Orangepi 3 info about Mali

[Nedo]

Hi guys, i dont'understand well mali driver status. 

 

Someone can explain me if a working driver exist? And if exist what is best method for build a functional driver? Ive read someting about full mali ddk source that require a license but is not clear if opensouce driver is equivalent or has limitation.

I have found:
https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/graphics-and-gaming/mali-drivers/midgard-kernel

If i build this there is some hope to having some kind of accelleration for a normal desktop life like showing wideo with high framerate, Youtube, etc?
Thanks in advice
Orangepi3 nigtly.

[jernej]

First, don't mix GPU and VPU (read https://www.cnx-software.com/2013/12/10/most-embedded-gpus-do-not-support-hardware-video-decoding-acceleration-the-vpu-does/)

 

Secondly, yes, working driver exist, but just fbdev version and gbm/wayland. I'm not sure if X11 driver is available at the moment.

 

Thirdly, Firefox doesn't use any kind of HW accelerated video decoding on Linux as far as I know.

 

So, what are you trying to reach, e.g. smooth video playback in web browser is not possible at the moment and probably not for a long time.

 

However, if you just want to watch youtube videos, maybe combination of Kodi on LibreELEC + youtube plugin would work for you? Unfortunately, only H6 currently supported board is PineH64, but support for OrangePi 3 is also planned in the future. Why this works? No X11, so existing gbm mali driver is used and modified ffmpeg is used to support HW video decoding driver.

[greg798]

It is brake for these ARM SOC devices.

Fbdev version and gbm/wayland exist armhf devices and very bug.

I tried to substitute Open Source Mali Midgard on kernel build but have many error. 

Im don't have normal manuals,  need many time and knowledge. And this not fact!

[Nedo]

So the hope of having a usable raspberry-like desktop is a long way off. I had hoped this since it was presented as an open source card well supported by linux, wow more power, more ram, emmc... The versions on the website of the manufacturer are old and gruesome. I hate android as a desktop, it seems to be the only fully functional system, plus they are still on android 7. At this point the only possible use for this card that comes to my mind is to use board as a NAS. It's not the first time I've been screwed, I made this mistake with odroid u2 with mali, purchased and immediately abandoned for years in my linux user cellar.

[SchmuseTigger]

20 hours ago, Nedo said:

So the hope of having a usable raspberry-like desktop is a long way off. I had hoped this since it was presented as an open source card well supported by linux, wow more power, more ram, emmc... The versions on the website of the manufacturer are old and gruesome. I hate android as a desktop, it seems to be the only fully functional system, plus they are still on android 7. At this point the only possible use for this card that comes to my mind is to use board as a NAS. It's not the first time I've been screwed, I made this mistake with odroid u2 with mali, purchased and immediately abandoned for years in my linux user cellar.

well, NAS would suck too, as they totally screwed the PCIE driver to make it basically non supported forever. The CPU/GPU is planned to be supported with Linux 5.2 which will come.. well.. whenever it will come.