
ARM Mali accelerators support in Linux 5.2 - doener
https://lists.gt.net/linux/kernel/3309260#3309260
======
Gregordinary
This is exciting for quite a few boards and notebooks, notably the new
Pinebook Pro (RK3399) and the Asus C201 (RK3288) both benefiting from the
Panfrost driver.

I wrote a bit a while back on Reddit regarding my experience with the C201 and
Linux:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bebm93/linux_on_asus...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bebm93/linux_on_asus_chromebook_c201/)

Now with open 3D acceleration, the last remaining bit of proprietary code on
the C201 is the WiFi chip. Not sure how much of an impact it'll have, but when
Cypress bought Broadcom's wireless division it released the datasheet for this
and many other chips (PDF):
[https://www.cypress.com/file/298141/download](https://www.cypress.com/file/298141/download)

Alyssa Rosenzweig is making amazing progress with Panfrost working at
Collabora. Panfrost is now working with GNOME, two months ahead of schedule!:
[https://rosenzweig.io/blog/gnome-meets-
panfrost.html](https://rosenzweig.io/blog/gnome-meets-panfrost.html)

~~~
nextos
Sadly it is hard to get a new C201PA these days? It is a 3 year old machine
that has been discontinued.

But it is truly unique as you pointed out, it can be run almost binary blob
free or totally free if you replace the wireless chip (simply plug in a tiny
Atheros USB adapter).

------
iamnothere
We are finally getting a viable alternative to the x86 ecosystem. It's about
time. Thank you to everyone putting in the work on this.

~~~
pkaye
I wish ARM was open about the video hardware as Intel and AMD are.

------
dabeeeenster
Anyone know if this is relevant to the odroid n2?
[https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-4gbyte-
ram/](https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-4gbyte-ram/)

It's a superb recently released board but with v limited GPU support at the
minute.

~~~
bjackman
The board doesn't have upstream kernel support (like almost all SBCs
unfortunately) so unless a) the Mali on the ODroid is included in this support
(Different Mali generations have quite different interfaces) and b) the Mali
support was the main thing preventing upstream kernel support (which is
possible but unlikely), I'd it's likely to be irrelevant :(

~~~
sjuut
Upstream / mainline support for G12A has been added in this release. Odroid-N2
(based on the similar G12B) support will most likely land in 5.3 [1].

[1] [http://linux-meson.com/doku.php#kernel_mainlining_progress](http://linux-
meson.com/doku.php#kernel_mainlining_progress)

~~~
bjackman
Oh that's great, my mistake!

------
caf
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19908741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19908741)

------
nrclark
I'm super-excited to see this come together. I've been working on an
aarch64-based product with a Mali GPU, and it's been so frustrating to be
stuck on the ancient vendor kernel for no reason other than "it's the one that
the Mali blobs are compiled against". I can't wait for this to be a non-issue
for us. Thank you to the developers working on this, and to the companies
sponsoring it!

------
megous
I'll wait for mesa 19.2 (end of august), which is other part of this.

------
squeezingswirls
This is great news for Pine64 and their Pinephone.

------
gingabriska
Does it mean my cheap Orange Pi 3 will be neck to neck with Raspberry Pi4?

~~~
stefan_
No, these are very very early reverse-engineered drivers. They will likely
fail to run lots of EGL applications.

The driver for the VC6 in the RPi4 is mature and written by someone with
access to the underlying hardware definition code and full Broadcom
documentation.

~~~
megous
VC4 is no powerhorse, so...

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/ARM-
Mali-T720-MP2.145232.0.htm...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/ARM-
Mali-T720-MP2.145232.0.html) [https://www.notebookcheck.net/Broadcom-
VideoCore-IV.116484.0...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Broadcom-VideoCore-
IV.116484.0.html)

    
    
      See 3DMark - Ice Storm Standard Graphics 1280x720
    

VC VI is maybe 30% faster than VC IV.

So it looks like Opi3 may be pretty much in the same (low) performance bracket
with RPi4.

