D2Plug Video Chipset/Driver

[ljones]

Hello all

I've been looking around at all the various ARM based devices you can get, and I've noticed 3 which look pretty intresting;

* Efika MX Smartbook ( http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/smartbook ) . There is also a desktop version

* Rasberry PI ( http://www.raspberrypi.org/ )

* D2Plug (Did not know of its existance until very recently!).

Only reason why I'm writing here is that I'm just wondering what chipset the d2plug uses for video, and if the drivers for the chipset are open or propietary or not? Unfortunatly the efika mx devices use propietary video drivers and I believe the rasberry pi will also too which makes getting any usable X based linux desktop without using the "blessed" linux distro proivided is very hard or almost impossible (you would have to use the *very* slow fbdev/vesa driver). Is the d2plug in the same boat at all?

Thanks

ljones

[vleek]

GlobalScale Technologies has removed original documents regarding D2Plug (where the System-On-Chip name was PXA510) Now Marvell is calling it Armada 510, and the official p/n is 88AP510. You can download the kernel and file system source files, and find the h/w drivers inside. Of course, the video and other h/w drivers are Marvell's proprietary, but some of them are the same for whole GuruPlug family (like USB drivers) which is mostly based on Kirkwood line of processors. Not sure about video, probably it's unique for 510 system.

[vleek]

I am playing with D2Plug right now, and thinking to try newer kernel (h/w comes with Ubuntu and kernel 2.6.32). I heard it's possible, but I may loose some optimized h/w features. Though the current video performance seems not impressive (visually, hint me for benchmarks), the system version is called 0.4, which means it's still under heavy development, and may be improved later.

[mentor]

the new kernel? do you try to used kernel from GlobalScale

[vleek]

used kernel from GlobalScale? It's the same kernel as in shipped D2Plug product, 2.6.32
I would like to try something higher than 2.6.36, since some features are not available in .32

[mentor]

I read your post again, your conncern is system version 0.4 or benchmark number too low?

if you also have benchmark number too low question,

I think you porting kernel to new one right

I guess your test not need new kernel, so could you test origion one

you will know it is porting issue or not

[vleek]

If you want the best performance - then it's better to stick with Marvell's proposed system (proprietary optimized drivers, system patches and etc).
Even at this moment this system (v0.4 by GlabalScale revision system) does not look well-tuned - I expected faster graphic operations, also I doubt that power management works as expected (I could not wake up the system after it went to power-safe mode, so I had to disable it). Switching to another kernel means work in generic mode, much lower performance and a lot of non-functional subsystems. I just need it in order to try new platform USB drivers, which were introduced only in kernels later than 35 version.
BTW, if you want better performance for your applications - I would recommend to use Marvell's cross-compiler from download page, and not to use built-in gcc - at least 4-5% improvement in integer operations, especially when specifying the processor type pj4.