Linux Kernel for Minix Neo X7

[knawnd]

The cached result is great but it's still not enought:
my card unbuffered read speed should be 90Mb/s, almost 9 time more than this!

The problem is the UHS-1 support that limits the card to a class10.

Note MB and Mb. The first one stands for megabytes whereas the second one is for megabits, isn't it? If it's so then there is pretty good correlation between hdparm result (12.72 MB/sec) and 90 Mb/s:
90 Mb/8=11.25 MB.

[knawnd]

mali 400 mp support in linux kernel

There is information on the Web that there is no mali 400 support yet in linux kernel driver. As fas as I understand from mali-developer's web-portal there is open-source version of all three components what are needed for such support in the linux kernel:

Source code for Mali GPUs Kernel Device Drivers, UMP Device Drivers and DRM Device Drivers under GPLv2 licence
The Linux and Android version of the Mali GPUs DDKs include three components which run within the kernel. The most important of these, known as the Device Driver, provides the low-level access to the Mali-200, Mali-300, Mali-400 and Mali-450 GPU. An important, secondary component is the Unified Memory Provider (UMP) which can be used in a variety of ways to facilitate zero-copy operations within the driver stack. An additional component, the Mali Direct Rendering Manager (DRM), is provided to integrate the Mali GPU DDKs into the X11 environment and for enabling the Direct Rendering Interface (DRI2).
Some of these components are being made available under the GPLv2 licence. This page provides access to the source packages from which loadable kernel modules can be built.
Note that these components are not a complete driver stack. To build a functional OpenGL ES or OpenVG driver you need access to the full source code of the Mali GPU DDK, which is provided under the standard ARM commercial licence to all Mali GPU customers. For a complete integration of the Mali GPU DDK with the X11 environment refer to the Integration Guide supplied with the Mali GPU DDK.
The open source drivers provided on this page are designed to run with a version-compatible release of the Mali GPU DDK (currently r3p2). In functional and performance terms they are identical to the implementations provided under the commercial licence. By also releasing them under the GPLv2 licence we hope to make it easier to include Mali GPU drivers in any Linux or Android platform.

I wonder what does prevent the community to have full mali 400 mp support in linux kernel for rk3188 SoC? Sorry if the answer is too obvious but I really don't understand

[Plokko]

There is information on the Web that there is no mali 400 support yet in linux kernel driver. As fas as I understand from mali-developer's web-portal there is open-source version of all three components what are needed for such support in the linux kernel:


I wonder what does prevent the community to have full mali 400 mp support in linux kernel for rk3188 SoC? Sorry if the answer is too obvious but I really don't understand

You can install them (anyway there's a big LUA disclaimer on onstall so i don't think it's full GPL) but making it work it's a whole other thing.

The card read speed is 90MB/s and write is 45MB/s (i didn't capitalized them) but ONLY if UHS-I is supported, if the device does not support UHS-I it acts like a normal class 10 card.

The problem can be one or both of them:

• The integrated SD card reader does not support UHS-I
• The kernel does not yet support UHS-I

This post may prove that the support is restricted to kernel 3.3 or above

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16100765/which-version-of-linux-kernel-starts-to-support-sd-sdio-version-3-00

I'll try a quick SD speed test on android to check if i can break the 10-13mb limit with proper kernel support (if the app does support ext4, i won't reformat it!)

UPDATE: Same speed results on Android; i don't have an USB SD-card reader to compare.
The sd card should be directly connected to the rk3188 STDIO0 so i think a kernel patch or update to the 3.3 should fix the problem.

[Guest]

Do you have the same problem even in android?(i have this problem ONLY on 1080p,720p works well)

Anyway try using Linuxium-lubuntu or xubuntu, debian is my favourite distro but linuxium seems just perfect for this machine (and it's an ubuntu mod so it's debian-based).
The last kernel is more optimized so it may work better.

