4 ms·
These are based on the Nationalchip GX6605S SOC, which has no mainline support, but C-Sky maintains a kernel supporting it[1]. It also seems to have buildroot
by robert_foss 8y ago
These are based on the Nationalchip GX6605S SOC, which has no mainline support, but C-Sky maintains a kernel supporting it[1].
It also seems to have buildroot support if you want to whip up an embedded platform based on it[2].
[1] https://github.com/c-sky/linux-4.9.y/ https://github.com/c-sky/linux-4.9.y/
[2] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/734596/ https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/734596/
- int0x80 8y agoc-sky arch has been merged into mainline: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/arch/csky?id=c32e64e852f3f5c0fd709f84bc94736840088375 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...
- robert_foss 8y agoNeat! I wonder how far out SOC support is though. Arch support is the very first step in terms of supporting an SOC.
- int0x80 8y agoI'm seeing core code (kernel, cpu, mmu, irq etc) in arch/ and a few clocksource and timer drivers. No clue about the HDMI or USB controllers for example, or even if the are using other already merged drivers for them.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoHow is it that all those cheap boards are always based on chips without proper support?
- StavrosK 8y agoMaybe that's why they're cheap.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoI may completely misunderstand how the design process works here, but I'd assume the cheapest SOCs would be the most popular ones, and hence most likely to have proper support. Why isn't it so?
- walrus01 8y agothe cheapest ones are sold for embedded purposes where a manufacturer of a single specific device is using a vendor-supplied kernel, or not linux at all (vxworks or something). Look at the OS that runs on a $25 TP-Link home 802.11n/ac router for example. The manufacturer of the chip doesn't particularly care about making it work with a debian stretch environment, or similar.
- chx 8y agoI have a ELECOM WRH-583 router, dual band, dual Ethernet and at 65 * 35 * 20.5mm I am rather forgiving about not having Linux support. Two dimensions of the three are dictated by the two RJ45 sockets, 2 * 15.24 wide and 15mm high. The router itself has less than 44 * 30 mm PCB area to spend on actual router circuitry. SoC & 5G - PHY: RTL 8881AM, 2.4G - PHY: RTL 8188ER, RAM: ESMT M14D 5121632 (64MiB), NOR: MXIC 25L64 (8MiB). https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Crq6x3PUEAA58NW.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Crq6x3PUEAA58NW.jpg info from http://twisave.com/ysks/2016/9/p:5 http://twisave.com/ysks/2016/9/p:5 and these sort of routers are apparently not Linux compatible / capable even?
- ryukafalz 8y agoAnd this is why just about every embedded Linux device more than a few years old runs an ancient kernel with known vulnerabilities.
- imtringued 8y agoWell if you're running them headless then running armbian with a recent kernel will work on a lot of boards. The big problems come when you want driver support e.g. proprietary GPU drivers for ARM GPUs don't work because they were written for an old kernel api and ARM would rather focus on selling new GPUs than supporting older ones for sake of the tiny SBC niche.
- gsich 8y agoNot only the cheap ones.
- oneplane 8y agoBecause that would make them expensive. The cost of those boards isn't in the hardware, it's in the people writing software and the QA that comes with it.
- emilfihlman 8y agoThat's not the case. You must anyways be able to support them to get anything done so the software things already exist. It's just that they don't bother with sharing those docs in English since it's Asia only pretty much.
- oneplane 8y agoNo, that's not how it works. Doing proper support means getting your code mainlined and written and tested according to the rules. Doing a dirty port with crappy code that still runs is easy and cheap. Delivering a crap fork and not updating it a year after release is common because of this, same goes for a lot of commercial stuff.
- candiodari 8y agoThat depends on your unit count. 1 Software-engineer-year, and a $6 product (let's say $3 in bulk) for which the cheapest alternative is $35 in bulk. So let's say you take $100k (because it doesn't HAVE to be the bay area), that means you can spend one software engineer year per ~3k units. That would put just supporting this arch themselves, let's call it 3 software engineers, in range of anyone making 10k devices or more. That's a lot of people. That would make this
- gh02t 8y agoIt's not just cheap boards, there aren't that many embedded platforms with mainline support at any price level (and many of the ones that are are community-driven, not by the OEM). Part of it is a deeply ingrained culture of industrial secrecy, but a lot of it is perceived lack of incentive. Companies perceive little benefit to investing the effort required to submit their patches upstream, and there is also pervasive FUD about hackers examining the code for exploits, other companies stealing their IP etc. It sucks and many people are trying to change it, but progress is very slow. FPGAs are generally in an even worse position.