openwebOS for Allwinner A10 tablet

[72ka]

Originally Posted by g.vos

72ka! Very excited about your work here!
I recently read about the Exynos Kite tablet (Exynos-powered Kite tablet flies Android 4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 for ?309 ), do you think that could be a suitable next subject of your porting aswell?! I know it is not an A10, but it will come dual booting Ubuntu on it out of the box.
Seems like a good spec-ed, nice looking tablet aswell right? Hope you see any potential!

Hi, everything is possible... it always depends on drivers and libraries and their state - open or closed source. I dont know if the kernel drivers for samsung-exysons CPU is available as open source.

[72ka]

I finally found the time and courage to disassemble my tablet. This confirmed the presence of Goodix GT801.... OK, I have to find more time what's wrong with my kernel drivers...

[72ka]

Open the champagne! Tonight I fixed the touchscreen driver!
The fix consists of three things:

1) needs to modify .fex file from Android and change the ctp0 to ctp - because the driver is looking for only ctp without any index - this is very important and should be a common issue on other devices
2) the kernel driver check if the i2c device name is "Goodix-TS", if not, load failed, thus I disabled this check, because my touchscreen name is "Goodix-TS-1GT801". I'll try to make some different check if the name match Goodix and not exactly whole string
3) my device is 1024x600 and this is not supported in actual kernel driver, it is initiated by some binary blob, which I found in other projects for this resolution, included it and works well

So, I'm very happy that my tablet is now full supported using opensource drivers, it is not important only for openWebOS, more, it could be used on future unofficial other systems like Ubuntu, Firefox OS, etc...

I'll try to submit the patch to the kernel branch after some tests.

Sent from ICOO D70GT tablet

[g.vos]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Open the champagne! Tonight I fixed the touchscreen driver!
The fix consists of three things:

1) needs to modify .fex file from Android and change the ctp0 to ctp - because the driver is looking for only ctp without any index - this is very important and should be a common issue on other devices
2) the kernel driver check if the i2c device name is "Goodix-TS", if not, load failed, thus I disabled this check, because my touchscreen name is "Goodix-TS-1GT801". I'll try to make some different check if the name match Goodix and not exactly whole string
3) my device is 1024x600 and this is not supported in actual kernel driver, it is initiated by some binary blob, which I found in other projects for this resolution, included it and works well

So, I'm very happy that my tablet is now full supported using opensource drivers, it is not important only for openWebOS, more, it could be used on future unofficial other systems like Ubuntu, Firefox OS, etc...

I'll try to submit the patch to the kernel branch after some tests.

Sent from ICOO D70GT tablet

Gr8!! This sounds like a very great deal for the webOS loving world! (i say "sounds like" as i am not smart enough to fully understand all the things you said, im not that technical im affraid)
So this will be helpful for future ports aswell?! Kepe up the good work man, your doing a great job!

[kkalogia]

I absolutely love the fact that you share the knowledge that you have acquired through hard work. Others, myself included, would not be so forthcoming. Congratulations and i'll be waiting for a video presentation and hopefully Derek will pick up on this and do an article about your work. Great stuf.

[72ka]

Originally Posted by kkalogia

I absolutely love the fact that you share the knowledge that you have acquired through hard work. Others, myself included, would not be so forthcoming. Congratulations and i'll be waiting for a video presentation and hopefully Derek will pick up on this and do an article about your work. Great stuf.

Hi, thank you. I tried to record video yesterday, but my camera goes off because of drained battery...

Other good new is, that meantime the hardware accelerated graphic drivers for Mali400 GPU are available for the A10 kernel with instructions how to get them work. This is essential for smooth running of openwebOS. This is my next task.

[chalx]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Hi, thank you. I tried to record video yesterday, but my camera goes off because of drained battery...

Other good new is, that meantime the hardware accelerated graphic drivers for Mali400 GPU are available for the A10 kernel with instructions how to get them work. This is essential for smooth running of openwebOS. This is my next task.

