The driver Nokia have is binary only (and can't [are there possible ways around this...?] be released because it's a single binary, rather than a GPL-compatible wrapper + binary component), ImgTech don't release source.
I got the impression that Nokia was trying to get the source for (a small select group of) us, at the cost of the community devs signing an NDA, but they were failing.
Originally Posted by
...the organization that helps external developers getting contracts signed is Forum Nokia. Kate Alhola is the Maemo contact there and in fact she is interested and working in finding a way to get this puzzle sorted out in some way.
...
If there is some volunteer from community that is willing to fix the driver, I [kate] can try to help get NDA or other reasonable terms for it...
...but there's been nothing since July, and it looks like it ain't gonna happen.
EDIT: Maybe the problem is that nobody's contacted Kate and said, "I am willing to sign that NDA, will you help it happen?"
I was thinking about that qole, I just don't believe I'm qualified enough (being honest) to port the source to 2.6, however I would love to give it a shot.... it's be a great learning experience.
I'm just afraid of what would happen if I signed the NDA.... got to work... and realized that the code was in such shambles that I was completely lost and would have no idea how to get it to work. So I'd be wasting people time.... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid to sign the NDA (if I got that far) and not being able to come through in the end.
I have C experience, but never done device drivers...
If we were a team though, that might be a different thing...
I'm just afraid of what would happen if I signed the NDA.... got to work... and realized that the code was in such shambles that I was completely lost and would have no idea how to get it to work. So I'd be wasting people time.... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid to sign the NDA (if I got that far) and not being able to come through in the end.
Well, that, and signing an NDA with a graphics company is pretty much literally selling away your soul.
I got the impression that Nokia was trying to get the source for (a small select group of) us, at the cost of the community devs signing an NDA, but they were failing.
It was never going to be the source afaiu, they just wouldn't release it. I thought/hoped it would be a GPL-ified 2.6.x kernel driver binary.
Originally Posted by
I was thinking about that qole, I just don't believe I'm qualified enough (being honest) to port the source to 2.6, however I would love to give it a shot.... it's be a great learning experience.
Well 2.6.x source exists, as Nokia have used the 2.6.x binary driver in their internal development. The confusion with the 2.4.x binary is just that that's the only one we've been able to lay our hands on (so far...).
I'm under the strong impression that Nokia has internal access to the source code, or could get it. However...
The problem: the 2.6.x driver is buggy and unstable. It also uses GPL code in a closed-source context. Someone needs to fix it, develop it, or plain rewrite it to the point where it is usable and doesn't violate the GPL. This means that either Nokia does it internally (not going to happen) or we all stand behind one or more community devs *cough*simon*cough* and ask Nokia to sponsor the cost of getting the community team access to the driver. It would probably mean the team would have to sign NDAs, but the ultimate goal would be to have a working binary that can be released to the community. Nokia wouldn't have to pay their own developers, just pay whatever fees are required to set up the agreement between the community team and TI/ImgTech.
Can someone clarify? Is there any source available at all? Or is everyone talking about a binary that nobody outside of TI has source for, not even Nokia?
The web site is currently down but that is the correct site.
Frank
I think if Nokia actually cares about the 3D in the N8x0, then they certainly could help us. But, once again Nokia must take the initiative, which they seem unwilling to do right now (or ever). Im sure if there are no drivers by the N900 launch, there will never be drivers, aside from a blackbox community one.
qole, any chance you could put a little something together instruction wise for installing that library? (or even push the library into extras-devel), you have a lot more experience with deb than I.
I put this together awhile ago for people looking to compile BruceL's interface code which also uses the Mesa engine. I can't guarantee 100% that it will work on a clean tablet, but it should get you going
Here's the steps I took, hopefully they'll save you a couple hours:
1) install the SDK repository
Add a new catalog with the following information:
2) install gcc from said repository
You should be able to do this with
Code:
apt-get install build-essential
I accidentally did it the hard manual way, tracking down every individual dependency
3) install libsdl1.2, libsdl1.2-dev from this repository
Code:
apt-get install libsdl1.2 libsdl1.2-dev
(NOTE: you might have to reinstall libsdl1.2-dev and libsdl1.2 from the repository in step four to make this work, I can't remember)
However, libsdl1.2-dev complained about xlibs-dev. You can get the binary here
download and dpgk -i it... it complains about a bunch of dependencies but
install libgl1-mesa-swx11, libglu1-mesa, libgl1-mesa-swx11-dev, and libglu1-mesa-dev.
5) After this I tried to compile it, but gcc complained about not being able to find SDL_net.h. Strangely enough, all the previous iterations of maemo contain libsdl-net1.2 but not maemo 4. Anyway, I grabbed them from the maemo3.2 repo.
libsdl-net1.2 is here
and libsdl-net1.2-dev is here
download them, then install libsdl-net1.2 first, then libsdl-net1.2-dev
Again, if it doesn't work (complains about GLX missing or something like that) go download libsdl1.2 and libsdl1.2-dev from http://muksuluuri.ath.cx/maemo/dists/bora/main and install them manually using dpkg -i
Hope this helps you guys, feel free to PM me if there's something wrong with my instructions. I've worked through these steps twice now and I've got gears running at about 18 fps on my tablet with performance mode on.
