Raspberry Pi's Raspbian OS Finally Spins 64-bit Version

[jaxa]

The bigger problem with the pi, this Microsoft thing inside the chip aside, was the addition of packages.microsoft.com (proprietary software), without consent, to all raspi OS devices one year ago (end of January)

Not a problem for most people. The biggest problem is likely the weak, proprietary GPU.

[arQon]

Why wouldn't it? RPi has been a common platform for watching stolen movies with OpenELEC since 2012.

That's a very different scenario to what OP is asking, which was "s video decoding in hardware (h.264 & h.265) working now?", and the answer to that is a solid "no", the same way it's always been, other than when running an extremely-hacked version of VLC, and only on raspbian's very-modded 32-bit kernels.

The fact that you can use a pi4 to *transcode* video, provided you DON'T have a DRM client running, isn't of any use to anyone attempting to e.g. watch YouTube on it inside a desktop session. I'm pretty sure that's the context the OP was asking about.

[mangeek]

The host OS is ThreadX...

I think the OS for the GPU was (not sure if it still is on the BCM2711) ThreadX, but that never ran on the ARM core. The Pi was weird and booted the GPU at power on, which would then load the firmware for starting the CPU. So while the GPU ran a proprietary 32-bit OS, it was basically just a bootloader as far as the CPU was concerned.

[betty567]

Raspbian has to be the worst OS for Raspberry Pi, although in all fairness Ubuntu and Fedora are also pretty bad. Despite being averse to Arch Linux, I must admit that Manjaro is by far the best if you want to run something graphical, Raspbian is a lag-fest no matter how lightweight your desktop environment.

[caligula]

That's a very different scenario to what OP is asking, which was "s video decoding in hardware (h.264 & h.265) working now?", and the answer to that is a solid "no", the same way it's always been, other than when running an extremely-hacked version of VLC, and only on raspbian's very-modded 32-bit kernels.

The fact that you can use a pi4 to *transcode* video, provided you DON'T have a DRM client running, isn't of any use to anyone attempting to e.g. watch YouTube on it inside a desktop session. I'm pretty sure that's the context the OP was asking about.

Don't know about h265, but I've used Void Linux & Kodi on the original Pi. Works just fine. Are they using Raspbian kernels?

[mangeek]

Raspbian has to be the worst OS for Raspberry Pi, although in all fairness Ubuntu and Fedora are also pretty bad. Despite being averse to Arch Linux, I must admit that Manjaro is by far the best if you want to run something graphical, Raspbian is a lag-fest no matter how lightweight your desktop environment.

I mean, it has the horsepower of a fifteen year-old mid-range mobile chip (Core 2 Duo P8400), and half the single-thread performance. People seem to think these things are powerhouses held back by software limitations or bloat, but they're just not adequate for desktop use, nor were they designed to be (outside of exposing tinkerers to Python and electronics).

I love my Pis, I replaced a proper VM host with a few Pis, each handling tasks that fit within the constraints of the CPU and RAM (domain controllers, file servers, Docker running Minecraft server, and a low-throughput VPN concentrator for remote admin sessions),. Now things use a LOT less power and have much simpler upkeep, but I wouldn't use a Pi as a daily driver, even for browsing and email.

I am hoping that GTK4's Vulkan GSK back-end opens some options for very lightweight modern desktop development, but it's still going to be inadequate for day-to-day use. Nothing will be thin enough to give a Pi a better experience than a low-end smartphone or a fifteen year-old laptop.

[Etherman]

3

Raspbian has to be the worst OS for Raspberry Pi, although in all fairness Ubuntu and Fedora are also pretty bad. Despite being averse to Arch Linux, I must admit that Manjaro is by far the best if you want to run something graphical, Raspbian is a lag-fest no matter how lightweight your desktop environment.

I run Manjaro 64 bit on my rpi4 8GB. I use it as an adblocking DNS for my lan.
Manjato ARM is great!

[MastaG]

That's a very different scenario to what OP is asking, which was "s video decoding in hardware (h.264 & h.265) working now?", and the answer to that is a solid "no", the same way it's always been, other than when running an extremely-hacked version of VLC, and only on raspbian's very-modded 32-bit kernels.

The fact that you can use a pi4 to *transcode* video, provided you DON'T have a DRM client running, isn't of any use to anyone attempting to e.g. watch YouTube on it inside a desktop session. I'm pretty sure that's the context the OP was asking about.

But now the GPU bits (OpenGL and Vulkan) are getting more mature in mesa, shouldn't they put their focus on getting accelerated video decoding working in upstream Linux kernels as well?
I mean they can't just keep relying on these blobs with a fixed kernel version forever?

[direc85]

Speaking of a fixed kernel, that Sagemcom cable modem I got - new, in the box, "the latest model" - from my ISP last year had a Linux kernel 2.6.xx in it. RPi using an older five-series isn't that awful...

[brent]

But now the GPU bits (OpenGL and Vulkan) are getting more mature in mesa, shouldn't they put their focus on getting accelerated video decoding working in upstream Linux kernels as well?
I mean they can't just keep relying on these blobs with a fixed kernel version forever?

That's not how it works. There is Linux-side open-source accelerated video support nowadays. It's just not mainline. Some parts of the actual accelerator run on the VIdeoCore CPU, but they have a rather stable interface so you aren't bound to specific kernel versions.