Posts by buzzmarshall

lol... sorry i should not laugh but sometimes i can't help it...

Its easy for people that spend so much time working and becoming experts in their own little corner that is its easy to run into others that have different opinions about things, which is good as it helps sometimes make one see something that they may be missing.

personally i have nothing but respect for most on places like this as they are trying to provide and maintain solutions for a wide variety of devices rather then just any one specific device and man that is gotta be tough to keep in line for anyone let alone a group of people as personalities have a big influence in things that get said. (one reason i now keep to myself as i don't have the time to test, learn and play while worrying about social interaction).

i can see balbes point as i think price point is something that some see as a valid reason to choose one thing over another, but i can also see the other points as well but the how and why's of anyone particular maker and the decisions they make when creating a particular product will always be something that people debate, its a pointless debate that usually is mostly rooted in personal preferences as people start confusing issues without putting any real perspective on what there talking about.

doing the things i do and have done for many years i have spent considerable amounts of time looking at product construction and that includes working at levels that often involve de-capping chips (S912) and other board level techniques while trying to understand how things work at a hardware level so i tend to make my judgments and evaluations based on things like that.

Product Specs basically are just marketing bs as its usually just a list of things that something is CAPABLE of doing while most of know the reality of Capable and Actually doing are usually at the opposite ends of the spectrum which is easy to see in this box sport as pretty much off all the new products from both AML and Rockchip are running on crippled gpu stacks and without intervention by the community coders will in all likely hood stay the same way. So who is really better then the other... in my mind neither one when it comes to trying to make the argument at this level.

the real point in my opinion is this... NONE of them would really be anywhere without places like this and the others where community coders are actually creating REAL working software that pretty much none of the manufactures ever do as they hobble together something basic (canned android versions) and then start worrying about the next version with the newest chips and box appearance.

the bottom line is if you put things into perspective one can pretty much make a argument that any one box is better then the next which includes the growing sbc market. when the reality is that NONE of them provide anywhere near decent enough software for whatever box or board they are selling and are hugely leveraging on the places like this and the coders to finish off the products for them.

Actually Hardkernels stuff i have watched pretty much since they started as it was one of the few sources of the leaked SoC docs so i have kinda watched them for awhile and if anyone is going to get any real help from AML it would be from some one like him. I have a few of his boards here as well and there well put together.

The real issue is going to come down to a real working full graphix stack which just never seems to materialize.

Outside the discussion of missing drivers and stuff, there is still a long running legal challenge still plaguing the industry over various infringements being claimed by AMD over patents inherited from ATI's take over years ago and a variety of manufactures that are supposedly using unlicensed stuff, some of which is Arm's Mali gpu's. As the years go by one by one the manufacturers are caving and signing agreements like Samsung did awhile back and up till now companies like Arm being a IP developer not really manufacturing any real hardware have only been kinda named on the sidelines to this point. Eventually tho that will change as the hardware manufactures start signing agreements. GPU's is a extremely secretive industry and largely based in IP so its a huge battle that will probably go on for quite awhile still.

Personally i think AML and others are sitting and using the public coders to create and pitch something out into the public realizing that once its out in the open there business model will hugely benefit without taking any of the real risk which is why i think things have gone the way they have for so long. Seriously if you stop and think about the business part of this, why would any company release a product in which a KEY part of product is basically crippled because of software, especially when there are other graphix stacks that could have been choosen which in the end really would have given the end user of the product the true use of the product. AML and others aren't dumb they have seen the extremely huge base market in a product thats really driven by a large portion of the market being do it yourself type of people trying to play and improve on the crappy software support provided by ALL of the manufactures, in some ways rather then driving off the market because of poor support its actually increased the market by all the hackers trying to fix and improve things.

As far as writing drivers go for Linux thats definately doable as many have been doing so since the 90's, Docs and good debugging and observation skills are a defiinate help and in this case I at least tip my hat to Rockchip for at least making that part readily availabe for anyone wanting to learn and try, Amlogic tho still squanders and hides there info as even something as simple as the 912 docs and register info are only available to the choosen few, leaving the only way of getting that info is to find leaked material.

I want to help and at some point will start to do so but for now will stay in my corner until i have a complete solution, at which time i will look into how to go about putting it into the public without putting myself and others in harms way. Intellectual property these days is a big mess and not something that i want to be on the front line over. To some i am sure they will think i am being paranoid but believe me i have spend many years reverse engineering things and am no longer naive about what can happen and anyone that understands what my avatar is based on will understand what i am talking about.

