Linux Distro Support

[beard]

Hello,

I was curious on Debian support.
I currently have a stable build running.
Was wondering if you'd be able to support either;
ARM64, ARMEL, ARMHF?

If you need images to try I've got a few stock ones, and some modified ones like the image below.



~ B

[drag00n]

I think the main problem here are Allwinner blobs and drivers... Until they are not clear about them, we're in trouble...

[nomadewolf]

I think the main problem here are Allwinner blobs and drivers... Until they are not clear about them, we're in trouble...

Linux support is something we can count on sooner or later.
The real question is: will we have accelerated graphics suppport? And i'm affraid the question for that is NO. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a 4 Core 64 Bit processor with Gigabit LAN and 2GB RAM, for me at least...

[hlide]

I was able to retrieve all last sources for Mali400 from ARM website (through a search of links in the sources of their webpages), but there is only one thing I cannot retrieve is the "ARM Mali Utgard GPU User Space Driver" (that is, mali-450_r5p0-01rel0_linux_1+fbdev+arm64-v8a.tar.gz, which contains miscellaneous dynamic libraries to EGL, OpenVG, OpenGL ES 2, and so on - no sources, only binaries!).

For the rest, there are sources:
- Open Source Mali GPUs Linux EAXDRI2 and X11 Display Drivers (last is r6p0-01rel0)
- Open Source Mali GPUs UMP User Space Drivers (last is r6p0-01rel0)
- Open Source Mali Utgard GPU Linux Kernel Drivers (last is r6p0-01rel0)
- Open Source Mali-DP ADF Kernel Device Drivers (r0p0-01rel0)

[tkaiser]

will we have accelerated graphics suppport?

These are two different areas:

• 2D/3D GPU acceleration (remember, the A64 uses the 8 year old slow Mali400MP2 but everything already available for other Allwinner SoCs is useless since now you've to deal with ARMv8)
  
• HW accelerated video/image encoding/decoding through CedarX (the majority of people only interested in HW accelerated video decoding since they feel the need to get an ultra-cheap HTPC)
  

To get an idea what the 'problems' regarding CedarX are, just read this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/...PHmktgipzU (and maybe this other thread as well: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/..._H233Cl4iE)

Since the Pine64 is a platform where the vast majority of customers only cares about 'free drivers' with 'free' defined as in 'free beer' (and not as in 'free software') nothing will change. There's neither a stimulus for Allwinner to change their business model nor a change in the situation that would let the linux-sunxi devs do the hard work for free on their own)

[nomadewolf]

will we have accelerated graphics suppport?

These are two different areas:

• 2D/3D GPU acceleration (remember, the A64 uses the 8 year old slow Mali400MP2 but everything already available for other Allwinner SoCs is useless since now you've to deal with ARMv8)
  
• HW accelerated video/image encoding/decoding through CedarX (the majority of people only interested in HW accelerated video decoding since they feel the need to get an ultra-cheap HTPC)
  

To get an idea what the 'problems' regarding CedarX are, just read this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/...PHmktgipzU (and maybe this other thread as well: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/..._H233Cl4iE)

Since the Pine64 is a platform where the vast majority of customers only cares about 'free drivers' with 'free' defined as in 'free beer' (and not as in 'free software') nothing will change. There's neither a stimulus for Allwinner to change their business model nor a change in the situation that would let the linux-sunxi devs do the hard work for free on their own)

Well... i don't know about the other users, but i would gladly pay to have a team devolop opensource drivers for this GPU.
Maybe we could crowdfund this?...

EDIT:
I read the thread and i agree. When Allwinner won't even properly document the hardware how can we expect the community to create an open source driver?

---

will we have accelerated graphics suppport?

These are two different areas:

• 2D/3D GPU acceleration (remember, the A64 uses the 8 year old slow Mali400MP2 but everything already available for other Allwinner SoCs is useless since now you've to deal with ARMv8)
  
• HW accelerated video/image encoding/decoding through CedarX (the majority of people only interested in HW accelerated video decoding since they feel the need to get an ultra-cheap HTPC)
  

To get an idea what the 'problems' regarding CedarX are, just read this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/...PHmktgipzU (and maybe this other thread as well: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/..._H233Cl4iE)

Since the Pine64 is a platform where the vast majority of customers only cares about 'free drivers' with 'free' defined as in 'free beer' (and not as in 'free software') nothing will change. There's neither a stimulus for Allwinner to change their business model nor a change in the situation that would let the linux-sunxi devs do the hard work for free on their own)

 tkaiser maybe is the product competitors company personnel

Why?
I think that if anything, he's someone who understands what he is talking about and clarifies things.
Maybe he is someone from the 'community', but that's a good thing.

[janjwerner]

Joe, 
I don't care whose community tkaiser is in. He seems to be the most competent person on this forum, and his input already triggered some supposed action from Pine Corp. 
I haven't seen him saying "This project sucks, it's fail etc.". He voiced valid, reasonable concerns that show experience in the area. 
If you think that you can just download some source from the interwebz and run make and all will be nice and peachy, I believe you never dealt with this kind of work. 
As it was noted earlier - I imagine there will be every single distribution built for ARM running on pine. Will they be great? No, not until we can get new kernel, drivers and all the software matched together. 
Pine is (will be) a great (advanced) hobbyist tool, but I do not expect it to reach the maturity level of the Raspberry Pi. Most users will stick to the stock android, then loose interest and have an expensive paperweight, hopefully there will be some who will keep this little project alive. 
It is fantastic option to get 64bit ARMv8 development board ( I'm here specifically for some features of the ARMv8 CPU), but it will take significant amount of effort to get it up and running. 
cheers

