Bug#985862: linux: Please enable support for NXP/Freescale iMX8
Source: linux
Severity: normal
The iMX8 SoC is used on various boards, widely available to debian
users and well supported by free software, but the platform is not
enabled in debian kernels, which is a rather major omission. I don't
know why not (I guess no-one filed this bug?).
These are all avilable today and should at least mostly work with
mainline:
Nitrogen 8M
https://boundarydevices.com/product/nitrogen8m/
Solidrun
Cubox M https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRMP8QDWB1D04GE008X00CE/
Hummingboard Pulse https://shop.solid-run.com/product-category/embedded-computers/nxp-family/hummingboard-m/
Purism
Librem 5 Phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5
Compulab
SBC-iMX8X https://www.compulab.com/products/sbcs/sbc-imx8x-nxp-i-mx-8x-single-board-computer/
(supported since 5.4.24)
Toradex
Apalis iMX8 CoM https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/apalis-arm-family/nxp-imx-8
I believe that all that is needed is adding
CONFIG_ARCH_MXC=y in debian/config/arm64/config
Which is set by default upstream.
(There may be other drivers that should enabled too for some of these
platforms?)
I just built the kernel with the above config change and it builds
fine on arm64, and installs and boots on softiron. I don't have an
iMX8 here to test on, but we can find some, I'm sure.
It seems like the timing was rather unfortunate here with some of this
hardware only becoming widely available in Q4 2020 (shortly before the
Bullseye freeze). Is there any chance of one more hardware enablement
upload for bullseye, or does this feel like too big a change? If not,
getting this into a point release would make debian stable useful on a
lot more hardware. What testing would make the kernel team reasonably
happy about doing that?
--
Wookey
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