The X11 comment is interesting as i really think looking into creating the driver in that area is worth looking at as it will as you say soon be abandoned by Arm, its just i am not sure how well it would sit with setups like LibreeELEC and others that werent really designed with that in mind as its not really a full blown linux os. My software is more towards a fully linux install so supporting kodi compiled to run on that type of setup in much the same manner as it would on a full linux box actually works quite well. Now with some of the newer SBC having more memory and better hardware its now becoming a option.

hm... ya that maybe true all of that is a moot point because until a Real working graphix stack emerges nothing will change no matter how much crap Amlogic floods the market with. so far after all these years of promises nothing ever materializes. so only time will tell. theres no point in producing a race car if theres not gas for it.

But to be fair the emergence of the Panfrost development is a good sign but still some ways off...

Rockpro64 finally arrived about a week ago and I am luving this board. So far i have managed to piece together a linux build and am playing with the 5.1 and 4.21 kernels and have been poking around with the panfrost stuff as well and fixed a couple of issues reducing some of the lockups and leaks while testing on my own kodi 18.1 build. still more to fix on this project while splitting my time on another unrelated project. I want to use kernel 5 for my other project so i will probably stay at this level while i keep working forward, I have now abandoned all S912 projects and started moving all other boxes over to H96 Max's running on 4.21. Still have a few issues with them but the rk3399 rocks and blows any of the Amlogic SoC's out of the water. The Panfrost stuff is actually pretty good but still requires a fair bit of kernel work yet, but is a huge step in the right direction.

Has anyone been playing around with the current level of Panfrost stuff on the rk3399? I am still waiting for my board to show up from Pine but have been working with mainline stable 4.20 kernels trying to migrate some things from my earlier mali hacks that already work on Amlogic's garbage but can't test anything yet till my rk3399 boards show up...

I am just curious as to where everyone is currently sitting reqarding the panfrost stuff

I agree as i don't think the efforts are in vain.. no matter what knowledge is the king in a pursuit like this as not many corporations toss out earlier r&d as most tend to build on top of earlier stuff until something totally new comes along. the main thing is to gain the knowledge to create the framework that can be kept up moving forward. pretty much a basic fundamental with the concept of linux.

just as a note now that people are realizing the potential of the existing patents is to watch the long going battle with nvidia/ati and the companies they are accusing of various patent infringements. Arm's Mali product is named albeit not as one of the main defendants but more as a side player because they are basically just the ip provider... anyways the thing is this... nvidia/ati would'nt just pursue this for all these years over just nothing which means they would have had to enter exhibits into the complaint of the specifics of the infringement...

all of the above is kinda irrelevant to the concerns here but those exhibits may be of interest when trying to build a framework... just a thought.

ya that would be really nice, at least that way then they would be in the same boat as some of the other graphix processor companies have with their stacks. Arm is a big company with a lot of branches but being mostly a IP based company that makes its bread and butter from licence fees so i am actually surprised that any still ARM employed guys are willing to go out on the edge like that. Company's like ARM that don't really do hardware much anymore usually ensure their revenue streams by strictly releasing binaries that are revision specific ensuring more revenue when the end user wants to step up in revisions (android would be a example). I know i have over the years talked to various factory guys about the issues and the feed back i always got was that if say Amlogic in this case wanted to pay the licence fees involved they could get ARM to create and release the blobs but Amlogic has no real interest in spending the kinda of money to do such a thing... Amlogic basically supplies a canned version of Android to the downstream factories and it comes with minimal support for the SoC they licenced it for which is one of the reasons its so hard to even update Android on some of the older boxes as they don't want to invest in the fees to include most of the backwards stuff as their interest is like most companies in strictly moving forward.

I hope it works out because its really needed, but for me and some others we will sit to see where it actually goes.. personally i am 100% sure they can create whats needed. the real question for me is whether ARM will really allow it out in the open without trying to impede it. I think now is to early to see their real intent as they're not sure if the public can do it...lol. If they were more of a hardware based company then i would think somewhat differently but being IP based its kinda like letting the golden goose out for free if this happens. Personally i think it would still be a big benifit if it did but unfortunately its the pencil pushers and accountants that call a lot of the shots and not technical people like you or I and the others that frequent places like this. I would really like to help and get much more involved but i am gonna sit and bide my time for a bit yet to see.

ya i seen the mesa merge when i was reading over on Phoronix site last nite while following the Gallium3d stuff. Lima i have not really followed that much tho i am aware since you mentioned it awhile ago and the development being active again with a new group of dudes. Personally i just have to many other things going on but the Panfrost thing i am interested in following just to see how it goes (from a legal point) one of the reasons most of what myself and a couple of others have done have been outta the public over possible legal harassment, even tho it was all done based off research papers and info and nothing contained in a actual patent its just not worth the risk on our part as none of us are any type of dealer in this sport or having thing we were selling but i have been down this road before and being in Canada with stupid laws like Anton-Pillar make it way to easy for any corp to break you financially without ever even getting into actual litigaction. SoftBank and its holdings are just to big with IP so it will be interesting to see how this pans out but your right as its looking promising.

