12-31-2015, 08:23 PM
(12-31-2015, 07:24 PM)paulieg Wrote:(12-30-2015, 04:30 AM)Ketsa Wrote: Also concerned, I backed the product thinking i would be able to run GNU/Linux on it... wonder if I can still withdraw my order.
Why chose a SoC that violates the GPL ?
You'll be able to run linux on it sooner or later. Whether that's ready before you get your board or after is a different question. Some work has to be done for every new SoC, that's not news. Getting a minimal boot isn't the problem. The hard work is getting mainline uboot + mainline linux support, rather than using Allwinner-provided patched versions. Keep in mind that the linux-sunxi community has gotten there with a number of Allwinner SoCs.
An SoC can not violate the GPL, it is an inanimate object. Allwinner - the company behind it - did in the past and, arguably, is in a gray area on one or two bits currently.
The fact is that every single SoC of this kind comes with driver blobs and other types of nonsense. This includes the SoCs used for Raspberry Pi. We're not the target market - portable devices which sell in millions are, so the SoC design shops do what they think they need to do to preserve advantage in the market. It sucks, but c'est la vie.
We're left choosing the parts that have the most power at the right price where we have a decent shot at working around the issues. tllim says Allwinner are receptive to concerns about their relations with the open source community, we'll see if anything comes of it.
-p
Linux will work. I think we all can take that for granted.
Regarding Allwinner's policies towards open source, unfortunately, i don't believe that will change... I mean, they don't even provide any kind of documentation... Their actions speak for themselves!
And that means no hardware acceleration in Linux, which in turn means, no FullHD in Linux, no games in Linux, no heavy graphic operation of any kind, bottom line, Linux will be avaliable for browsing or as server (terminal)... which is kind of a limitation...
I think that the time is ripe for ARM to take the desktop area by storm, but until propoer graphics support arrives on Linux, that is not going to happen.