HW Acceleration Working

[ssvb]

Where do you see the HDMI parts as GPL? It still links to libhdmi.a which is not in the tarball and comes from the disp2 folder of the BSP package as binary.

You are right, this new code drop still links with the pesky libhdmi blob from the Allwinner A64 kernel. The blob in question contains mostly the same code (maybe even 100% functionally equivalent) as https://github.com/ssvb/linux-sunxi/blob..._sun8iw7.c from the Allwinner H3 kernel. But the "hdmi_bsp_sun8iw7.c" file has no license notices, so it is not much better than the blob if we care about GPL compliance.

[jrullan]

Hi guys,

I'm very excited about the developments on HW acceleration, although I understand there have been problems so far. I don't know exactly how to help but I'm very interested in seeing this all the way through. It would be great to have the Pine64 outperform RPI3. My question would be, is there anything people like me (who never have compiled a kernel or xserver) can do to help in this matter?

I'll be happy to help in any way I can.

Keep it up guys!!!

[tllim]

Some quick comments about the Allwinner's Mali package. It seems to be missing the EULA notice, which is normally required to be present:

Code:

1.2 If you choose to redistribute the whole or any part of the
Software pursuant to the licences granted in Clause 1.1(ii), you
agree: (i) not to use ARM's or any of its licensors names, logos or
trademarks to market Applications; (ii) to retain any and all
copyright notices and other notices (whether ARM's or its licensor's)
which are included with the Software; and (iii) include a copy of this
Licence with such redistribution.

This was a part of the EULA text for the r6p0-01rel0 Mali-450 userland blob from: http://malideveloper.arm.com/resources/d...e-drivers/
And I believe that the r6p0 Mali-400 userland blob provided by Allwinner is supposed to have similar licensing requirements.

A few of the kernel source files in this package still have the "all rights reserved" license notice instead of the GPL license. They are "sun50iw1_transform.c" and "transform.h". The "drm_al.c" file has no license notices at all. But I'm happy that at least the HDMI parts are now GPL licensed, so this code can be adapted to the mainline Linux kernel and U-Boot and there are no licensing incompatibilities.

About the blobs themselves. It would be nice if Allwinner could also provide the framebuffer variant of the Mali userland blob in addition to the X11 variant. This is going to be useful for Kodi.

Also lennyraposo and longsleep had some comments regarding compiling the kernel parts of these drivers.

I will mentioned to Allwinner folk when meet up with them in China on Friday.

[nagmier]

Some quick comments about the Allwinner's Mali package. It seems to be missing the EULA notice, which is normally required to be present:

Code:

1.2 If you choose to redistribute the whole or any part of the
Software pursuant to the licences granted in Clause 1.1(ii), you
agree: (i) not to use ARM's or any of its licensors names, logos or
trademarks to market Applications; (ii) to retain any and all
copyright notices and other notices (whether ARM's or its licensor's)
which are included with the Software; and (iii) include a copy of this
Licence with such redistribution.

This was a part of the EULA text for the r6p0-01rel0 Mali-450 userland blob from: http://malideveloper.arm.com/resources/d...e-drivers/
And I believe that the r6p0 Mali-400 userland blob provided by Allwinner is supposed to have similar licensing requirements.

A few of the kernel source files in this package still have the "all rights reserved" license notice instead of the GPL license. They are "sun50iw1_transform.c" and "transform.h". The "drm_al.c" file has no license notices at all. But I'm happy that at least the HDMI parts are now GPL licensed, so this code can be adapted to the mainline Linux kernel and U-Boot and there are no licensing incompatibilities.

About the blobs themselves. It would be nice if Allwinner could also provide the framebuffer variant of the Mali userland blob in addition to the X11 variant. This is going to be useful for Kodi.

Also lennyraposo and longsleep had some comments regarding compiling the kernel parts of these drivers.

I will mentioned to Allwinner folk when meet up with them in China on Friday.

This Friday, Next Week, Soon, Keep your hopes up!!!! COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY USELESS!!!!''



I really hope you people are starting to see the run around that not only the customers are getting from PINE, but even the supposed management at PINE can't get a straight answer from AllWinner THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE!!! ALLWINNER HAS Demonstrated time and again they don't care about open source they only care about cranking out poorly supported ARM chips.

