[Arm-netbook] RK3288

[Paul Boddie]

On Tuesday 15. November 2016 17.56.00 GaCuest wrote:
> El 15 de noviembre de 2016 a las 17:33:27, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
(lkcl at lkcl.net) escribió:
> > 
> > it's extremely taxing, very intensive, so i'm trusting that other
> > people will answer software-related questions.

I'm not expecting you to field these questions while you're in the zone doing 
the hardware, that's for sure!

> Ok, thanks, and good luck!
> 
> The RK3288 seems very interesting if all the components if supported
> under GNU/Linux (at least with proprietary drivers).

One worrying thing I read recently was that Lima driver development for the 
Mali technologies bundled by ARM and appearing in various SoCs, which might 
include this one, has stalled mostly because the developer has found it 
difficult to remain motivated:

http://libv.livejournal.com/27461.html

Given the way he has been treated over the years, particularly by ARM and 
various partner organisations, I find that understandable.

There do appear to be "open source" components for Mali developed by ARM, 
albeit not supporting things like OpenGL:

http://malideveloper.arm.com/resources/drivers/open-source-mali-gpus-linux-
exadri2-and-x11-display-drivers/

Maybe someone here can provide us with an explanation of the situation, what 
amongst the stuff being offered on the wider Internet is actually "libre" or 
complete, and whether the "open source" stuff still requires proprietary 
firmware, anyway.

Paul