Let's talk about the porting of the driver for the GPU Vivante from Linux to FreeBSD.

ZioMario

ZioMario

Hello to everyone.

I would like to evaluate the chance to port the Linux driver for the GPU Vivante GC880/2000 on the Toradex Colibri iMX6,just for learning purpose. I'm trying to get this dts file : imx6dl-colibri-eval-v3.dts

from here :

https://reviews.freebsd.org/rG4a8223f297bb7dff7a684da702777d7e94d054fe#change-Gu77aFErqiZg

but it always says "429 Too Many Requests"

Can someone help me to find that file ?

These ones are also important :

Code: 
mx6qdl-colibri.dtsi                 # Common Base Q/DL/S
imx6dl-colibri-eval-v3.dts   # DualLite variant

I'm also interested to know from you,experienced FreeBSD users,if you find exciting the idea of creating a small mobile device like a phone / phablet using the Toradex Colibri iMX6 board + a Carrier board that adds one HDMI and USB ports to it. A 32 bit arm board is a nice choice today ?

Very thanks to everyone.
 
 
ZioMario said:
A 32 bit arm board is a nice choice today ?
Click to expand...
Yes but realize that soon ARM32 dies. I think FreeBSD16.

The IMX6 flaw for me is no PCIe bus driver on FreeBSD. So no Wifi card works in my MiniPCIe slot. MSATA slot does work.

I use the Hummingboard1 Pro with OpenWRT. It is one of the lowest power budget setups I have.
It is a Pi v1 clone except for a few features.

www.solid-run.com

HummingBoard i.MX6 SBC : NXP ARM Cortex-A9 : SolidRun

HummingBoard i.MX6 SBC with quad/dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Raspberry Pi-compatible SBC for industrial IoT and embedded projects.
www.solid-run.com www.solid-run.com

SolidRun uses a SOM for the CPU+Memory+eMMC+Wifi and they are interchangeable with the different IMX6 Hummingboard above.
I have different SOM from Dual Core to Quad and some with wifi and some without.
I like the carrier board arrangement.

Our "Go-To" guy for IMX died several years ago so that was a bummer.
RIP Ian Lapore

Anything other than messing around you would use IMX8
 
I don't want to dash your hopes but where is the information of this GPU working on FreeBSD? Is there a driver?

The commit you are referencing is simply a Linux Device Tree import to our /contrib source tree.
This happens when Linux upgrades their tree.

Import device-tree files from Linux 6.3​

Click to expand...

This does not mean that everything in that tree works. It is simply a bulk upgrade.

I see you are wanting to port this Linux driver. That sounds like considerable work.

You should not become fixated on this version of the imported Linux Device Tree and use the newest import in base....
Unless you got patches that need a specific version.
 
I might be biased here as I actually worked with Toradex Verdin modules but... have you considered going Verdin instead?
They are "the successor" of their Apalis/Colibri family.
 
Phishfry said:
I don't want to dash your hopes but where is the information of this GPU working on FreeBSD? Is there a driver?

The commit you are referencing is simply a Linux Device Tree import to our /contrib source tree.
This happens when Linux upgrades their tree.


This does not mean that everything in that tree works. It is simply a bulk upgrade.

I see you are wanting to port this Linux driver. That sounds like considerable work.

You should not become fixated on this version of the imported Linux Device Tree and use the newest import in base....
Unless you got patches that need a specific version.
Click to expand...

I think there isn't any driver for FreeBSD yet. But this is what I plan to do. Since at the moment I'm trying to port the panfrost driver from Linux to FreeBSD 15.0 as a separate module /s/, I suspect that the same process can be repeated for the Vivante GPU.
 
I see a few drivers out there that may be useful for porting:
xf86-video-imxfb-vivante is for IMX6

IMX8 is a much better choice. But do they sell a single core version like the ULL.

