How can I compile Mali-T764 DRIVERS on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 on RK3288 device ?

Hi ryan@321,

We've postponed the X11 release as we've been testing our drivers on Firefly with the 3.10 kernel which doesn't support DRM, and this is preventing us from using the "armsoc" X11 back-end for our X11 driver.  As the new r5p1 drivers have just been announced, the plan is now to release new r5p1 Mali-T76x GNU/Linux binary drivers for fbdev and X11 if we have a system that supports it.  In principle it should be easy to use X11 on the 3.14 Chromium kernel as it is made to run Chrome OS which uses X11.  You should expect these drivers to be available online by the end of March.

Best regards,

Guillaume

Hi ryan@321,

We've postponed the X11 release as we've been testing our drivers on Firefly with the 3.10 kernel which doesn't support DRM, and this is preventing us from using the "armsoc" X11 back-end for our X11 driver.  As the new r5p1 drivers have just been announced, the plan is now to release new r5p1 Mali-T76x GNU/Linux binary drivers for fbdev and X11 if we have a system that supports it.  In principle it should be easy to use X11 on the 3.14 Chromium kernel as it is made to run Chrome OS which uses X11.  You should expect these drivers to be available online by the end of March.

Best regards,

Guillaume

Thanks for the update.

Have you by change made any other changes to the Firefly 3.10 kernel to compile it successfully with the Mali T764 framebuffer r5p0 drivers?

I deleted the GPU folders and replaced it with the new ones and kept the rockchip folder as mentioned in a previous thread, but keep getting

error compiling mali_kbase.so  GPU compile error.

Something like that, can't remember the exact error.

Is it possible to send me the changes or tar'd kernel for Firefly with changes by PM or email?

Maybe I did something wrong, I can load the userspace Mali drivers into my LinuxRFS, it's just the kernel with new GPU drivers I have trouble with.

Compiling the normal Firefly kernel with old Mali drivers, I have no problems with.

I can then compare it to what I did and learn from my mistake.

Would appreciate any help.

Hi ryan@321,

     busybee have compiled Firefly 3.10 kernel with Mali successfully, and make the patch.

     I hope that helps.

Best regards,

Sam Chan

Hello Guillaume,

Could you please give us some updated information about the progress of X11 driver release for Mali T-764 ?

Best Regards,

Peter Bauer

I think Rockchip's new processor will be released before we get an X11 driver for RK3288.

It took almost 10 months for the user-space driver to get released.

Intel devices have driver support straight out of the box, don't need to wait a year for something that might happen.

I hope ARM can prove us wrong and manufacturers like Rockchip don't need to spend another 6 months optimizing the X11 driver to get it in a working state.

Hi Ryan,

To help clarify the situation...

ARM design the GPU, and license this intellectual property to SoC designers who then integrate it into their SoC.

In addition to this IP, we also provide a software proprietary driver for the GPU.

This source is then modified and integrated into the SoC's kernel and BSPs by the designers, not ARM. This is because we do not control the other aspects of the SoC nor the BSP.

Comparing the speed in which Intel release drivers, is not a comparison with ARM, but a comparison with RockChip (in this instance). If you truely believe RockChip should have provided driver support sooner than they have done, then you should really contact RockChip, not us. Rockchip have our driver sources, including the components for X11 already, and have done since the very beginning. We cannot force them to release drivers however, as this is completely up to them.

In addition to the above statement, we see that the community want driver availability as soon as possible, and have decided to take it upon ourselves to release generic binary drivers that are compatible with the more popular development platforms out there, to help enable and drive the Mali ecosystem.

Releasing this requires not only engineering effort to make the changes (which is by far the shortest step in this process) but also vigorous testing of the binary to make sure performance is optimal and it is as bug free as possible, with the features required. This can take some time to go through.

During this process, we also have to go through legal approval to distribute the binary, and this can sometimes delay things further.

I sincerely do apologise that you have had a bad experience so far waiting for either Rockchip's official drivers, or our generic drivers to be release.

Due to the size of the team working on this, we cannot commit to a release date, so I can only ask you to be patient a little longer.

We do hope to release this soon, and it is one of the tasks we are actively working on (among many other things)

Thank you for your understanding.

Kind Regards,

Michael McGeagh