New Gentoo image

[Gabriele Svelto]

Hello everybody,
I've finalized my new Gentoo image for the CI20, you can find it here
together with installation instructions and other assorted resources:

https://www.setphaserstostun.org/pages/mips-creator-ci20-gentoo-resources/

Compared to the prototype I posted a few months ago this image is
entirely built with gcc 7.3.0, binutils 2.30 and glibc 2.26. The kernel
is version 3.18.124 plus the CI20 patches. I've also fixed the default
user login in the graphical environment so you can access the board
either via the (serial) console or graphically.

This image includes the memory timing fixes I mentioned in a previous
post. The board has been very stable since I used them with only one
unexpected crash in 3 months. Since it happened while the board exited a
prolonged period of idleness I suspect the self-refresh exit timings are
not correct yet.

My next steps are to try and get a 4.4 kernel working on the board,
switching to Gentoo's latest profile (version 17.0) and fixing the
remaining memory stability issues.

Gabriele

[Mathieu Malaterre]

Hi Gabriele,

Congrats for the work ! Looks amazing.

Quick question: why kernel 4.4 ? 

[Gabriele Svelto]

Hi Mathieu,

On 18/10/18 09:03, Mathieu Malaterre wrote:
> Congrats for the work ! Looks amazing.
>
> Quick question: why kernel 4.4 ? 

because it's an LTS and on the official GitHub repo there's a Android
kernel 4.4 fork: https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_Linux/tree/dev-mips-oreo-v4.4

Porting patches from there shouldn't be too hard. I'd like to get a
mainline kernel working on the board but that would take more work.

Gabriele

[da...@linuxid10t.com]

That would be amazing if you could get kernel 4.4 up and running. What are the chances the PowerVR GPU is running with this image?

[Gabriele Svelto]

On 18/12/18 04:13, da...@linuxid10t.com wrote:
> That would be amazing if you could get kernel 4.4 up and running. What are the chances the PowerVR GPU is running with this image?

The image I put together has DRI support, porting that to 4.4 shouldn't
be too hard AFAIU. That being said there's no support for hardware
acceleration; ImgTec released a binary driver that worked with older
Xorg versions but never updated it. No FOSS drivers are available either
so what you get is basic 2D functionality.

Gabriele