Linux 5.3 Media Driver Updates Bring New Amlogic Meson Video Decoder

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 5.3 Media Driver Updates Bring New Amlogic Meson Video Decoder

After going through 9+ rounds of revisions for the Amlogic video decode driver, it's now been part of the media subsystem updates for the Linux 5.3 kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.3-Media-Updates

[willmore]

Anyone know of a good magic decoder ring for which chips use the GXBB/GXL/GXM 'chipsets'?

[LoveRPi]

BayLibre's Maxime Jourdan has been spearheading the effort for the last year in what started as a side project This was a huge collab between a dozen development teams, open source sponsors, and professional hobbyists including BayLibre, Collabora, Kodi, Libre Computer, some big name companies, and a lot of community. Thankfully it is going to make it in this LTS cycle.

Linux media decoding really take shape in V4L2 and becomes usable with proper userspace API albeit work is only usable on Wayland only at this point. There's a lot of userspace plumbing not even built yet so this is only really applicable to things that use DRM (direct rendering manager a Linux subsystem, not digital rights management) directly like Kodi and Wayland.

Libre Computer's Le Potato (GXL S905X), La Frite (GXL S805X), and Tartiflette (GXL S905D/GXM S912, Announcing July 24th) will be showcasing these features once 5.3 is tagged.

In other news, H264 for Allwinner stuff is in 5.3 as well so stateful and stateless V4L2! So all your Shenzhen copycat "Pi" shops boards "can" be supported. They usually don't commit the engineering to do it themselves so you have to rely on friendly community projects like Armbian.

[polarathene]

BayLibre's Maxime Jourdan has been spearheading the effort for the last year in what started as a side project

Libre Computer's Le Potato (GXL S905X), La Frite (GXL S805X), and Tartiflette (GXL S905D/GXM S912, Announcing July 24th) will be showcasing these features once 5.3 is tagged.

Does that mean the development efforts are less likely to spread to the other Amlogic SoCs/boards? eg HardKernel's ODROID N2 is Amlogic S922X / G12B (similar to GLX model "G12B : Identical to GXL but with Quad Cortex-A73 + dual Cortex-A53 cores","S922X: mostly pin compatible with S905X2").

[tomjokiel]

Libre Computer website shows they are working on "Le Lapin" SBC which seems to be based on the G12B chipset family:

https://libre.computer/products/boards/aml-s922x-pc/

(I'm actually eager to see what that brings to the table!)

Since Libre Computer sponsored BayLibre in the past to work on the upstream kernel support for their boards we may hope this will also apply the their latest SBCs

[LoveRPi]

Does that mean the development efforts are less likely to spread to the other Amlogic SoCs/boards? eg HardKernel's ODROID N2 is Amlogic S922X / G12B (similar to GLX model "G12B : Identical to GXL but with Quad Cortex-A73 + dual Cortex-A53 cores","S922X: mostly pin compatible with S905X2").

Le Potato (GXL S905X was released in 2017) and it took 2 years to get the upstream u-boot and Linux to where it is today with a sponsor. It is a very stable platform with nearly all functionality supported in u-boot and Linux and it will be a long time before G12 gets to the same state by which time it will be outdated due to SM1 S905X3 and its AV1-decode-capable successor's release.

Le Lapin is at least 4 months away since it's only in the design stages and u-boot bits are not upstream yet. There's also IC bugs with S905X2/S905D2/S922X that affect long term supportability and availability where as S905X is guaranteed to be long term and the IC has no significant bugs.

[polarathene]

There's also IC bugs with S905X2/S905D2/S922X that affect long term supportability and availability where as S905X is guaranteed to be long term and the IC has no significant bugs.

Any info on that issue/bug? I'm not particularly familiar with Amlogic products, just some boards.

I'm currently interested in getting a low cost SBC <$100 (extras like case/add-ons excluded) and ideally running KDE without a slow/laggy experience(with external SSD storage over USB 3 UASP or SATA so that I/O shouldn't be a bottleneck). Currently considering 4GB models of RPi4, RockPro64(RK3399), ODROID-N2(S922X). The N2 seems quite nice spec wise, but isn't in the best of shape regarding open-source, they're working towards mainline support though, RK3399 apears to be in a good state(I recall it having it's own fair share of problems on various boards upon release for a while), not sure about Pi4.

