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Posts: 2,102 | Thanked: 1,309 times | Joined on Sep 2006
#681
I admit that I'm too lazy to check the website and ml, but hopefully you can answer few questions:
-what sort of kernel is it going to run? TI one?
-is there any contribution to the linux-omap ml? I don't recall seeing anybody mentioning pandora in patches
-what omap is it gonna use: 34xx or 35xx?
-does it use the IVA? For what?
-does it use the DSP bridge in the original form?
-what power management techniques does it implement?
-are the operating points known?
It's a good point, there doesn't seem to be much information floating around about the software that the platform will run. I can't even find a way to see the developer's mailing list (assuming such a thing exists). The developers' wiki is a bit sparse - it just has pointers to the Ti docs, etc.
 
Posts: 2,102 | Thanked: 1,309 times | Joined on Sep 2006
#682
If anyone is a member of the gp32x forums, could they ask about the above. It won't let me register for some reason.

Cheers,

Simon
 
Posts: 2,152 | Thanked: 1,490 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Czech Republic
#683
Originally Posted by Karel Jansens View Post
Developer editions of the Pandora have been shipped already since may (100 select developers received a DIY, semi-prototype version, in order to get software development running).
They apparently shipped some but somehow it feels to me they did not ship 100 of them already. From bits and pieces it looks to me like they did ship very few units so far only to core/lowlevel kernel/bootloader people and wait for fixing USB hardware bug (mentioned on beagleboard.org page too) before sending more units to guys interested in userspace stuff (games/emulators).
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Last edited by fanoush; 2008-06-19 at 14:15.
 
Posts: 2,152 | Thanked: 1,490 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Czech Republic
#684
Originally Posted by igor View Post
I admit that I'm too lazy to check the website and ml, but hopefully you can answer few questions:
-what sort of kernel is it going to run? TI one?
-is there any contribution to the linux-omap ml? I don't recall seeing anybody mentioning pandora in patches
-what omap is it gonna use: 34xx or 35xx?
-does it use the IVA? For what?
-does it use the DSP bridge in the original form?
-what power management techniques does it implement?
-are the operating points known?
Good questions. Except for few photos on their blog http://openpandora.org/blog.php and few posts in the forum there is not much information. As for answers - I think it is definitely 35xx, see http://openpandora.ca/ (page owner is MWeston, one of Pandora HW guys). BTW, they stated they will provide binary blobs for accelerated OpenGL. As for IVA/DSP support I dont know. It may be still too early to know some answers. To me it seems they are just happy to have the hardware working and are just starting to care about SW side (even the kernel one :-). Shipping usable devices in July to end-users (like Karel :-) seems quite unlikely to me in current state. I don't know how it was at the beginning of GP2X but I guess the first 3000 batch will sell to hardcore linux developers/gamers who will make the device usable in coming months/years for the rest. For this year I think about it like nice developer board with finished case, keyboard etc as a bonus, not finished product for ordinary user.

EDIT: as for availability - "BTW, little to no delay means production in August and delay means September-October."
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Last edited by fanoush; 2008-06-19 at 21:18.
 

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#685
My impression from reading the forum is that the DSP will be left to people to play with. Not sure how they plan to do sound output, whether it can be routed around the DSP and all done from the ARM kernel, etc. or even if they plan on providing a DSP kernel (and codec driver for the audio hw).

Not insurmountable problems, sounds like it could be quite fun really to do some low-level stuff

Wouldn't be a replacement for my N900 though
 
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#686
Originally Posted by lardman View Post
Not insurmountable problems, sounds like it could be quite fun really to do some low-level stuff
TI is getting some lessons from the community about code integration. Check posts on linux-omap ml archives from wednesday/thursday about DSP bridge integration.
 
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Posts: 198 | Thanked: 273 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ Helsinki, Finland
#687
Originally Posted by fanoush View Post
As for answers - I think it is definitely 35xx, see http://openpandora.ca/ (page owner is MWeston, one of Pandora HW guys). BTW, they stated they will provide binary blobs for accelerated OpenGL. As for IVA/DSP support I dont know. It may be still too early to know some answers. To me it seems they are just happy to have the hardware working and are just starting to care about SW side (even the kernel one :-).
Thank you. I checked the link and indeed it seems like the point of view of a HW guy. Linux is mentioned 2nd last, right before the dimensions. Certain things are a constant of life. =)
Therefore I suspect it's really the SW drop provided by the TI "Full chip entitlement" team. Which, as the name suggests, would support all the hw features (at least those that the Pandora team has agreed with TI). Nobody but TI really knows how many silicon IPs are present in OMAP and it _might_ be that some are burned off depending on the customer the units are shipping to.