Its good to see someone finally started checking Arm-SoftBanks and a few other patents as your right in the similiarites of information and papers and there is more then just one once you realize were to look... Its extremely tedious routing through the US and European Patent Offices but there usually are pretty good clues to pretty much anyone that is either in the process or already granted a patent. Your almost guaranteed to find related information either directly from the Company's involved or the original authors, the university's as well are a great source because a lot of later things are based on dissertations or thesis's. Its a great way to start your information gleaning when your trying to reverse engineer something but in all likely hood its still going to take observing a running core to figure out how to write the proper garbage collection lines to help eliminate the memory leaks and other randomized issues.

I have been compiling and playing with Panfrost and you are right in that it is extremely interesting and probably the best hope i currently see for public support of open drivers.

Ya i read it... did you? i specifically said that "my quess is that if the build your trying to load from here is working for others and not for you" which seems to be the case based on others in the thread saying it worked for them...

the rest of what i said is what i know to be true and as a hardware guy that designs stuff your logic of "just because its doing on a couple of the SAME boxes is kinda flawed as if you understood the concept of production runs and what happens its not uncommon to get bad runs. and further don't take my word go and spend some times on FT forums and you will see over the years theres been threads of the minix issues with loading firmware.

As far as the validity of if the software from here is really for what box your working on i have no idea as i assume if someone posted it here and said it was something then it really was.

Getting insulting with people when you don't take the time to understand what they actually said as i can't speak to your ability to comprehend what got said but its not a reason to get your nickers all up in a knot... jeese...

without having the box its hard to say. I used to use a lot of Kevin's boxes (minix) as they were well made but over time as they grew i found the premium you pay to get a minix box just not worth the effort as i don't think i have ever seen any one particular brand of box that can be as picky as them. over the years i have recovered so many of them from various buggered boxes even from the ota firmware he used to push... they are well made boxes but they can be really picky... even the toothpick startup on some boxes is hard to find...

my quess is that if the build your trying to load from here is working for others and not for you then you got one of them real picky boxes and the only thing i can think of telling you is to totally reload the original minix firwmare just to make sure his original bootloader is restored and clean and work forward from there and don't be surprised if you have to do that a number of times trying to get things to load. No one from what i know has ever identified what the real issue is but it happens and FT used to be full of threads on the issue as even his forum when its running never really provided a conclusive answer... I suspect a buggy chip maybe that corrupts slightly just enough to make getting into the bootloader touchy...

Personally depending on what your aim is i would just say buy something that is being actively developed for what you want. If your going to use Android a lot then you want someone that actively supports the firmware for that box, If your looking to make the use of LiberELEC or similar then make sure what you buy is being supported by one of the developers here or one of LibreELECs forks.

Run LibreELEC off the sd card.

$25 extra for DDR4 is only worth it if your gonna go about making sure the firmware timing is proper to take advantage of it and even then the gains may only be marginal.

Just keep in mind that no matter what any dealer says if the box has a S912 in it then they are all basically in the same boat no matter what. so just make sure whatever you buy that someone is actually supporting.

Kodi has been getting a lot of heat in the last year with the brunt of it from the canadian and american providers so theres probably a few things the kodi group bans more on just protecting themselves to be safe

one thing for sure is anything from fusion or any of adam's other ventures is definitely on the hit list which is why here in Canada he's been tied up in litigation for well over a year and most of his known domains seized. its best to stick to Kodi's approved list if you really want to be safe. A good rule of thumb is if theres something you can openly stream from a providers own web site using something like a computer or laptop and if you can find a Kodi plugin for that stream it shouldn't be a problem because the providers already publicly exposing that stream that would be within the legal rights of the current laws at least here in Canada. when in doubt its best to go with Kodi's published list and don't ever ask on Kodi's forums as someone will probably kick ya.

Quote from chewitt

Enthusiasm for RK is understandable from anyone who's spent time in the Amlogic trenches, but in our experience switching from one SoC vendor to another doesn't solve development problems. It only results in different development problems

from your point i agree as i realize your trying to support a pretty diverse set of SoC's and their associated platforms which is really tough for any single person or group of people, but in the environment you have created here your tapping into some pretty good people willing to give up their time to put their skills to good use.

from my perspective i know how hard it was to unify the S812's and most of the current S9xx boxes on amlogic's own linux branch and then deal with writing working drivers for the missing parts for the S912's. All things considered though if they would have simply provided the same type of docs that i now see Rockchip openly providing pretty much everything people are working towards would be done. it took about 6 months of dumping running code from a S912 and using a program like IdaPro to create and model the actual S912 SoC in software and from there it was a couple months writing working drivers while not messing with anyones proprietary code, thank god we still live in a world where totally dismantling someone else product for learning reasons is legal as long as your not pilfering from the protected software. As hard as it was we only worked on a couple of specific boxes which was easier then what you guys are trying to do. i am currently already into the T860 code i see posted on the various githubs and once i lay my hands on a decent test board i am going to see how much of the existing T820 code i have will migrate up... i suspect a lot will but i am not sure of any differences between Amlogic which is where we worked and the current Rockchip and how each implement things.. things like symbol names and other things which if not provided by the SoC maker may be different. thats why its good to have a board running test code while using things like Jtag to watch and record things...

anyways once again i digress , but your right as Rockchp has at least restored some of my skepticism in any of the manufacturers.

