Imagination PowerVR Rogue DRM Linux Kernel Driver Out For Review

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Imagination PowerVR Rogue DRM Linux Kernel Driver Out For Review

Earlier this year was the surprise announcement of Imagination publishing an open-source PowerVR Vulkan driver for Mesa. That driver has since been mainlined in Mesa and the Imagination developers continue working on improving their Vulkan API coverage. Simultaneously they have been working on a proper, upstream-friendly open-source DRM/KMS kernel driver and that code now is far enough along that it's been sent out for initial review...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PowerVR-DRM-Kernel-Driver-RFC

[JacekJagosz]

The good news is that they will be supporting a GPU from 2019, so it is not just future GPUs, but ones you can actually buy, like in the future Pine 64 Risc-V board.
I hope the support can be extended to previous GPUs, Rogue architecture dates back to 2012.

[Dukenukemx]

I wonder if this suggests something for Imagination's PowerVRs future?

[Eirikr1848]

The good news is that they will be supporting a GPU from 2019, so it is not just future GPUs, but ones you can actually buy, like in the future Pine 64 Risc-V board.
I hope the support can be extended to previous GPUs, Rogue architecture dates back to 2012.

Imagine a Nexus 6P running PostMarketOS, mainline kernel - full GPU acceleration.

Or even just Ubuntu Touch, but with audio/video decode.. 😩

[ayumu]

Some SBCs with RISC-V SoCs featuring imatech GPUs are due soon.

I am hopeful this support will be relevant to these.

[Quackdoc]

seems to be a couple of upcoming powerVR chromebooks, they were put on my radar when the news first broke, they arent on the buy list yet, but certainly am keeping an eye out for them

[chithanh]

PowerVR GX6250 is used in Mediatek 8173(C)/8176 SoCs which are found in a number of Android tablets and low-end Chromebooks.

Until last week there was a cashback promo from Google where you could get the Ideapad 3 Chromebook with MT8173 for 99€ after rebate here in Germany. So that becomes a fine entry-level AArch64 Linux laptop if you don't mind the TN panel (an Acer Chromebook with IPS panel cost around 30€ more).

[microcode]

Cool, PVR has performed quite well over the years, and the biggest hangup for me has been drivers (the poor quality, and the fact that they were closed). With drivers in Mesa, it becomes an actual viable thing to look at for me. :+ )

[kiuRISC?]

Question Home : Will this driver support any discrete PCI-Express GPUs with PowerVR tech on them? Looking at the 3 models mentioned in the article, they look more oriented towards integrating on SOCs and focused on lower-performance lower-power consumption, which is also interesting of course, but I wonder about discrete GPUs.


Question #2: Will this driver require proprietary firmware to be loaded to function at all, or to give 3D rendering? If I cannot use with Linux-libre kernel, this becomes far less interesting, especially if we see these GPUs in supposed hacker-friendly SBCs.