Does Armbian (Debian) support GPU acceleration on the XU4?

[freezr]

Hi guys,

 

this is something that I would like to achieve if feasible.

I remember that other OS like "RetroPie Arena" support GPU acceleration, thanks.

 

Any documentation to read? Thanks! 🙏

[igagis]

To me it looks like the GPU is not working. After installing Armbian (I tried both, minimal and with desktop env), everything works, but graphics does not look like accelerated.

Running glmark2 gives quite low FPS counts. Also it reports GL Vendor as Mesa/Xorg, i.e. not the GPU.

 

Any help on how to make GPU work would be welcome!

[Igor]

IIRC this was never integrated but was supported via community initiative:

 

[igagis]

That's unfortunate that it did not make it to the mainline

 

[Igor]

6 hours ago, igagis said:

That's unfortunate that it did not make it to the mainline

 

Those older devices are patiently waiting for a dedicated enthusiast with plenty of free time and a passion for tinkering. Sadly, the current Armbian maintainers are already stretched to the limit, and expanding our support efforts just isn’t feasible right now.

 

I had a wish, still have, to find and encourage a dedicated person to take a lead on maintaining those old devices (retro Armbian section) as we have to move them out of primary focus in order to survive.

 

Reaching mainline is not enough. Most of our work is dealing with problems that are originating from there. Mainline is just common work, but its often in not very good state. And when problems are found, it takes months before they are fixed. And someday they are not fixed anymore as critical mass of developers, interested in this devices, is just too small or too inexperienced.

[igagis]

Unfortunately, I'm not the one dedicated enthusiast with plenty of time, my time is very limited.

So, I'd wait for such an enthusiast to appear too :).

I'd even donate one of my Odroid XU4 boards to that potential enthusiast, who would add GPU support to Armbian.

[Igor]

13 hours ago, igagis said:

Unfortunately, I'm not the one dedicated enthusiast with plenty of time, my time is very limited.

Understand, likewise & most of people that knows this stuff, are very busy. 

 

13 hours ago, igagis said:

I'd even donate one of my Odroid XU4 boards to that potential enthusiast, who would add GPU support to Armbian.

 

Hardware donation was a thing years ago, today not so much. I can add hw donation (something else) and offer tools: 

https://forum.armbian.com/crowdfunding/ (example)

This can be prepared by anyone and nothing is expected to happen over the night.

[igagis]

Quote

Understand, likewise & most of people that knows this stuff, are very busy. 

 

And I'm also not the one who "knows this  stuff". I'm a linux user and user-space developer. I know nothing about kernel space, drivers, etc. Also not that much into linux system internals in general.

If I knew how to do the stuff, I' would perhaps spend some of my time to support this. But since I'm not into "this stuff" it would take years from me to learn all this, which is not possible at this point for me.

So yeah, it is quite unlikely that the hypothetical "enthusiast" will ever appear .

[Igor]

17 minutes ago, igagis said:

I'm a linux user and user-space developer.

Armbian needs user space development too  

Examples:
https://github.com/armbian/configng
https://github.com/armbian/apa
...

We have to deal with that. There is a lot of automation, infrastructure, ... everything has to be done in order that this machinery works. Ain't just kernel / low level stuff. Not to mention that project also needs (HTML) front-end developers and other profiles. As by the end of the day, that works falls to the people who knows kernel stuff, but if website is broken, kernel fixing has to wait ...