[CaptainZalo]

Why are you trolling? Just sell your board already.
Edit:
I'm sorry I was a little short in the first reply.

1: Keep to the OP please.
2: If you're posting, don't pull stuff out of your ass, please.
3: If you can't handle your temper, please go take your meds.
4: Just sell your board already.

[nagmier]

How about they stop glad-handing the community and admit they made a mistake...


As far as selling the board, you can't sell something with no value and when you are STILL waiting on all of your items from your order to arrive MONTHS later (like so many others) you can't exactly sell it now can you?

[CaptainZalo]

How about they stop glad-handing the community and admit they made a mistake...

There has been updates stating what went wrong, why it went wrong and apologies aplenty. It might not be enough to satisfy everyone's hunger for functionality, but it still doesn't justify puking your discontent all over the boards in threads that have actual constructive content. In this thread, if you can read a thread and keep a civil an objective angle, you can see that both the community, the Pine company and Allwinner are actually making progress. Yes, Allwinner can do a better job with their code and such, but they are primarily a chipmaker, not a full-stack solutions-provider like Intel or IBM.
That said; The Android image works pretty well and supports most of the stuff the Pine64 board promised to deliver. Typing words in caps to vent your fury helps noone and makes you look like a raging internet-lunatic and achieves nothing but frustration.

As far as selling the board, you can't sell something with no value and when you are STILL waiting on all of your items from your order to arrive MONTHS later (like so many others) you can't exactly sell it now can you?

By no value, you mean no value to you? Because there are several others on this forum that actually enjoy tinkering with hardware and software. Some even enjoy compiling parts of unfinished code to try making it work, and it gives them satisfaction. I'm a little of all, and I think the Pine was severely underpriced. I'd say that clearly - with that value in mind - you can sell whatever you want. Of course, there will be customers that try to achieve the unachievable or cry rivers of salty tears because the product doesn't make their dreams come true or make pigs fly. (Imagine if pigs had wings - Their wings would be so tasty.)

There are more than 20000 backers that have received some or all their items.

If you haven't received any of your items, I'll advice you to direct a generally civil query to the salesdepartment or even send a PM to tllim as he actually does handle requests. Again. If you're so unhappy with your investment in kickstarter or items you've bought through the store, wait patiently for it to arrive, then sell it. There's no need in spilling your toxic garbage around in the forums. I've already bought another user's kit as well. I got half my own kit, but due to payment errors (that I was informed of about a month later), I'm missing a few parts. I've solved this by using my mind and curiosity because that's why I kickstarted the Pine64 project.

There has been so many excuses and there are a lot of things happening, but posting unsolicited rubbish does not help you, the community, Pine or Allwinner. It just makes you look bad.

TLDR; With all due respect; I understand your frustration, but please use it constructively instead of lashing out and fouling up other threads.

[CaptainZalo]

Eagerly awaiting update once you're done meeting with Allwinner tech, @tllim
A working X11 2D/3D accelleration-blob is sorely missed.

[barawn]

A short answer. Mali is only useful for 3D graphics. In principle, 2D graphics can be treated as a subset of 3D and some 2D applications may be accelerated too (such as Qt5 applications), but this is rather uncommon in Linux. For example, the popular lightweight LXDE/XFCE/MATE desktops don't use or need any 3D acceleration at all.

Wait, so there's no extra 2D acceleration at all from the DRM blob? I know there's a ton of "can't load xxx kernel module" messages from fbturbo, so I figured there'd be some performance improvement: but I guess those are all DRI2 (e.g. 3D) related?

[tllim]

Eagerly awaiting update once you're done meeting with Allwinner tech, @tllim
A working X11 2D/3D accelleration-blob is sorely missed.

I have meet up with Allwinner folks two days ago, overall is a good meeting. I am bridging up Allwinner and Sunxi community and there will be more collaboration and turns into fruitful result for Pine64 community.
Back in Mali topic, Allwinner already make the first release and I aware that still not usable. If somebody able to provide me a clear issues and requests, I will translate and provide back to engineer.
P/S: I am not a Linux software guru.