I also had the screen-flicker problem on my tv and monitor using android, but it seemed to occur less than in linux. Anyway a short time after my post experimenting with Lubuntu on sdcard and the kernel from post #15, the board suddenly went dead. Just tried to reflash the kernel (it should have been intact, because it hung on boot into linux)... no success, after that, no usb signal anymore. not even a usb id on boot. I watched the minix SPDIF optical port, it went "red" for less than a second after pressing power on button, then the light went out and board shutdown again. This repeated more than a 100 times... no success in recovering anything. Checked if the reset-pin was stuck... nope. The board must have been completely dead, left unflashable. PC did not recognize it, another PC got no signal from it, my HUB did not show a "USB port in use" light... DEAD.

A friend told me it could be a problem if the minix would constantly run on maximum cpu frequency after boot when the kernel does not reduce clock speed after a certain time to avoid overheating. Does the kernel include this feature?

I now sent my Minix back for repair. Probably I won't continue to work on Minix, because I found feedback on Amazon in the meantime where people suspected the K-R42 to be more stable...?

[knawnd]

Checked if the reset-pin was stuck... nope. The board must have been completely dead, left unflashable. PC did not recognize it, another PC got no signal from it, my HUB did not show a "USB port in use" light... DEAD.

TylerDurden, is your minix detected by PC at least for a few second and then disappear or it is just undetectable at all?
Does your problem look similar to that one?
In my case it helped me to keep power button pressed in order to make device visible for PC.

[Plokko]

PC did not recognize it, another PC got no signal from it, my HUB did not show a "USB port in use" light... DEAD.

A friend told me it could be a problem if the minix would constantly run on maximum cpu frequency after boot when the kernel does not reduce clock speed after a certain time to avoid overheating. Does the kernel include this feature?

The only way you can kill Minix is if you use an overclocked/overvolted kernel(and i don't even know if it's possible).
i think your minix may be working but it's having some video/booting problems and won't display anything,it happened to me a lot of times, you just need to reflash the rom.

Using a pc that you're sure works for flashing (windows 8 don't work for flashing, some driver like Samsung need a removal before the new one are installed)
follow this video tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbGp8WL4vu4

but remember to use the usb cable found in the minix box, other cables may not work!
Flash a new rom, try with a rom you know it's working before trying anything else (like the new stock rom or finless 1.7 with a clean install).

[grzmrc]

May you tell me how I can load the rkwifi.ko module at startup? Now I have to issue the insmod command at each reboot.

I have some issue related to the mali400. My minix x7 randomly reboot when the screensaver is running.

[Plokko]

May you tell me how I can load the rkwifi.ko module at startup? Now I have to issue the insmod command at each reboot.

I have some issue related to the mali400. My minix x7 randomly reboot when the screensaver is running.

To load the rkwifi.ko at startup it's really simple:

Edit /etc/rc.local

$sudo nano /etc/rc.local

and add the commad BEFORE the exit 0 like so (other text may differ in your version):

#....
chmod o+rw /dev/snd/[c-t]*

[COLOR=#ff0000][I][B]sudo insmod /lib/modules/rkwifi.ko[/B][/I][/COLOR]

exit 0

My minix x7 is really stable, i'm using the recovery kernel on post #7 with Finless 1.07 and linuxium-Xubuntu;
i tried using lubuntu but i suffered some lag.

I left it an entire night on (with apache and other services active)and it's still working without any reboot but i didn't load the wifi module (if it may be the problem).

I'm still working on having a decent monitor support (some 1080p screens remains black, 4:3 screens flashes and the image is cropped)but for now i'm using it on ssh.

I also updated to 13.10 without errors (all the tests were done before the upgrade).

Did you check the ext4 partition on the SD?
My ext4 was corrupted so i could allocate only 2.5gb out of 16gb, i don't think it's your case but check it just to be sure.

PS: are you sure linux reboots? it may be a case of black screen (i get them a LOT); try to access via ssh to be sure of the machine status.

[phil98]

competing with plug computers

hi guys all this is very exciting as Neo X7 running Linux is now competing with ARM based embedded systems or "Plug Computers" like SheevaPlug, Raspberry Pi etc. It seems coming from the consumer market Android PCs are even now getting ahead of plug computers like with dual band WiFi like the Neo X7 has which no plug computer yet has.