About kernel developers working on it, well, good luck with that.
Here's the explanation, to avoid being provocatory, for once.

The code TI releases is periodically sync'd with the linux-omap tree, but what it means is that it is made sure it compiles and that the functionalities provided by TI are still active. There isn't really much alignment in terms of general frameworks - example is the audio driver, which afaik is not aligned to ALSA SoC. To make it short, it's more or less the same problems one would stumble into when in using the kernel we are shipping for the n800 and n810: it is not the official linux-omap and is out of sync with that.

Certainly it will be possible to do development on the kernel provided for Pandora, but it might not be trivial to contribute any significant change to mainline, because of the different codebase.

Userspace development will probably be easier, but i know little about that in general, like, for example, does it use gstreamer, pulseaudio or what?

The opengl drivers - the real beef in the userspace blob requires NDAs lasting up to 20 years, depending on the specific component, so i strongly suspect anybody able to do any meaningful X/driver development for the community will steer away from them as much as possible. But the interface is still OpenGL ES, so apps developers probably will not be limited.
 

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#688
Originally Posted by igor View Post
I admit that I'm too lazy to check the website and ml, but hopefully you can answer few questions:
-what sort of kernel is it going to run? TI one?
-is there any contribution to the linux-omap ml? I don't recall seeing anybody mentioning pandora in patches
-what omap is it gonna use: 34xx or 35xx?
-does it use the IVA? For what?
-does it use the DSP bridge in the original form?
-what power management techniques does it implement?
-are the operating points known?
i thing it goging to use kernel fork from the TI one
for more detale ask DJWillis on irc://#beagle@irc.freenode.net you mind fine some people that work for ti on there as well

it going to use OMAP3530 you could say OMAP35xx series exist
thanks to the pandora
the pandora was orcaily to use other chip till a TI came and ofert them the OMAP3530
ti intents the pandora to be 1 first OMAP3 devise and rely show of the power of the OMAP3 chip

store gose like this 1 emploe of ti came a crose the pandora and did say 1 of it to 1 higher ups and did see the posabildi being of posaple maket so ti did lower there bach limit and it enfold to the OMAP35xx line

for exshambel 1 of devs of the pandora saet that the pandora is like ti pet project

-what power management techniques does it implement?
it dos offers few that i nou of like supen to ram and disk shuting of part of the chip that are not in use

as for IVA = ?

DSP = yes it will use it
and will open for the most part
here is ti toolchain for the c6x
https://www-a.ti.com/downloads/sds_s.../download.html for open source and non-commercial software
 

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#689
The DSP is the IVA in the omap3530 (now it stands for Imaging, Video, Audio rather than Imaging, Video Accelerator). Which makes me wonder more and more what the IVA is on the omap2420 that we have. Igor?

In one of the posts on the pandora wiki (http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=590760), Squidge (who sounded like he was one of the team members) said that the DSP would initially be reserved for the kernel, whatever that means.
 
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Posts: 3,220 | Thanked: 326 times | Joined on Oct 2005 @ "Almost there!" (Monte Christo, Count of)
#690
Originally Posted by argor View Post
i thing it goging to use kernel fork from the TI one
for more detale ask DJWillis on irc://#beagle@irc.freenode.net you mind fine some people that work for ti on there as well

it going to use OMAP3530 you could say OMAP35xx series exist
thanks to the pandora
the pandora was orcaily to use other chip till a TI came and ofert them the OMAP3530
ti intents the pandora to be 1 first OMAP3 devise and rely show of the power of the OMAP3 chip

store gose like this 1 emploe of ti came a crose the pandora and did say 1 of it to 1 higher ups and did see the posabildi being of posaple maket so ti did lower there bach limit and it enfold to the OMAP35xx line

for exshambel 1 of devs of the pandora saet that the pandora is like ti pet project


it dos offers few that i nou of like supen to ram and disk shuting of part of the chip that are not in use

as for IVA = ?

DSP = yes it will use it
and will open for the most part
here is ti toolchain for the c6x
https://www-a.ti.com/downloads/sds_s.../download.html for open source and non-commercial software
Dude! Language...
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