Re: Donation of ARM CubieTruck to anyone interested in developing ARM-Debian-desktop

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl@lkcl.net>]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Wookey <wookey@wookware.org> wrote:

>> > My goal: It should have a working 2D, HD Video and 3D graphics as well
>> > as audio and networking. (for my purposes even closed-source drivers
>> > are "OK").
>
> The GPU is mali 400. WHich is the 2nd most advanced free-driver project.
> I believe it just-about has an X driver now, but still with a
> proprietary compiler chunk in it? Check with lima project for state
> there. Prospects for a free driver are good in the not-too-distant,
> althouh more contributors would help of course.

 the reverse-engineering of CEDARX (the video and audio acceleration
hardware) reached an important milestone a few months ago of managing
to do at least one video CODEC as entirely software-libre.

 of course - again, as this is also a reverse-engineering project and
there are more CODECs to implement, exactly as wookie points out the
CEDARX project is _another_ one where more contributors would help:
the main effort has been made and the hardware is now well-understood,
so writing more CODECs is a matter more of porting than it is
reverse-engineering.

 also the bootloader process has been reverse-engineered and is
entirely GPL'd, and the "from-scratch" boot-from-USB loader process
(called FEL) has also been reverse-engineered.

 mainly it's MALI that's holding up the A20 from being declared as
FSF-Endorseable.  once limadriver has a useable release it'll be
enough.

l.