Is it usually the case for the newer hardware to take years to arrive in a decent state?(if they make it that far support wise) Or as the situation with ARM SBCs appears to be getting into a much better state with Linux lately, is that duration likely to lessen, especially with SBC companies that leverage their experience/knowledge with prior products of theirs where they may be able to carry over portions of that(beyond the SoC) and the SoC itself if of the same family/vendor where existing drivers may only need a little bit of work compared to a few years ago?

LibreComputer seems to have some nice products(at least going over their news/updates, that's really nice to see). The Renegade Elite seems nice, bit sad the USB A ports are USB 2.0, so I'd need an adaptor/hub for USB-C(where the hub would not be able to draw power for high-powered devices, so that'd need to be externally powered..), I really liked the use-case for providing video out over USB-C/display-port, while being PD capable(on one of the ports) to draw power from that same monitor connection. No idea how common such displays are or if easy to search for find.

USB-C for power with PD is great as unlikely a DC barrel input, I could actually use a USB powerbank device like I have for my phone. Some boards I've been looking at are powered over DC jack, which to my knowledge there are no adapters/cables for utilizing any higher than 5V input, so not only is wattage input less from my powerbank, but also loses about 20% amperage output from the conversion :\

Le Lapin is at least 4 months away since it's only in the design stages and u-boot bits are not upstream yet.

Away from release? I tried to look that up and found nothing but a blank(stub) product page, same as what tomjokiel shared. It appears the product will get a Kickstarter campaign on July. I am not sure why Renegade was via IndieGoGo instead of Kickstarter, but it's good they're sticking to Kickstarter as my experiences with IndieGoGo has been fairly negative(they've happily let a shady campaign continue to take on pledges while the campaigner avoids legit concerns from users, at 1.5 mil USD now with no activity for 6 months).

Is there any information about Le Lapin other than it's using the same S922X SoC as ODROID-N2?

Just noticed your username as one of the distributors when visiting LibreComputer, are you loverpi.com? Note the product page linked is to renegade but you've got it under some unrelated name with very little info at all? (just a few pictures and price) If that's you, any reason you don't provide more information or link to LibreComputers product page?

it will be a long time before G12 gets to the same state by which time it will be outdated due to SM1 S905X3 and its AV1-decode-capable successor's release.

I just had a quick look at this SoC via CNX, it seems ok but nothing in particular of interest to me over S922X.

[polarathene]

Since Libre Computer sponsored BayLibre in the past to work on the upstream kernel support for their boards we may hope this will also apply the their latest SBCs

Ah cool, so they'll hopefully contribute towards the efforts on that SoC too then based on their history It's supposed to have the Kickstarter announced this month sometime, so perhaps I'll wait and see before considering the ODROID-N2 which looks like the board I'd like to get atm.

[LoveRPi]

Ah cool, so they'll hopefully contribute towards the efforts on that SoC too then based on their history It's supposed to have the Kickstarter announced this month sometime, so perhaps I'll wait and see before considering the ODROID-N2 which looks like the board I'd like to get atm.

The campaign is for S912/S905D which is slower than S922X but much better supported in upstream. ODROID-N2 is a decent 4GB board at the $90 mark where as the Kickstarter campaign for S912/S905D is $30-40.

[polarathene]

The campaign is for S912/S905D which is slower than S922X but much better supported in upstream. ODROID-N2 is a decent 4GB board at the $90 mark where as the Kickstarter campaign for S912/S905D is $30-40.

Are you sure that's not the other upcoming Kickstarter?

Look at the prior link given: https://libre.computer/products/boards/aml-s922x-pc/

It states right there in the link that it's S922X, and then right there on the actual page next to that model name is "Le Lapin".

The board you seem to be thinking of was supposedly meant to have it's kickstart campaign started in June. It's also got a stub page up:

Tartiflette: https://libre.computer/products/boards/aml-s912-pc/

Although I can't seem to find any information on this board. You mention a price range and compare it to ODROID-N2 4GB. Are you saying Tartiflette is going to offer 4GB at the $30-40 price point? Because you can get N2 at lower price for less RAM, $63 for 2GB variant.