Also i meant to add.

After a lot of web surfing and talking to a few people behind the scenes i really truly think Rockchip has finally hit the nail on the head and products like Khadas and some others are going to pave the way as Rockchip finally realizes the potential in working with people to bring Linux to the for front helping to ensure future dominance in this box area and the SBC market thats growing.

cool, ya i had seen the April release thing and wasn't sure if peeps were able to get a early realise or dev type setup... i joined the forum the other and will probably take you up on that in the near future. thanx a ton

That may be somewhat true but sources involved have also been privately said the budget money paid by Amlogic to Baylibre was exhausted and its only because of the personal interest of a couple of the people involved that things are somewhat moving but not really with the type of help and support Amlogic could bring to bear if they so desired. And i agree that maybe back 3 years or so Amlogic's or even Rockchps interest in Linux was not of any real interest but these days neither one of those billion dollar empires are dumb enough now to ignore the impact linux is having and is going to continue having in moving forward with what they currently are selling and the new things they are about to bring to market so honestly lets not put Amlogic up on the being helpful pedestal with vague and half-truths... I spend most of my engineering career reverse engineering and developing secure platform devices and testing and understand the whole concepts involved in fab level and software development and understand pretty well the whole development cycle and no matter how you cut it , Amlogic really has spent not much more then whats pocket change and other things when the reality is it was only Amlogic's choice in the wafer and SoC hardware and the ip cores they decided to licence and its pretty crappy to push onto the public a product thats real only benefits are routed in firmware they for whatever reason just dumped on the market to maintain the release of new products to keep the growing market share...

This really would be no different then if the big Auto makers decided to make cars without providing any downstream support in how to maintain or fix the motor or something. I mean does GM, FORD or CHRYSLER make it so your car cant be fixed because you decided to buy the repair parts from some 3rd party parts maker. I don't think so.

Don't get me wrong as i realize that there are a LOT of great people that want to help and are doing their best to do so but everytime i see someone trying to blow sunshine about Amlogic actually helping just gets me going. I know pretty much what docs they provided as all of its been leaked and if you know where to go it can be found and if Amlogic truly was trying to help why did they make it be like that. And even if they actually are why does it continue to be behind basically closed doors from the public. Honestly there is probably MORE coders with Linux experience in these areas that could be tapped into as they are actually LINUX people and know how to fix the stuff if they had the materials.

Rockchip at least to have seen the light and my quess is someplace down the road they will come to dominate as Amlogic continues to be this anal about things, and as speaking as someone that could put some serious help forward along with some others its this behaviour that makes us not willing to even give up the scripts that would at least bring the S812' and S9xx up to a unified kernel based on their own 4.9

So be clear and honest lets just admit Amlogic is stone walling while they wait and depend on the public to fix what they will end up using in the future. Rockchip really is the way to go at this point as they deserve the public help and i am truly glad to see a few talented people start to work torwards that.

As a general point i would say that if your budget is a factor then i wouldn't worry about a lot of the higher end boxes that cost more as most of the hardware features that drive those box prices up aren't really worth the extra money as there are still some key pieces of user space and other code to enable and take advantage of those features, people are working on them but theres no guarantee's of if and when, so those boxes are working but being done in various manners that negate the real hardware benefits of those boxes. Basically i am talking about the S912's.

I would suggest at least 2 gig of ram and 16gig flash as a starting point and let the price point dictate. You cant' go wrong with more Sram and Flash.

The S912's still are not a bad deal tho if you can find a good deal. just understand you will be waiting for the pieces that will really make the fly.

I would stay away from any of the new 2nd generation of S9xx boxes that are starting to appear. the older units are still playing catch-up so the newer 2nd gen boxes will probably be further back in the support chain.

If higher end performance is your wants then hopefully some of the others will post with actual experiences on a particular brand or model.

Also my comments are strictly based on running something like LibreELEC (linux) as you won't find Android or any remnants of it on any of the dozen or more boxes i have running here at any given point in time. Android based comments i will leave to others.

Also the newer Rockchip boxes appear to have a real bright future and i am sure theres some here that can make a solid recommendation on which particular one. I'm currently looking at the RK3399 boxes as well.