Domain: limadriver.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to limadriver.org.
Comments · 7
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Re:no binary blobs
And of course if http://limadriver.org/ is ever advanced to the point where it is usable on whatever flavor of Mali GPU the A20 has, the whole issue will become moot and no blobs will be required anymore.
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Re:Allwinner is a winner.
Are there any with an open GPU?
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Re:expensive and hard to get
Actually, no offense to the Pi guys, but the concept is absolutely not new. They were just really good at marketing.
For $42, you can get a fully functional Android mini-PC with a a Mali 400 GPU & a Cortex A8. Unlike the Pi, it has 1Gb of RAM and a significantly faster processor. Also unlike the Pi, they don't stiff you on the case or power supply. Add to the fact that the Pi's GPU is a binary blob and the Mali has some open source drivers, and you pretty much seal the deal on this "open" computer. Now, even before these mini Android PCs, you could go on Ebay and buy an ARM dev board for like ~$60.
This is just the same crap they throw in cell phones. There's absolutely no reason to put up with shipping times measured in months for a cell phone with some GPIO pins. -
Re:Mali 400 GPU
Not to my knowledge; however, there is an open source driver being developed via reverse-engineering:
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Re:What is it?
Er, that's a different Lima project. The Lima Mali GPU reverse-engineering project page is at: http://limadriver.org/ The obligatory git code page is at: https://gitorious.org/lima
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Re:What is it?
"I've been following this project for a while now, and it is going in a direction which I believe in. I am getting tired of proprietary ARM hardware and software."
According to the link, the Allwinner A10 has a MALI GPU, which presently requires a proprietary driver although there's an nVidia Nouveau-like project to produce a reverse-engineered driver, aptly named Lima.
I agree it's an important project, if only because it would allow hardware computer geeks to continue building their own kit after today's tower and mini-tower PCs go extinct. I'm still waiting for the day I can assemble the equivalent of a full-powered desktop PC in a form factor smaller than a consumer router. Which has me wondering while Intel and AMD aren't doing their own Manhattan project to produce their own full-featured SoCs rather than the more powerful but less integrated APUs.
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Re:Progress is always welcome
The GPU for sure and likely other components on the SOCs Moto use utilize closed hardware that only Moto can provide drivers for.
It's not true that only Motorola can provide drivers - it is just *hard* for others to do so. Nouveau showed it was possible to reverse engineer a GPU driver; in the ARM a world open source Mali GPU driver and Adreno GPU driveris being worked on, which will hopefully cover a large proportion of the mobile devices out there.