/

Well, I did this and managed to get 720p and 1080p working well at least but I had to use mpv instead. I can't figure out how to configure mplayer or vlc to do hardware acceleration properly yet. I tried to do 4k video but it seems that the system isn't up to it, getting a lot of dropped frames.

So Trixie made a difference? Good to know. Hardware acceleration is not always hardware acceleration: While Mesa declares support for this GPU, it might just not yet be as good as when using Rockchip blobs, or some graphics APIs work better than others.

I was rechecking our kernel config and checked on the system itself, and the Panfrost driver as well as Mali display driver are both compiled/shipped with the kernel. If there is any other kernel driver missing which enables video decoding acceleration, that would be good to know, but I could not find any.

[diederik]

Using mpv made the difference, not Trixie.
It seems MPlayer has been brought back from the dead some time ago, but it's still got a few years of catching up to do. It's a mystery to me why you would want to use it (instead of mpv).
VLC (or gnome's video player) for some reason can't handle 720p or 'even' 1080p. I have a vague recollection that VLC hasn't moved to ffmpeg 5 yet (let alone 6 as used in Trixie).

And I'm quite sure that hardware acceleration is NOT working (unless you patched several things for that).
You'll likely see CPU usage on all cores of 80-100% as it does all things on the CPU, which means it's indeed not using HW-accel.