02-19-2016, 09:07 AM
Linux support is coming up nicely thanks to Linux-Sunxi. Several developers received boards to test / devel / play around ( I was lucky to get one was well) and support is emerging.
I understand that some backers will be disappointed - they don't get shiny working out of the box armv8 Linux box for 20$ right away. Looking at other arm devices that have binary blob only support for accelerated graphics it should not be a surprise that there won't be full open source support for everything as soon as Kickstarter delivers the boards. (check http://linux-sunxi.org/Mali400 for more info)
I don't know how big is engineering team of Allwinner working on improvements for Android BSP (that can be reused for Linux support). Based on the traffic on #linux-sunxi there are two developers (apritzel, longsleep) actively working with Pine and as far as I know it is not their day job to do so. There are few others working on other parts of Allwinner ecosystem related to Pine ( regulators, dtb: Wens, SSVB).
Again, I doubt any of them is paid by Pine/Allwinner to get Linux support for Pine64.
If you want to help - get on the IRC, download images test them, report bugs, if you feel strong enough and have enough time - see if there are some tasks you can help with.
I understand that some backers will be disappointed - they don't get shiny working out of the box armv8 Linux box for 20$ right away. Looking at other arm devices that have binary blob only support for accelerated graphics it should not be a surprise that there won't be full open source support for everything as soon as Kickstarter delivers the boards. (check http://linux-sunxi.org/Mali400 for more info)
I don't know how big is engineering team of Allwinner working on improvements for Android BSP (that can be reused for Linux support). Based on the traffic on #linux-sunxi there are two developers (apritzel, longsleep) actively working with Pine and as far as I know it is not their day job to do so. There are few others working on other parts of Allwinner ecosystem related to Pine ( regulators, dtb: Wens, SSVB).
Again, I doubt any of them is paid by Pine/Allwinner to get Linux support for Pine64.
If you want to help - get on the IRC, download images test them, report bugs, if you feel strong enough and have enough time - see if there are some tasks you can help with.