FBTurbo X-server for Debian

Banana Pi BPI-R4/BPI-R3 Mini/BPI-R3/BPI-R64/BPI-R2
1

Can someone please point me in the right direction to have X11 working?

What I did:

  • Started with Frank-W’s Debian image
  • Compiled Framebuffer (as good as I know) into Kernel
  • Compiled Mali-module
  • Compiled libdri2, libump, sunxi-mali, and xf86-video-fbturbo

On reboot /var/log/Xorg.0.log shows up like this:

[    19.051] (II) LoadModule: "fbturbo"
[    19.051] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbturbo_drv.so
[    19.052] (II) Module fbturbo: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    19.052]    compiled for 1.19.2, module version = 0.4.0
[    19.052]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[    19.052]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 23.0
[    19.052] (II) FBTURBO: driver for framebuffer: fbturbo
[    19.053] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbturbo
[    19.053] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
[    19.053] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
[    19.053] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
[    19.053] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    19.053]    compiled for 1.19.2, module version = 0.0.2
[    19.054]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 23.0
[    19.054] (EE) open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
[    19.054] (EE) No devices detected.

It seems I simply forgot something. Can someone help?

Regards

Thomas

2

simply the graphic-driver for this soc is missing if you try to run the x-server on the real hardware (not virtual like vncserver or similar).

thats the main-problem i got hdmi not working in 4.14. We are till the point that the Multimedia-framework of mediatek (iommu, larb,…) seems to work,but we don’t get any output yet

3

I thought the mali-driver accompanied by fbturbo would do it. Obviously this is not the case. You mean there are sources missing in the kernel tree? Sorry, I’m still not diving deep enough.

Do you have more hints perhaps where I might look?

There must be a driver in the Ubuntu Image. (Even if it has poor performance) Where did that come from?

4

I also have not enough knowledge :wink:

The graphic-part in kernel 4.4 was included with first commit (no separate commit with diff) so its hard to find the changes. Maybe you can compare kernel 4.4.70 from kernel.org with that from the github and search for the driver files

5

Still I believe there’s not missing much. What we need is to have /dev/fb0 …

6

This is the last part in long chain

7

I see. So we’re stuck without some help from China? So sad! I have the suspicion that we need the graphics driver before we can talk about HDMI :frowning:

8

i did the diff i said above: maybe it helps you find the right piece of code:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11OH_m5U8UXmzU5Mmkzs30lw_KlltD1Q2

and with full file-content of missing files:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1U8q_JzoHNpZYyb7wDWGGG75DUMjxvyle

if you only need a remote accessable x-server you can try tightvncserver which imho does not depend on the real graphics-hardware.

apt-get install tightvncserver xfonts-base

some depencies are missing (some parts of xsession, window-manager like openbox), but the virtual xserver is there :wink:

apt-get install openbox lxterminal wmctrl

vncserver

you can handle it like a real x-server:

export DISPLAY=:1
lxterminal &
wmctrl -c lxterminal
9

I’m going to take a closer look at your files. Remotely I already have graphical Access using xrdp.

Look! :slight_smile:

grafik

10

Ok, i thought that was your goal…but you have reached yet…

You will get a local x-server with hdmi-out, right? So you have same Problem as me :slight_smile:

11

Exactly that’s what Im aiming at. What I really want is a piece of hardware which everyone can use with a more or less standard Debian. And all the nice hardware features should be easily usable without need to compile anything.

Under normal circumstances this should be the task of the manufacturer, shouldn’t it? :smiley:

12

there are 2 groups of people here which can give support, one is the manufacturer of bpi-r2-board (Sinovoip) and one is the vendor of the SOC (mediatek). Sinovoip is mainly dependent on the vendor. the vendor will submit patches for hdmi inside 4.14 kernel…that take some time because 4.15 is not final released yet

13

So let’s wait a while. In the meanwhile I might get another project done: Surveillance of my heating using a BPI-M1, a bit of circuit and an I2C 20x4 Display. All called “Heiznane” :slight_smile: