Monday 23 July 2018

hmm ubuntu issues?

The T4 is frustrating me, its exhibiting issues I had previously with the XU4, where a new version of ubuntu refused to open an X11 window...the test code compiles and runs fine, but I just can't open a window, so the gles init also fails and the test projects won't run.

It does seem to be an Ubuntu issue, as Debian systems work fine, sadly there is no debian for the T4 I need to do a bit of research on this.

Thursday 19 July 2018

Oh at last

Its been a long time since I could get a board, burn linux on it and immediately use it.
The T4 is such a board, it came with android installed, but I wanted Lubuntu, and hoped I could dual boot it from an SD, but that didn't work out, so I reflashed the eMMC with Lubuntu, very very simple

And wow, it works, its all thre, GLMark2-es2 works fine, though it is frame locked so never went above 50fps, not to worry running it offscreen (avoiding the frame lock) throws up a mark of 312, thats 3 times faster than a raspberry :D  And.....and.....OpenGLES3.2 yipeee


There's a small downside though, its froze on a 2nd turn of glmark2, it clearly got very hot even with the heat sink on board.. So it is a little fussy. Usually updates fix that, but I can' t get apt-get update to work
It says the dirs are locked....hmmm dunno how to fix that, so have posted on the forums.



I'm loving this board already... going to do a quick compare with the XU4 and Tinkerboard (after an update) to see how its glmarks compare. I'll set up a test project shortly to see how the standard demo plays. Its got a Mali 860Mp4 in there so its up there with the latest (in terms of SBC's, 5 years behind phones though) and has a nice bit of grunt, if we can control the overheat, it could be a contender.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

New boards arrived

After a bit of confusion, the new boards arrived from the very nice people at FriendlyArm, I do like these guys a lot, they are always so keen to help with my addic.....research :D, will try to get them buil\t up and tested this weekend.

I'm mostly curious about the H5 equipped K1plus and the Rockchip 3399  T4, which is a real beast on paper, we'll have to see if it has graphic drivers.

Also there's an M1+ which is an eMMC upgrade and onboard wifi version of the M1 I was always fond of, not a lot of power but one of the simpler non Raspberry boards to get working.
Curious to see if it offers anything new..I'm guessing no, but will be fine to try.



The T4 boots straight up to android 7 now problem, and has the play store on board so I was able to download a few different tests with no issue, its quite a nice board, though falls waaaay below the performance levels of the current crop of phones its being tested against.
I'm going to install Lubuntu and see how its GLMark2-es2 results compare, as well as my usual test projects
I'll play with the K1 and M1 at the weekend, as I have things to do and I don't want to get distracted.