What kernel is recommended?

[Brett]

Hello, I have a beaglebone black that I am building a kernel for. I've found 5 or so different locations to get a kernel from but I am having trouble figuring out which one to use. My primary concern is stability, SGX acceleration and a fairly quick boot time. I've already built busybox and a the handful of utilities I need so I am really just focused on the kernel. Looks like TI has a couple, BB.org has one and RobertCNelson has many. Whose kernel should I use? What version is the most stable while supporting SGX? I've had trouble getting TI's kernel to work with the SGX drivers (using TI's guide). I had to modify the SGX source to get BB.org's kernel but still failed to load the modules. RobertCNelson has so many kernels with so many different branches and tags(changing hourly!), how can I know which one is the most desirable?

Thanks

[Robert Nelson]

So SGX has always been a major pain in the ass..

We have two path's for users:

Use the bone v4.4.x kernel, along with ti's 5.01.01.02's sdk, this
will get you a "FBDEV" based acceleration (no x11/xorg/etc) This has
the most beagleboard.org users..

https://github.com/RobertCNelson/bb-kernel/tree/am33x-v4.4

(or the rt varient)

sgx build scripts are in the repo...

Or you can use the newer ti sdk release,

Start with our v4.4.x-ti based kernel:

https://github.com/RobertCNelson/ti-linux-kernel-dev/tree/ti-linux-4.4.y

Graphics Modules and user space is here:

http://git.ti.com/cgit/cgit.cgi/graphics/omap5-sgx-ddk-linux.git/

http://git.ti.com/cgit/cgit.cgi/graphics/omap5-sgx-ddk-linux.git/log/?h=ti-img-sgx/1.14.3699939/k4.4

http://git.ti.com/cgit/cgit.cgi/graphics/omap5-sgx-ddk-um-linux.git/

http://git.ti.com/cgit/cgit.cgi/graphics/omap5-sgx-ddk-um-linux.git/log/?h=ti-img-sgx/1.14.3699939

They are "EGL" only... Wayland... Only TI has gotten these to work,
we've been able to load the module... But nothing with the userspace
lib's yet...

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
https://rcn-ee.com/

[Brett Sawyer]

Thank you Robert! FBDEV is exactly what I need for this project so I'll start with option 1. I appreciate the work you have put into the beagleboard.org projects. I remember the beagleboard-xm had similar struggles. Why is SGX always so painful? I don't understand why TI's own instructions don't work (I couldn't make them work without manually editing parts of SGX, maybe I did something wrong).

[William Hermans]

On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 6:20 PM, Brett Sawyer <mixmast...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Robert! FBDEV is exactly what I need for this project so I'll start with option 1. I appreciate the work you have put into the beagleboard.org projects. I remember the beagleboard-xm had similar struggles. Why is SGX always so painful? I don't understand why TI's own instructions don't work (I couldn't make them work without manually editing parts of SGX, maybe I did something wrong).

Some say it's PowerVR's unwillingness to open source it's driver software. For a possible myriad of reasons. Passed that, what has me wondering, is why does TI continue to cripple themselves by dealing with such a company ? Perhaps they're trying to recoup form extravagant licensing fees, or perhaps they're locked into some sort of contract, I suspect us, the lowly end users, who actually make these people money. Will never know.

[William Hermans]

Not to mention that redesigning the same processor with a different GPU in it would cost a lot of money too. But that does not explain the newer processors with integrated GPU's from the same company.