[Aakash-hackers] Bootstrapping for Aakash

Mon Feb 3 16:48:47 UTC 2014

Hi all,

Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk> writes:

> Hi Srikant and others,
>
> On 2014-02-02 05:12 AM, Srikant wrote:
>> On 2014-02-01 at 8:32 PM, Vasudev Kamath wrote:
>>> So I'm just wondering what are the requirements at the momemnt you 
>>> people are looking to get Debian on Aakash running.
>>>
>>> 1. We came to know from Srikant that LIMA drivers need to be ported 
>>>    to A13 alwinner SOC but from one of our Debian collegue (Paul 
>>>    Wise) LIMA already supports Alwinner A13 SOC. So do you want it to 
>>>    be packaged for Debian?
>
>
>> 1. We were unable to install LIMA previously. Yes, it would be good to 
>> have a Debian package.
>
> Here I recommend getting in touch with Olimex developers.  They produce 
> Allwinner-based boards and ship them with Debian preinstalled, and I 
> know they have practical experience with using the LIMA driver.
>
> https://www.olimex.com/ and on irc.freenode.net at #olimex
>
> I don't mean to say that you can expect Olimex developers to do all the
> work needed here, on the contrary I recommend that you show some 
> commitment to a collaboration with those guys in "exchange" for hooking 
> on to their experience they have gained from being early adopters of the 
> LIMA driver.
>
> ...or alternatively simply read the blog posts made by Olimex and try 
> get from those the info you need, i you for some reason can/will not 
> collaborate closely with arguably a competitor.
>
> https://olimex.wordpress.com/tag/video/

We had some discussion on this in #emdebian on irc.oftc.net with some
#emdebian folks and Jonas. So some quite interesting alternatives where
suggested. Here I'm listing them and possibly we can document this on
wiki (I'll do it once I've some time)

1. https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-mali
2. https://github.com/ssvb/xf86-video-fbturbo

Actually 1 was result of me pondering on linux-sunxi github account when
zumbi suggested me about sunxifb which sadly I couldn't find on their
wiki page (may be needs more digging)

2 is also suggested by zumbi but I've not got into the details again.

Srikant Aakash 2 tablet is powered with Mali 400? also the 2nd seems to
be Video driver optimized for Alwinner SoC (A10, A13, A20)

I was also looking at [3] but I'm not sure if that is really a driver?
or library (possible userspace driver). I didn't get much information on
it from #emdebian but I will try again once I check the repository itself.

[3] https://gitorious.org/lima/lima

>
>
>> Also, we need to do following (no particular order, based on recall):
>>   a) Enable camera
>>   b) Suspend to RAM
>>   c) sleep (screen off, not display off with backlight on)
>>   d) Wifi discovery issue (unable to connect same network)
>>   e) Battery monitor(works only in 13.10)
>>   f) Touchscreen driver for gsl1680 and one more (@Sachin, do you 
>>      remember ?)
>>   g) Touchscreen issues, enable long press right click in gt811 and 
>>      ft5x
>>   h) Boot logo in Uboot, it takes around ~3s to get kernel logo
>>   i)  Freeing 128MB reserved memory for MALI 
>>   j) One image for all variants of Aakash (same specs, different
>>      touchscreens, 5 so far)
>
> I suggest to put above list onto http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAakash - 
> and extend wiki page with details as they emerge from further 
> discussions here and at other lists.
>
> It seems most of above (all except 1j) are closely tied to hardware, and 
> therefore to a large extend need physical access to the actual devices 
> to work on.  I understand that a couple devices are being shared with 
> Debian developers in India - that sounds good!
>
> What can be done now about hardware-related issues is collect as much as 
> possible data about the hardware involved.
>
> Then when developers get hands on actual hardware, they can share their 
> findings and their struggle on this list - and others here can try help 
> them (directly or pointing them to other places that might be relevant).
>
> For hardware-related issues with data and bug-triaging already collected 
> (like touchscreen quirks, it seems) try locate a Debian package directly 
> related to that hardware, and file bugreports.
>
> http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
>
> For hardware issues I suggest to discuss them at the Emdebian 
> mailinglist where Debian developers skilled in hacking low-level 
> hardware on small devices tend to hang out.  Collect as much detailed 
> facts as you can about the devices in question, and if sensible consider 
> posting separately on each issue that are likely to be dealt with untied 
> from Aakash specifically (e.g. "long press on touchscreen" may not be 
> specific to Aakash hardware, I suspect) to encourage collaboration from 
> most possible relevant enthusiasts.
>
> Item 1j) seems less bound to specific hardware but instead conceptually 
> the _kind_ of device - a tablet computer.  if I am mistaken on that and 
> it isn't covered in 2) below, then please clarify.

Srikant will it be possible to get complete hardware spec of Aakash
tablets?. And if possible can we make it public on our wiki? It will be
helpful for hardware hackers from #emdebian to help us if we know exact
hardware details as Jonas suggested.

<snip>

>
>>> PS: If you have any source code which you want to share we can enable 
>>> the source repositories for this project and it can be pushed to Git 
>>> repositories provided by Debian. Let me know if you need this and I 
>>> will enable it.
>
> Let me draw your attention to above (by Vasudev).  If you have any code 
> you are permitted to share publicly then please do so.  Even if you feel 
> your code is inferior or outdated, it may help get us all up to speed on 
> your work so far and give insides on paths you have tried already.
>
> E.g. to help more detailed in setting up debootstrap scripts, it is 
> highly valuable to know what you've tried already, and if any of your 
> work has been succesful - especially since I don't own the specific 
> hardware.

Yeah I agree with Jonas on this point.

>
> ...speaking of which: I do own a few OLinuxIno A13 boards, so depending 
> on Aakash detailed hardware specs I might be able to do some level of 
> testing.

That would be nice Jonas!.

>
> On 2014-02-02 08:51:03, Pirate Praveen wrote:
>> I think we should enable task tracking and track each issue 
>> separately. Some issues could be filed as bugs directly against 
>> respective packages.
>
> I recommend *against* using the Alioth bug tracker, if that is implied 
> above.  Yes, file bugs against existing Debian packages, but Alioth 
> tools are clumsy to use, in my opinion - please avoid them.
>
> (I recommended to use Alioth in the first please, so maybe a bit of 
> elaboration is in order here: Alioth as a host for mailinglists and git 
> repositories is great - what I recommend against, is the tools embedded 
> directly into the Alioth web administration interface - an instance of 
> FusionForge.)

Well I should have given a second thought before jumping on trackers but
again I've not used it much as most Debian works gets done with
bugs.debian.org :-)

>
>
> I am really excited about this interest in using Aakash with Debian, and 
> am prepared to devote extensive amounts of time and energy to help make 
> that happen.

Same here :-)

Cheers,
-- 
Vasudev Kamath
http://copyninja.info
Connect on ~friendica: copyninja at samsargika.copyninja.info
IRC nick: copyninja | vasudev {irc.oftc.net | irc.freenode.net}
GPG Key: C517 C25D E408 759D 98A4  C96B 6C8F 74AE 8770 0B7E
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