Indeed. This machine is truly unique in the sense that it can be run with no binary blobs. To achieve this one had to disable GPU and WiFi (and use e.g. an Atheros adapter).
Now GPU acceleration will be achievable via open source.
Does the new DRM driver currently work with Wayland compositors? I know Alyssa has demonstrated Weston on Panfrost, but that might've been with ARM's kernel driver or something
Re:Open source Mali GPU drivers merged
by Gregordinary on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @09:37AM
(#19909308)
Yup, it supports Weston. Possibly more as it does say it supports some Wayland compositors, but only mentions Weston in the example:
https://panfrost.freedesktop.org/building-panfrost-mesa.html
Re:Open source Mali GPU drivers merged
by TheCycoONE on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @05:25PM
(#19914040)
It's broken at present, due to exposing BUFFER_AGE which isn't properly implemented. Should be fixed in mesa 19.2.
Re:Open source Mali GPU drivers merged
by Gregordinary on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @06:17PM
(#19914369)
Oh, good to know. Thanks for sharing that info!
Basically this DRM driver plus the companion Panfrost Gallium3D driver merged into mesa 19.1 will enable blob-free 3D graphics on the C201 and other devices that use this chipset.
Right now the DRM kernel driver does not support X11, so it'll be a few more releases before I can really take advantage of it. I have successfully installed it along with and run the kmscube demo outside of X. Pretty exciting development.
With Panfrost, every component of the C201 except the BCM4354 WiFi chip becomes libre. Cypress bought out a division of Broadcom and started releasing datasheets on a bunch of WiFi chips including the BCM4354, which they now tag as CYW4354. (PDF: https://www.cypress.com/file/298141/download)
Not sure if that makes it easier or any more realistic to get blob-free firmware for this chip. I can only hope.