Save recording for later, when/if you manage to enable acceleration. It would be nice to have one video of open webOS performing decently on some hardware. Also, have you tried to copy some synergy plugins from 3.05 doctor to open webOS? When HP released desktop build of open webOS, I've copied some plugins from 3.05 doctor to open webOS build and was able to enter exchange account setup but I could't test it because I couldnt connect to internet from my build.
good luck with your work.

[72ka]

Originally Posted by chalx

Also, have you tried to copy some synergy plugins from 3.05 doctor to open webOS? When HP released desktop build of open webOS, I've copied some plugins from 3.05 doctor to open webOS build and was able to enter exchange account setup but I could't test it because I couldnt connect to internet from my build.
good luck with your work.

Really? But this could be illegal... the openwebOS contains only the open-sourced component, not? But I can try it. Do you remember the path of the plugin? I have never did nothing around synergy

[72ka]

Anyway, if is here some volunteer with A10 based tablet, please contact me. I want to try the concept of easy settings for other A10 tablet than mine.

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Really? But this could be illegal... the openwebOS contains only the open-sourced component, not? But I can try it. Do you remember the path of the plugin? I have never did nothing around synergy

As long as you don't distribute it with your image it's fine. When you would create a script that downloads a Doctor, extracts the necessary bits and then installs it, that shouldn't be a problem Similar to all the Meta Doctor scripts out there

[jcmarcos]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Other good new is, that meantime the hardware accelerated graphic drivers for Mali400 GPU are available for the A10 kernel with instructions how to get them work. This is essential for smooth running of openwebOS. This is my next task.

This is getting exciting indeed. I understand that Open webOS relies on an existing kernel and, if you manage to get accelerated drivers for it, then webOS can fly! Is it all as "easy" (ahem) as extracting parts from other (android) devices, and there you go? There have been open source drivers for certain GPUs since quite some time, but they aren't very comprehensive - Reverse engineering such complex things takes so long that the hardware gets outdated as you barely progress.

It's a pity most graphics hardware vendors refuse to give source for their drivers. I don't see any real reason for that, it's not that AMD/ATi would be able to sink nVidia by "copying their secrets"...

I understand that Texas Instruments (OMAP, in this case) has been always a fantastic supporting company, giving away everything required to make drivers for their chips... Until ypu get to the GPU part, which is not theirs, and you just have a precompiled "blob" that you can't reengineer.

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Anyway, if is here some volunteer with A10 based tablet, please contact me. I want to try the concept of easy settings for other A10 tablet than mine.

how indepth would it be to test/try/install? i have 2 android allwinner tablets atm, 1 is a Sanei N83 Deluxe which is A10, the other is some form of generic MID A13 tablet.

also does your webOS become the primary OS or can it dualboot like the cyanogen efforts.

[72ka]

Originally Posted by geekpeter

how indepth would it be to test/try/install? i have 2 android allwinner tablets atm, 1 is a Sanei N83 Deluxe which is A10, the other is some form of generic MID A13 tablet.

also does your webOS become the primary OS or can it dualboot like the cyanogen efforts.

Great, the N83 Deluxe is good start point, as I see is supported by cyanogenmod and the script.bin what I need is in the files inside the compatibility pack. Next, I see it has a ft5x touchscreen. This could be enough for me.

At your side, you have to only write the image to the microSD card. The openwebOS then boot only from this card without any touch to your Android system, like liveCD on the desktop computers. Then if you can leave webOS, just power it off and remove the card and start Android.

Goal of this test in only to boot the openwebos, nothing else... just to proof, if I´m able to make system for any A10 tablet without owning them.

So... I have enough informations, do you want to try it?

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Great, the N83 Deluxe is good start point, as I see is supported by cyanogenmod and the script.bin what I need is in the files inside the compatibility pack. Next, I see it has a ft5x touchscreen. This could be enough for me.

At your side, you have to only write the image to the microSD card. The openwebOS then boot only from this card without any touch to your Android system, like liveCD on the desktop computers. Then if you can leave webOS, just power it off and remove the card and start Android.

Goal of this test in only to boot the openwebos, nothing else... just to proof, if I´m able to make system for any A10 tablet without owning them.

So... I have enough informations, do you want to try it?

Jan, great work on this as always!