[beard]

Joe, 
I don't care whose community tkaiser is in. He seems to be the most competent person on this forum, and his input already triggered some supposed action from Pine Corp. 
I haven't seen him saying "This project sucks, it's fail etc.". He voiced valid, reasonable concerns that show experience in the area. 
If you think that you can just download some source from the interwebz and run make and all will be nice and peachy, I believe you never dealt with this kind of work. 
As it was noted earlier - I imagine there will be every single distribution built for ARM running on pine. Will they be great? No, not until we can get new kernel, drivers and all the software matched together. 
Pine is (will be) a great (advanced) hobbyist tool, but I do not expect it to reach the maturity level of the Raspberry Pi. Most users will stick to the stock android, then loose interest and have an expensive paperweight, hopefully there will be some who will keep this little project alive. 
It is fantastic option to get 64bit ARMv8 development board ( I'm here specifically for some features of the ARMv8 CPU), but it will take significant amount of effort to get it up and running. 
cheers

I'm with you on this. I don't know why people are bashing tkaiser for his thoughts and opinions on the recent problems we'll face for OS Support.
For those who keep talking about 3.x Kernel versions forget them. We need to be looking at 4.x. Mostly at either 4.2.x or .4.4.x
Those of us who're getting early beta boards will have to a lot of work, and trial and error to see what works.
So right now we just need to wait on the people who where selected to receive these boards, and see what they say.
As of the bashing towards tkaiser this needs to stop.
He's making logical and valid points that need to be addressed, and throwing hate on him isn't helping the project in the slightest.

I also agree with jan on most mainstream distros being supported down the line.
Once we can figure out the GPU problem. We'll be set.

~ Beard

[joe]

I'm with you on this. I don't know why people are bashing tkaiser for his thoughts and opinions on the recent problems we'll face for OS Support.
For those who keep talking about 3.x Kernel versions forget them. We need to be looking at 4.x. Mostly at either 4.2.x or .4.4.x
Those of us who're getting early beta boards will have to a lot of work, and trial and error to see what works.
So right now we just need to wait on the people who where selected to receive these boards, and see what they say.
As of the bashing towards tkaiser this needs to stop.
He's making logical and valid points that need to be addressed, and throwing hate on him isn't helping the project in the slightest.

I also agree with jan on most mainstream distros being supported down the line.
Once we can figure out the GPU problem. We'll be set.

~ Beard

Do you know other new CPU kernel is use 3.x  is not only allwinner

---

Joe, 
I don't care whose community tkaiser is in. He seems to be the most competent person on this forum, and his input already triggered some supposed action from Pine Corp. 
I haven't seen him saying "This project sucks, it's fail etc.". He voiced valid, reasonable concerns that show experience in the area. 
If you think that you can just download some source from the interwebz and run make and all will be nice and peachy, I believe you never dealt with this kind of work. 
As it was noted earlier - I imagine there will be every single distribution built for ARM running on pine. Will they be great? No, not until we can get new kernel, drivers and all the software matched together. 
Pine is (will be) a great (advanced) hobbyist tool, but I do not expect it to reach the maturity level of the Raspberry Pi. Most users will stick to the stock android, then loose interest and have an expensive paperweight, hopefully there will be some who will keep this little project alive. 
It is fantastic option to get 64bit ARMv8 development board ( I'm here specifically for some features of the ARMv8 CPU), but it will take significant amount of effort to get it up and running. 
cheers

About him community forum , if you saw he all is talked about allwinner , but i saw he only one is talked other cpu  

[nomadewolf]

Joe, 
I don't care whose community tkaiser is in. He seems to be the most competent person on this forum, and his input already triggered some supposed action from Pine Corp. 
I haven't seen him saying "This project sucks, it's fail etc.". He voiced valid, reasonable concerns that show experience in the area. 
If you think that you can just download some source from the interwebz and run make and all will be nice and peachy, I believe you never dealt with this kind of work. 
As it was noted earlier - I imagine there will be every single distribution built for ARM running on pine. Will they be great? No, not until we can get new kernel, drivers and all the software matched together. 
Pine is (will be) a great (advanced) hobbyist tool, but I do not expect it to reach the maturity level of the Raspberry Pi. Most users will stick to the stock android, then loose interest and have an expensive paperweight, hopefully there will be some who will keep this little project alive. 
It is fantastic option to get 64bit ARMv8 development board ( I'm here specifically for some features of the ARMv8 CPU), but it will take significant amount of effort to get it up and running. 
cheers

I'm with you on this. I don't know why people are bashing tkaiser for his thoughts and opinions on the recent problems we'll face for OS Support.
For those who keep talking about 3.x Kernel versions forget them. We need to be looking at 4.x. Mostly at either 4.2.x or .4.4.x
Those of us who're getting early beta boards will have to a lot of work, and trial and error to see what works.
So right now we just need to wait on the people who where selected to receive these boards, and see what they say.
As of the bashing towards tkaiser this needs to stop.
He's making logical and valid points that need to be addressed, and throwing hate on him isn't helping the project in the slightest.

I also agree with jan on most mainstream distros being supported down the line.
Once we can figure out the GPU problem. We'll be set.

~ Beard

Agreed.
But do you really think the GPU problem can be solved?
I mean, as far as i know, there's not even proper documentation from Allwinner.
Not trying to be skeptical, but the time and effort of such a task seems a bit too overwelming for me...