Re: Support for rockpi-s (rockchip rk3308)

I don't care at all about the world of smartphones. I care about me,what I
like and what my FreeBSD lovers like to have and to do. For sure we want a
mobile phone powered by FreeBSD. So,as I have already explained,maybe not
enough,the project would start as an internal hobby. No one understood
this,maybe. But I'm working on some kind of solution. I'm exploring what
the other users are doing and so on.

Some years ago I bought the blackberry passport because I like the form
factor,with the goal of hacking it one day [image: :)],installing Linux on
it. But years have passed and no one has been able to do that. So,some days
ago I got an idea : what about removing all the internal components of my
blackberry passport and replacing them with new hardware components,freebsd
compatible ? Personally I prefer a physical keyboard,like the blackberry
one. I think the most brutal work is to find a proper hardware with the
driver supported by freebsd,because I don't think we can do something if we
are forced to hire a lot of developers to write the drivers. We should be
smart. What still misses is a GSM / CDMA / HSPA / EVDO / LTE
<https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note_3-5665.php#> module for
placing phone calls,sms and internet with the relative freebsd driver. And
a good GPU integrated in a compatible mobo.

This is my preferite hobby : dirty your hands with u-boot fixes, EGL,
kernel patches. My preferite hobby is not to deal with the business model
or paying the developers. I'm very poor and inexperienced in this area. My
idea is to start this hobby trying to find the most hardware and software
already present on the market and call some developers to make minor fixes.
Not much more than this. For sure I don't want the project to turn into
thousands of dollars right away. Someone will in the future. Not me.

For sure not at the beginning. And not in the near future. If Linux is not
ready yet for mobile,how can it be FreeBSD ? Furthermore on the FreeBSD
forums I found a very hot welcome and experienced people who helped me a
lot for free. So I thought that kind of project might catch on. I must have
done something wrong. They probably help if it doesn't take up too much
time. But they didn't understand that such a project shouldn't take away
their time, because it's so complicated that it has to be carried out
slowly. Too bad they didn't understand this. And then I think they are too
realistic and they stopped dreaming. And maybe they think too much about
money.

On Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 12:18 PM Sulev-Madis Silber <madis555@hot.ee> wrote:

> i wish i could use fbsd phone. but that's like pipe dream. for any moder
> phone that is. some people have tried hacking it on pinephone iirc?
>
> as for rk3308, that's built for smart speakers, hence the 8 channel
> microphone array with hw offloaded processing that noone has driver for (?)
> it has SOME video is see but
>
> i think allwinners are good here. they are basically meant just for that.
> custom phone is hell of a crazy idea
>
> On Monday, June 19, 2023, Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I like what you have got. I'm interested in building a custom
> phone,powered by FreeBSD. Most of the components have been found by you.
> What's missing ? Personally I prefer a physical keyboard,like the
> blackberry one. And I think there is the need to find a proper hardware
> with the driver supported by freebsd. I don't know if it's easier to use a
> physical keyboard or a touch screen with the driver attached freebsd
> compatible. What still misses is a GSM / CDMA / HSPA / EVDO / LTE module
> for place phone calls.sms and internet. What about the GPU ? Does your
> rockchip rk3308 have a good GPU module integrated with the mobo ?
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 8:26 AM Sulev-Madis Silber <madis555@hot.ee>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> nah, it's emmc, sits on sd
> >>
> >> info from https://wiki.radxa.com/RockpiS/hardware/SDNAND
> >>
> >> note that they really like to name all their flash sizes as giga*bits*.
> so largest is 1gb in size. it's slc though. and therefore small and
> expensive. but with some squeezing, fbsd will do fine in that. even dual
> rootfs and config partitions fit in. although it's more freedom in 8g emmc
> sizes
> >>
> >> On Monday, June 19, 2023, titus <titus@edc.ro> wrote:
> >> > afaik rockpi-s have “raw nand" not emmc so it won’t be that easy
> >> >
> >> > On Jun 19, 2023, at 7:18 AM, Sulev-Madis Silber <madis555@hot.ee>
> wrote:
> >> > i'm keeping my eye on this. i've long wanted to have rock pi s
> supported in fbsd. emmc support would be nice too. i'll get few for tests
> i'm sure
> >> >
> >> > deserves own message but i have nanopi neo core1 lts running off just
> emmc here, with ugly fdt/uboot hacks. just saying, as i had to make it work
> on my own, i'll bring the methods out if anyone is curious
> >> >
> >> > On Thursday, June 15, 2023, titus <titus@edc.ro> wrote:
> >> >> Hello,
> >> >> I hacked some crude support for rockpi-s.
> >> >> SD card works
> >> >> USB works
> >> >> UART works
> >> >> Ethernet works (no media autodetect but works).
> >> >>
> >> >> I added support rk3308-cru (clock), rk3308-pinctrl, rk3308-gmac
> mostly by
> >> >> looking at the linux and openbsd code
> >> >>
> >> >>
> https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/adding-support-for-the-rockpi-s.80956/#post-613952
> >> >> dmesg attached
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >>
> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >> How an engineer writes a program: Starts by debugging an empty
> file...
> >> >>  Titus Manea  <titus@edc.ro>       |  Eastern Digital Inc.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >
> > --
> > Mario.
> >



-- 
Mario.