Any chance you could somehow document what you did on a site or Wiki, so other people can benefit from it, while porting to other devices?

I'm sure some people like myself are willing to do some testing on other devices (Touchpad and other legacy devices maybe), but they're lost on where to start... And why to re-invent the wheel ?

I chatted with PatrickC this morning and he sent you a PM here to the same extend I guess, so it would be great if you could share your steps somewhere with us I'm happy to help write things up, do layout stuff etc where I can

[72ka]

Hi Herrie, it is too fresh, it is still in progress. And as I answered to PatrickC, my port is focused only to Allwinner A10 CPUs.

About the instructions, I´d like to put them on this site Category:A10 Tablets - linux-sunxi where I´m getting a lot of information, I have to contact the site admins.

EDIT: OK, created, the starting point will be always here: http://linux-sunxi.org/Icoo-d70gt

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Hi Herrie, it is too fresh, it is still in progress. And as I answered to PatrickC, my port is focused only to Allwinner A10 CPUs.

About the instructions, I´d like to put them on this site Category:A10 Tablets - linux-sunxi where I´m getting a lot of information, I have to contact the site admins.

EDIT: OK, created, the starting point will be always here: Icoo-d70gt - linux-sunxi

Great work! I just hope this can be a starter for others of us going forward.

There's TONS of Android hardware out there that only runs 2.6.x or 3.0.x kernel currently. It would be great if you could share your steps so we can reproduce this for other hardware for which there's no 3.3.x+ drivers available Touchpad, Veer, Pre3 and others come to mind

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by 72ka

Great, the N83 Deluxe is good start point, as I see is supported by cyanogenmod and the script.bin what I need is in the files inside the compatibility pack. Next, I see it has a ft5x touchscreen. This could be enough for me.

At your side, you have to only write the image to the microSD card. The openwebOS then boot only from this card without any touch to your Android system, like liveCD on the desktop computers. Then if you can leave webOS, just power it off and remove the card and start Android.

Goal of this test in only to boot the openwebos, nothing else... just to proof, if I´m able to make system for any A10 tablet without owning them.

So... I have enough informations, do you want to try it?

yup ill give it a try, ill use a fresh/new sdcard than the 1s i currently have as my current has clockworkmod backups of original and cm10 installs.

[72ka]

I have very very bad news. Yesterday I contacted the Maxim Kouprianov ,who was very deeply interested in openwebOS on A10 with accelerated Mali drivers and his answer is clean and simple - openwebOS needs two framebuffers, which actual mali drivers can´t offer. HP knows about this thing, which is blocking the wide hardware compatibility. More info in this mailing: [OpenwebOS-general] Cards accelerated rendering

So... without accelerated graphic is this port wasting of time. He recommended me to focus to other system, like B2G (Firefox OS). Against all this, I´ll try to test it by myself.
I hope for Mali drivers with two framebuffers support or new openwebOS release without this dependency.

[jcmarcos]

Originally Posted by 72ka

openwebOS needs two framebuffers, which actual mali drivers can´t offer.

Indeed, very very bad news.

without accelerated graphic is this port wasting of time. He recommended me to focus to other system, like B2G (Firefox OS).

Yeah, right, where the money is (after doing the obvious thing of stealing the main webOS concept).

I hope for Mali drivers with two framebuffers support

Highly unlikely, I'd say. Who's responsable for the Mali drivers for Linux?

or new openwebOS release without this dependency.

Software has to be able to give a solution for this driver's lacks, giving some form of secondary framebuffer. I fear the ball is completely on Gram's roof.

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by jcmarcos

Indeed, very very bad news.



Yeah, right, where the money is (after doing the obvious thing of stealing the main webOS concept).



Highly unlikely, I'd say. Who's responsable for the Mali drivers for Linux?



Software has to be able to give a solution for this driver's lacks, giving some form of secondary framebuffer. I fear the ball is completely on Gram's roof.

This is indeed a known problem. Actually it's problem with all "Android" hardware which only uses 1 framebuffer. Touchpad used 2 for a good reason, because it's more advanced

OWO guys are fully aware of this "problem" and are working on a solution. You can also check with the Ports guys, they might have a solution for this already?