[Arm-netbook] RK3288

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 8:18 PM, Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> 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:

 that's an understatement.

> 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.

 a $40 billion dollar company threatening a single individual, by
blackmailing the company that funded him?  that kind of completely
inappropriate and completely unethical behaviour doesn't end well.


> 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.

"Note that these components are not a complete driver stack. To build
a functional OpenGL ES or OpenVG driver you need access to the full
source code of the Mali GPU DDK, which is provided under the standard
ARM commercial licence to all Mali GPU customers. For a complete
integration of the Mali GPU DDK with the X11 environment refer to the
Integration Guide supplied with the Mali GPU DDK.

The open source code provided on this page is designed to run with a
version-compatible release of the Mali GPU DDK (currently r2p1). They
also require the MaliDRM component also available from this page. By
releasing this software under the MIT licence we hope to make it
easier to include Mali GPU drivers in any Linux platform."

answer: no.