A New Mali-400 Open-Source Graphics Driver Is In Development

[starshipeleven]

Then you have an open source graphics driver, but what about all the other special drivers, like SoC/platform and camera?

On many Allwinner things (and in other SoCs too) the only thing left out is Mali. The rest is supported by open drivers.

I don't know about embedded camera but I think it's less important than GPU.

EDIT: also cellular modems are not usually supported by open drivers so you need a blob for talking to them. But this is an issue only in mobile devices.

[microcode]

Then you have an open source graphics driver, but what about all the other special drivers, like SoC/platform and camera?

Well, all the kernel drivers for those are open source anyway, on account of the Linux kernel being under the GPLv2. Do these SoCs require a userspace library to interact with the camera?

The only thing I can imagine being a problem is the radio modems.

[Guest]

Awesome! One step closer to almost fully open source Android distros.

[smitty3268]

I look forward to the inevitable libv posts about how AMD sabotaged his lima driver so they could take over with this new inferior one.

Best of luck Qiang Yu!

[Terrablit]

I hope he stays on it. Too many people get scared away from Mali driver work because of the wankfest of complaints that surround it and the unwillingness to start from scratch (or share existing progress).

[onicsis]

Road to working drivers for MALI GPU seem to be very bumpy and sinuous.
There are already unfinished or abandoned drivers LIMA, LIMA-NG, Tamil and maybe others.

AMD and Intel have whole dedicated, paid teams of software engineers working full time closely connected to hardware engineers teams who designed video controllers. And by default, to informations unavailable to general public, with oblivious results, implementing the latests standards.

Nvidia and entire ARM world are very allergic to anything related to "Open" - specifications, manuals, code- when it comes to supporting free software for GPUs, cameras and sensors. And Nouveau is the best example. They are not doing a disservice to Nvidia, au contraire. Nouveau guys increasing Nvidia sales, finally and deserve to be helped with necessary hardware, documentations and ... salary checks.

Nvidia/ARM management seem to be very dumb and deserve the middle finger for good and deserve to be penalized with red card for serious misconduct

[ssam]

Is there any info on how to get started with this? What hardware it runs on?

[Adarion]

Oh my, maybe there is hope. I had bough that odroid thingy for my ARM experiments (the AI TB had a ImgTec Chip in it so it's rather hopeless) because at that time I thought hey, there is some driver that makes progress. Same disappointment like VIA. Somehow it got silent and more silent and ... oh, well.
I hope this guy will stay at it and find some helping hands.

[kenren]

If it is just 1 guy trying this then i can't see it going anywhere. He'll get bored and give up.

One year later it seems to me that you made mistake, I'm glad of it. Soon Lima Gallium driver will be stable and complete.