i.MX8 SoC Support Might Be Introduced In Linux 4.17

[phoronix]

Phoronix: i.MX8 SoC Support Might Be Introduced In Linux 4.17

With this week's ARM SoC/platform updates for Linux 4.16 it was revealed the next kernel cycle might introduce i.MX8 SoC support...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.17-Might-Have-iMX8

[Guest]

Well, I'm starting to consider buying Purism Librem. I like the idea of software freedom by Richard Stallman. But, $600 for a phone is too much. I hope, there will be a $300 model, as this is my maximum price for a phone.

[UpsetingFact]

True, true...
But that's just pure economies of scale, the more buyers there are, the cheaper it'll be as long as they play it fair.

I thought the same like you did, but since companies will even more spy on us (looking at you new Bluetooth and Wi-Fi protocols !), I'm willing to pay those 600$ this time.

Cortex A53 are pretty enough for decent use at 1080p though, and they're damn fast on phones with proper kernel and OS optimizations.

Also, Cortex A53 (like I.MX8 has) pretty don't suffer Meltdown and Spectre issues at all, and that's fucking great ! <3
Let's just hope that they won't choose Cortex A53 revision 0, or we'll lose 15% IPC performance compared to revision 1 (looking at you Qualcomm !).

[wizard69]

True, true...

But that's just pure economies of scale, the more buyers there are, the cheaper it'll be as long as they'll play fair.

Well up to a point. Ultimately you hit a point where the cost of the components doesnt decrease while the cost of distribution goes up. Also if Purism wants to stay around for the long hual they will need a profit.

Now dont confuse this with my meaning that they need to rape the user community with obscene profits. What is meant here is that a certain level of performance will cost you money. A $300 phone is only worth while if it performs well.

[doublez13]

I'm so excited to have a handheld device that I can install a stock Linux distro on. If Purism is for real about upstreaming everything and not relying on out of tree mods, then I'm down to pay $600.
I'm still baffled the Raspberry Pi isn't all upstream.

[UpsetingFact]

Sorry to calm you down a little bit, otherwise things would get brutal for you in a few years.
It'll be up to NXP and distros to support the Librem5.

Since it's an ARM device, this means the booting process is tied to the CPU's driver.
If NXP don't give its source code to kernel developers, you're pretty much screwed as if you were on the Raspberry Pi.

This means that no distro will be stable. On the Raspberry Pi 3, that's is Raspbian (which is crippled of bugs, e.g. A2DP, crahsing softwares, etc), and it's more an unfinished Linux Mint Debian Edition than a real Debian.
since there's no UEFI on consumer ARM devices yet, the situation will pretty end up fragmented like Android and its versions or custom ROMs.

To make it short: Try Raspberry Pi 3 and do distro testing to see how far from expectations things will be.

[UpsetingFact]

Besides, Is it I.MX 8 or I.MX 8M ?

https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applications-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors:IMX8-SERIES

First one got 2 Cortex A72 Cores + 4 Cortex A53 cores and 2 GPU cores. Cortex A72 are Spectre and Meltdown vulnerable.
Second one only got 4 Cortex A53 cores and 1 GPU core. Cortex A53 are Spectre and Meltdown free.

So, if I were to choose, I'd go straght for I.MX 8 for the security's sake.

[bemerk]

First one got 2 Cortex A72 Cores + 4 Cortex A53 cores and 2 GPU cores. Cortex A72 are Spectre and Meltdown vulnerable.
Second one only got 4 Cortex A53 cores and 1 GPU core. Cortex A53 are Spectre and Meltdown free.

According to the purism blog the librem 5 isn't affected by spectre & meltdown for now

[Alpha64]

Sorry to calm you down a little bit, otherwise things would get brutal for you in a few years.
It'll be up to NXP and distros to support the Librem5.

Since it's an ARM device, this means the booting process is tied to the CPU's driver.
If NXP don't give its source code to kernel developers, you're pretty much screwed as if you were on the Raspberry Pi.

This means that no distro will be stable. On the Raspberry Pi 3, that's is Raspbian (which is crippled of bugs, e.g. A2DP, crahsing softwares, etc), and it's more an unfinished Linux Mint Debian Edition than a real Debian.
since there's no UEFI on consumer ARM devices yet, the situation will pretty end up fragmented like Android and its versions or custom ROMs.

To make it short: Try Raspberry Pi 3 and do distro testing to see how far from expectations things will be.

From my understanding, NXP (Formerly Freescale) is (last time I checked) the only ARM processor manufacturer that makes freely available (as in speech, not just beer) very extensive documentation on the internals of their CPUs. This is the reason Bunnie decided to use the i.MX6 in his Novena laptop (https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena), and a lot of the reason Purism is using the i.MX series in their phone. The i.MX8M PDFs just went online recently:

Reference Manual (Basically the very low level details bootloaders and kernels care about):

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/reference-manual/IMX8MDQLQRM.pdf

(a bit of a dense technical tome at 6801 pages)

Data Sheet:

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/IMX8MDQLQCEC.pdf

Hardware Developer's guide:

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/user-guide/IMX8MHDG.pdf

Eratta:

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/errata/IMX8MDQLQ_0N14W.pdf

You can find all of the good stuff here:

https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applications-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors/i.mx-8m-family-armcortex-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8M?tab=Documentation_Tab

Thus, everyone *should* be in better shape than we are with the RaspPi, and Broadcomm's horrible NDA...

[Alpha64]

Besides, Is it I.MX 8 or I.MX 8M ?

https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applications-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors:IMX8-SERIES

First one got 2 Cortex A72 Cores + 4 Cortex A53 cores and 2 GPU cores. Cortex A72 are Spectre and Meltdown vulnerable.
Second one only got 4 Cortex A53 cores and 1 GPU core. Cortex A53 are Spectre and Meltdown free.

So, if I were to choose, I'd go straght for I.MX 8 for the security's sake.

i.MX8M is what Purism is considering:

https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-1/

i.MX8M contains the A53's, which are in-order (and thus likely not vulnerable to Spectre/Meltdown). The full i.MX8 contains the A72's. Thus, one would prefer the i.MX8M if focused on security.