I have a carrier board for Hummingboard Pro IMX8. No SOM yet.
www.solid-run.com

HummingBoard i.MX8 SBCs: Versatile Embedded SBC Platform

Industrial-grade performance with the HummingBoard i.MX8 SBCs by SolidRun. Compatible with multiple SOMs for flexible, embedded applications.
www.solid-run.com www.solid-run.com
 
Phishfry said:
Same problem shifted to 64bit platform. No FreeBSD Xorg driver.
Click to expand...

Explain better this problematic.

What is Rockchip DRM driver status? Isn't that what you really want?
Click to expand...

yes I want it. I'm working on that. At the same time I think to the future. Actually I have two different kernels working. On the kernel A the DRM stack + HDMI works well,but not panfrost. On kernel B works ok only the panfrost driver. I should understand how make works everything in one only kernel config.
 
ZioMario said:
On the kernel A the DRM stack + HDMI works well,but not panfrost.
Click to expand...
So panfrost is providing the hardware acceleration for DRM driver but not working in kernel A?
Is that right?
Is there a Xorg driver involved here? Is the DRM driver just for console and Panfrost for Xorg?
I am out of the loop here.
 
anything but rockchip or allwinner is expensive.
Radxa Cubie A7A,The New Standard for Edge Al,High-Speed LPDDR5,Single Board Computer is $90
with 12GB ddr5 and 6 cores. it has an imagination gpu though
there is also a7z rpi-z/radxa 3w form factor but it seems out of stock for > 1GB
also the sock has rpi5 class performance
smarthomecircle.com

Radxa Cubie A7A Review: Pi-Sized Power With PCIe, NVMe, USB 3.1 Gen2, Thermals & Real-World Benchmarks

I benchmarked the Radxa Cubie A7A (Allwinner A733): thermals, Geekbench, LPDDR5, PCIe NVMe, USB 3.1 Gen2, Whisper/HA, and Pi 5 vs Pi 4 comparisons.
smarthomecircle.com smarthomecircle.com
 
covacat said:
anything but rockchip or allwinner is expensive.
Radxa Cubie A7A,The New Standard for Edge Al,High-Speed LPDDR5,Single Board Computer is $90
with 12GB ddr5 and 6 cores. it has an imagination gpu though
there is also a7z rpi-z/radxa 3w form factor but it seems out of stock for > 1GB
also the sock has rpi5 class performance
smarthomecircle.com

Radxa Cubie A7A Review: Pi-Sized Power With PCIe, NVMe, USB 3.1 Gen2, Thermals & Real-World Benchmarks

I benchmarked the Radxa Cubie A7A (Allwinner A733): thermals, Geekbench, LPDDR5, PCIe NVMe, USB 3.1 Gen2, Whisper/HA, and Pi 5 vs Pi 4 comparisons.
smarthomecircle.com smarthomecircle.com
Click to expand...

I like the slim / flat boards. My interest is only for them.
 
covacat said:
https://radxa.com/products/cubie/a7z/ same hw as a7a
Click to expand...

Previously I'd chosen the Toradex Colibri iMX6 (and later iMX8) for some specific reasons :

a) FreeBSD already supports the Wandboard with the arm32 bit (not sure for the version arm64 bit),that has the same GPU as the Colibri. How well is the Allwinner /cubie a7z/ board supported by FreeBSD ?

b) For the colibri I had found the necessary DTB files. What about the AllWinner Cubie /a7z/ ones ?

c) Vivante GPU is not more difficult to port than the Mali GPU with the panfrost / driver : the cubie has the immagination GPU. How is easy to port the Imagination Linux driver to FreeBSD ?

d) there was the GumStix Geppetto service partnered with Colibri to reduce costs a lot,but now is closed.
 
well radxa and orange pi maker supply working linux images so they have dtbs somewhere if you try hard enough.
i have no idea how hard is to port the Imagination drivers.
but few people if any will pay $179 for an a53 board thats for sure.
 
Your board is a better choice :

Istantanea_2026-01-26_01-11-53.jpg



Istantanea_2026-01-26_01-13-56.jpg
 
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