I'm only getting into this now, so 1st question, can you just mix and match any kernel with any Linux image? The kernel at the beginning of the thread works with any version of Lubuntu etc.? If not what's the compatibility matrix?

hank

[leolas]

hi guys all this is very exciting as Neo X7 running Linux is now competing with ARM based embedded systems or "Plug Computers" like SheevaPlug, Raspberry Pi etc. It seems coming from the consumer market Android PCs are even now getting ahead of plug computers like with dual band WiFi like the Neo X7 has which no plug computer yet has.

I'm only getting into this now, so 1st question, can you just mix and match any kernel with any Linux image? The kernel at the beginning of the thread works with any version of Lubuntu etc.? If not what's the compatibility matrix?

hank

You can use any of the linuxium versions of ubuntu(http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...K802IV-or-T428) Or picuntu with kernels compiled using 3.0.36+ sources. In some case yopu need to insert the compiled modules too to add functionality to other functions.

[phil98]

You can use any of the linuxium versions of ubuntu(http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...K802IV-or-T428) Or picuntu with kernels compiled using 3.0.36+ sources. In some case yopu need to insert the compiled modules too to add functionality to other functions.

Ok I can now see that there is some kernel-distro dependency. Thanks.

[Plokko]

Updates from my testing:

Linux (linuxium-xubuntu)works really well; it's stable and with good performance but i have two problems i want to address:

1) Monitor problem:
the video output is FIXED to 1080p,if the monitor does not support that or is in another format (4:3 for example) it either not work or you'll see only a part (cropped) of the screen;
even on 1080p hdmi monitors or tv it still have some (sometime major)compatibility issues, i almost always get a flashing screen (now less than before) and some screens even don't work at all.

The problem is the vga support:
without proper drivers Linux canno "talk" to the monitor to understand if or what it's doing wrong.
To fix the problem we need Mali 400 drivers, this should be the most detailed guide, it need some little modification to work for the neo x7 (for example the monitor is on fd0 not fd6)but the main problem is that we need a new kernel to do the job

http://hwswbits.blogspot.it/2013/04/3d-hw-acceleration-on-picuntu-linux.html

2)SD Card UHS-I support:
If you have a performant sd card like me (kingstone 90/45Mbps)you'll find that it will perform like a class 10 SD card (13mbps avg) because the UHS-I feature of the card is not supported (even on android,at least finless 1.7).
I checked and the minix hardware should support it "SD/MMC card reader (SD 3.0, MMC V4.41)";
a kernel update >=3.3 should fix this problems but we may need additional drivers and/or tuning.

The system still work pretty fine even if it's limited so for now it can be flagged as a minor issue.
We should be focusing on Mali vga support because i'm working mostly on SSH to avoid monitor problems (chenac i need your help on this).

[chenac]

Updates from my testing:
The system still work pretty fine even if it's limited so for now it can be flagged as a minor issue.
We should be focusing on Mali vga support because i'm working mostly on SSH to avoid monitor problems (chenac i need your help on this).

Plokko:

It is great to see your updates.

For the monitor problems, It is beyond my capability to include Mali support in the Linux kernel. I only use Minix Neo X7 for 1080p monitor, so I enable the 1080p option in the kernel config. If anyone like, it is quite easy to compile a kernel for 720p only.

[horst-h]

I installed Linux on Nand following the instructions from this thread . My X7 is connected via HDMI->DVI adapter to a monitor with speakers. Any idea how to get the analog audio out working? Or at least bluetooth for BT-Speaker?

PulseAudio Volume Control just shows "Rcokchip HDMI analog stereo" as output device.

[grzmrc]

My minix x7 is quite unstable with this distro. I'm not able to upgrade to 13.10 unless doing that under ssh. It seems that the ssh is the only way to use linux in a confortable manner without occasionally reboots.
I really hope you can develop a stable mali400 driver.
Thanks for your work