S912 support, what is needed ?

  • thats a good one... obsolescence before a product is even properly developed... lol...

    i've been developing xbmp/xbmc since frodo released the sources back around 2003 and it wasn't till Xbmc/Kodi was released on Android that companies like Amlogic emerged from the tablet industry to take advantage of Open Source like Kodi to drive a much smaller Tvbox market into whats it grown into...

    They don't seem to have a problem making use of Open Source products like Kodi to drive a huge increase in their SoC products for years they never seem to follow through on promises of proper linux support... instead they push out their SoC's to factories that sell products with inferior firmware as they have become used to relying on 3rd party sites like here to create any real working software for buyers with boxes that perform poorly..

    Probably well over half the people buying Android boxes are doing so to run Kodi or game emulators and a simple fact is both of those applications run more reliably and stable on Linux... thats not to say Androids bad but wasting a ton of hardware resources on the Android OS is a waste of the little resources these embedded boxes have...

    I get Amlogics rights to control their product but then they should stay away from open source developments like Kodi and create the own products like some of the other proprietary boxes do... This idea of them NOT having the DDK required for the Mali userspace is just another excuse to try and hinder the linux developers while dumping the problems onto the great group of online programmers that are driven by their own purposed to create solutions for the public that cost them nothing...

    Think about how many less boxes would be sold if projects like Here or OpenELEC did not exist as end users would forever be stuck running the crappy Android solutions they help the factories provide... Almost everyone that comes to me does so because of bad Android experiences on boxes they've bought and given up trying to get working...

    Under the circumstances i don't think its Unreasonable to expect Amlogic to provide the required software support... Its more like Amlogic figures the publics stupid and people will just keep buying different boxes till hopefully they end up with something someone can make work for them...

    As and example... Currently i know a couple of dealers that sunk their money into S912's because the factories they buy from assured them they were solid boxes and the S812's were being phased out, between them they ended up with a couple hundred junk boxes that even after the factory tried to downgrade them to Android 5 they still were not reliable enough to run Kodi properly thus leading to people wanting to return their boxes... eventually they were told by the factories that the factory was going to contact Amlogic for help and thats where things stopped and have been now since last fall...

    Amlogic sets this crap in motion by getting the factories to use the new S912 which even Android itself is still at a buggy level itself... and in the end its the individual buyer halfway around the world that gets beat as who's going to waste that much time on a none working box thats probably not worth the costs in time and trying to ship and return...

    Personally i dont get why Amlogic's never been more forthcoming with help with linux on places like this because you guys here actually do provide working solutions for people at no expense to them which i'm sure help keep people wanting to buy boxes...

    your right X11 does work but tends to be more complicated for the enduser when issues pop up and its kinda a waste to not have the advantage of the acceleration at a hardware level..

    anyways i digress... just sad to see Amlogic become some 2-bit company when it could be so much more...


  • Hello,

    X is already working with S912, BUT without gpu acceleration. It's smooth by the way, and perfectly working, except when dealing with hd videos or any other graphical rendering.
    (It remembers me old times when I was running debian woody on hp 712 workstations)

    What do you mean X is already working?
    Can you choose different display resolutions like 2560x1440 or other computer display resolutions (1920x1200, etc.)?
    I tried some Ubuntu and Debian but only got 1920x1080 and 1280x720.


  • What do you mean X is already working?
    Can you choose different display resolutions like 2560x1440 or other computer display resolutions (1920x1200, etc.)?
    I tried some Ubuntu and Debian but only got 1920x1080 and 1280x720.

    I didn't try other resolution as I only have a screen in 1920x1080 available for my tests.

    I tried only with the Balbes150 image wich use meson.