4 ms·

How does this deal with the binary blobs that need to start the boot loader? From memory the older models needed to launch the graphics chip first which was a h

How does this deal with the binary blobs that need to start the boot loader? From memory the older models needed to launch the graphics chip first which was a hack-y nightmare with no open source way of doing it.

pjc50 8y ago
It ignores that and starts at the point where the kernel is loaded by that first-stage bootloader. Which is very reasonable for a beginner's introduction.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you really build things from the ground up: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source-ha... Completely out of time to do anything for it but this company getting more traction would be really good given how completely open they are.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you really build things from the ground up Concerning your linked example: if I look at the specs at > https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino-LIME-n4GB/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino-... I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source?
    - pabs3 8y ago
      > I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source? If you are talking about drivers (rather than the GPU itself), there are reverse engineered drivers: https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/ https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/ https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima For the newer Mali GPUs there is the Panfrost driver: https://notabug.org/cafe/chai https://notabug.org/cafe/chai https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost https://rosenzweig.io/blog/ https://rosenzweig.io/blog/
    - rjsw 8y ago
      You can run stuff on any of the Allwinner SoCs without using the GPU, the display controller that provides HDMI or VGA output is separate and fully documented. Some of them also have a simple 2D graphics accelerator.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    To be fair, an A10 has a 32kb closed source ROM that's the first stage bootloader, that chain loads your code.
imtringued 8y ago
The raspberry pi is built on top of a graphics chip with some ARM cores tacked on as an afterthought. [1] The binary blobs are not firmware. A full proprietary RTOS called ThreadX is running on the Raspberry Pi as the primary OS and this won't change until they move off of broadcom's video core. [1] https://www.heise.de/ct/zcontent/16/08-hocmsmeta/1460193213013079/contentimages/Raspi_Broadcom_mtk_IG.jpg https://www.heise.de/ct/zcontent/16/08-hocmsmeta/14601932130...

pjc50 8y ago

It ignores that and starts at the point where the kernel is loaded by that first-stage bootloader. Which is very reasonable for a beginner's introduction.

zeth___ 8y ago
Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you really build things from the ground up: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source-ha... Completely out of time to do anything for it but this company getting more traction would be really good given how completely open they are.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you really build things from the ground up Concerning your linked example: if I look at the specs at > https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino-LIME-n4GB/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino-... I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source?
  - pabs3 8y ago
    > I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source? If you are talking about drivers (rather than the GPU itself), there are reverse engineered drivers: https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/ https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/ https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima For the newer Mali GPUs there is the Panfrost driver: https://notabug.org/cafe/chai https://notabug.org/cafe/chai https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost https://rosenzweig.io/blog/ https://rosenzweig.io/blog/
  - rjsw 8y ago
    You can run stuff on any of the Allwinner SoCs without using the GPU, the display controller that provides HDMI or VGA output is separate and fully documented. Some of them also have a simple 2D graphics accelerator.
- monocasa 8y ago
  To be fair, an A10 has a 32kb closed source ROM that's the first stage bootloader, that chain loads your code.

imtringued 8y ago

The raspberry pi is built on top of a graphics chip with some ARM cores tacked on as an afterthought. [1] The binary blobs are not firmware. A full proprietary RTOS called ThreadX is running on the Raspberry Pi as the primary OS and this won't change until they move off of broadcom's video core. [1] https://www.heise.de/ct/zcontent/16/08-hocmsmeta/1460193213013079/contentimages/Raspi_Broadcom_mtk_IG.jpg https://www.heise.de/ct/zcontent/16/08-hocmsmeta/14601932130...