~~~
stefan_
That's with an optimized vendor driver, which will perform vastly better than
what is currently in the kernel & Mesa. I'd agree that the VC6 and T720 are
probably equal levels of terrible, though, just from a hardware capability
PoV.

------
zokier
DRM is of course critical, but what is the status of Mesa drivers so we can
have actual OpenGL and I guess also Vulkan these days?

------
IloveHN84
This means, Raspberry Pi will be able to perform much better on kernel 5.2?

~~~
navaati
Nah, RaspbPi uses Broadcom Videocore as its GPU, not ARM Mali.

~~~
bhouston
Modern Malis are amazing.

I am not sure if there are any benchmark websites but I feel that Broadcom's
Videocore technology is way behind most of the high end smartphone GPU
competition, such as Mali, Adreno, PowerVR, etc.

~~~
imtringued
That's a given. Broadcom effectively abandoned Videocore. The only significant
user of Videocore GPUs nowadays is the Raspberry Pi and this is a thorn in
Broadcom's eye.

~~~
monocasa
It's interesting then that the RPi4 has a VideoCore6 vs 4 with a ton more
features. I'm not sure why Broadcom would put in the work if RPi was the only
real consumer.

~~~
stefan_
Because the VideoCore 6 is also already an ancient design. And last I checked
Broadcom is still doing set top box stuff, which is where these chips are
from:

[https://www.broadcom.com/products/broadband/set-top-
box](https://www.broadcom.com/products/broadband/set-top-box)

I guess they are just reducing their efforts as set top boxes are phased out
in favor of smart TVs or Android TV and similar.

~~~
iamnothere
The Pi chips are probably surplus. This is how many SBC vendors are able to
sell their boards so cheaply. It's a good repurposing as well, lots of these
chips were going to sit in warehouses until the end of time.

~~~
stefan_
The Pi chips are not surplus and never have been after the original Raspberry.

~~~
makomk
Yeah, every Raspberry Pi chip that came after the original was custom designed
and created for the sole purpose of being used in Raspberry Pis. They just
made some... interesting design decisions.

~~~
metildaa
The Raspberry Pi Foundation was definitely optimizing for the IP their
volunteers & employees were familiar with and had confidence in.

Other boards beat the Raspberry Pi in mainline kernel support, USB & Ethernet
I/O & price years ago, but there is a significant ecosystem that the
Foundation seeks to support, and the best way they know how to do so is with
the tools they are intimately familiar with.

~~~
derefr
> Other boards beat the Raspberry Pi in mainline kernel support, USB &
> Ethernet I/O & price years ago

You sound knowledgeable, so I'll ask: if you don't care about the RPi
ecosystem (or IoT use-cases at all, really), what's the optimum SBC across all
those axes currently? Like, what board would you choose to base a cheap one-
off HTPC+NAS on?

~~~
metildaa
I like the OrangePi lineup, particularly the OrangePi PC Plus as it has 8GB
eMMC and decent specs while being sub-$30 with a case and accessories:
[https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32668421022.html](https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32668421022.html)

For a NAS, nearly all of the OrangePis feature USB ports & ethernet that are
directly wired to the SOC, so you aren't I/O limited like older Raspberry
Pi's. That being said, the Allwinner H3 doesn't support 10 bit Hevc/H.265
acceleration, so you might want to go with a board based on a newer chip for a
HTPC. Take a peek at LibreELEC, they have a decent HTPC distro for many SBCs.

------
silversconfused
Does this mean I can have 2d accel in X11 on my peach pit? with mainline since
3.6 or so it has been an excellent terminal and even music making machine, but
browsing is a bit painful.

~~~
StudentStuff
Any chance you have a link to the peach pit? Not turning up many SBCs by that
name when I search for it...

~~~
silversconfused
[https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-
information-f...](https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-
for-chrome-os-devices/samsung-chromebook-2)

Later they re-released a version with an intel cpu with the same branding, so
the machine is hard to google.

