ARM Code for Raspberry Pi Goes Free
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I am a member!
Just thought I'd point out this out. I didn't read it yet.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221
Might be good news. Time to crack open the Raspberry Pi we have laying around and actually start selling/supporting it. Particularly if we can get a completely free software distribution on it.
Would be nice if other manufacturers like AMD emphasized that they
release only the code running on the host CPU and not the firmware
running on the device (which is provided with the operating system).
Although what they write here suggests all the difficult and
hardware-specific things like a shared compiler being implemented in the
firmware, I haven't known that this design is used also for GPUs.
Phoronix related this news a few hours ago, but they mentioned that (If I read it right) the Firmware will still be a Proprietary Blob needed to boot the OS (that must be placed in the SD Card). The only Free part would be the driver itself.
But as leny2010 mentioned in another topic
Reading the comments and replies on the linked page what the boot code must do is load microcode into the Videocore from the SD card. Liz@RPi says they have plans to release a board under a different brand which keeps a non-changeable version of the GPU microcode in a serial ROM in order to meet the FSF approval criteria. I look forward to it.So there is hope :D And I'll have no problems waiting for this to be released !
I am a member!
Can you point me to that? I'd like to contact the person who is working on that effort. We won't sell the Raspberry Pi if there are still issues with it. From what you are saying my understanding of it is that there are more issues with the Raspberry Pi than with our x86 systems. If so we will not offer it. However I would like to look into offering a freedom friendly version should somebody be working on it.
Here are the informations (hope I didn't missed any)
- News 1: Raspberry Pi Gets Fully Open-Source Graphics Stack (Phoronix)
- News 1: Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap (Phoronix)
- GitHub WebPage of the Drivers
- Official WebSite Information
- Message from Luc Verhaegen (Developer of the Lima Driver)
- Message about a possible colaboration with the FSF for a Raspberry Pi with approved hardware
The worst of this is that, even the OpenGL implementation are in the Firmware. So what they releases (if I understood right) was only the "communicator" between everything that is in the Firmware (that shouldn't be there for the most part anyway) with the OS itself. I worse case than the Ati HD Radeon Chips.
On 10/24/2012 06:11 PM, name at domain wrote:
> Can you point me to that? I'd like to contact the person who is
> working on that effort. We won't sell the Raspberry Pi if there are
> still issues with it. From what you are saying my understanding of it
> is that there are more issues with the Raspberry Pi than with our x86
> systems. If so we will not offer it. However I would like to look into
> offering a freedom friendly version should somebody be working on it.
>
Chris;
Here is our wiki page on ARM
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Creation_Kit/sck/Advanced_Topics#f17-fedora-arm
lists of contacts and references
#seneca and #fedora-arm on freenode
Test report raspberrypi-fedora-remix-17-test-004.img
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Testing/Reports/ARM_RPi
(works nicely if you resize memory split to 240M/16M:)
cp /boot/arm240_start.elf /boot/start.elf
look at pictures in test
Tom Gilliard
Bend Oregon
satellit on #trisquel and #sugar freenode IRC
On Wednesday 24 October 2012 21:04:32 name at domain wrote:
> Just thought I'd point out this out. I didn't read it yet.
>
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221
>
> Might be good news. Time to crack open the Raspberry Pi we have laying
> around and actually start selling/supporting it. Particularly if we can get
> a completely free software distribution on it.
I suggest you read the entire page Chris. In summary: The RPi still
has a closed changeable Videocore microcode blob. Staffer Liz@RPi
says there is to be a board under a different brand [name?] with this
blob in serial ROM which will meet FSF hardware approval.
I am a member!
Thanks for pointing that out-
At the time of the post it sounded like they were eliminating the last barriers to it being freedom-friendly. I forgot about this other piece. My thinking was it was a GPU issue only. I have had a chance to skim it although not in detail. I even missed the Raspberry Pi presentation at Libre Planet 2012.
I have to say I appreciate other people investigating it and posting back. It is challenge to keep up on the details. Particularly of projects we're not involved in. Our focus is the desktop and we don't have the resources to delve into such a project at the moment. I've only been looking into it in severely limited fashion. Mainly through others. I did finally (after much hesitation) get around to buying a Raspberry Pi and a VIA APC. I have not actually turned the Raspberry Pi on personally. No time. I did experiment with the VIA APC a bit. Again- to a very limited extent. We don't have information on either on our web site (obviously not through libre.thinkpenguin.com, and not otherwise either, for now). Which really shouldn't surprise anyone here. We're focused on supporting free software and to a limited extent we do support other distributions. It's mainly revolves around compatibility with free pieces (drivers) though.
Both the Raspberry Pi and VIA APC are non-x86. Neither are freedom friendly. I'm still getting my feet wet in the non-x86 world. There isn't much I can play with at the moment. I would not advise others to get one unless your planning to work on freeing the device.
Both the Raspberry Pi and VIA APC are non-x86. Neither are freedom friendly. I'm still getting my feet wet in the non-x86 world. There isn't much I can play with at the moment. I would not advise others to get one unless your planning to work on freeing the device.
And also to test Trisquel on it. Adapt it for example, even with some closed parts that could be a good training until a totally free ARM device is out, no ?
I am a member!
That's not possible right now. Trisquel doesn't run on ARM. On the other hand testing Ubuntu's ARM + Linux-libre would be a start.
What would be ideal actually is if a developer started working on the guts. I'm not actually the best person to be doing this. The time required and a focus in other areas means it'll take me 10x as long to get anything working. And it's not likely to go anywhere. I don't have the time to maintain it.
This is what I was saying xD Someone with an ARM device working on porting Ubuntu (12.04 for example) with the Linux-Libre (adapted for ARM) that could be even proposed to jxself's list.
name at domain
Sorry but don't brother with them. Go and properly look into
Rhombus-tech.net. Especially the mailing list!
Cool,exciting,cheaper,future proof stuff :D.
BTW I'm not an hardware expert but a newbie!
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