VIM3 with Ubuntu bionic + Touch screen TS050

VIM3
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Can I assume that VIM3/VIM3L will never support the TS050 on mainline ? Amlogic doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to upgrade from the ancient 4.9 kernel (which doesn’t support .NET Core 3.X on ARM64 Linux - only from 4.14 onwards) and the mainline work on the Amlogic support doesn’t even plan MIPI-DSI support (probably to do with licensing issues imposed by the MIPI consortium). So, unless Amlogic gives us an updated kernel, we’re stuck. Correct ?

Bottom line for us : with the Khadas LCD not working on anything > 4.9 and the HDMI output locked to 1920x1080 without any view on how to change that (even after hours reading in forums) which rules out every small HDMI LCD display, we can throw the VIM3L in the bin while it was our first choice to build an embedded device around. .NET Core 3 support is indispensible though for our use case.

I have the impression that all companies bringing new SBCs to the market just quote the hardware specs without even considering if there will ever be decent software support to enable those wonderful specs so they can support the true use case of SBCs : embedded devices. Nobody is counting on these boards to be a full desktop replacement. => HTPC is the only real use case that makes sense… Just my 2 cents…

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I can’t deny this but as it says it is a DIY device for the users to get things working as per their requirements.

If you see any other SBC they’re all using legacy kernel and not using mainline. Mainline is only maintained by the community users.

I was planning on looking into porting lcd from 4.9 to 5.4 but been very busy lately. And also I don’t have a strong knowledge of kernel development. So it will be a very slow process. If you have good knowledge in kernel development then you can help me with it.

Exactly they’re not ready to be desktop replacement as not all components have a working Linux driver, but it is getting there.

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I’d love to help and I do have proper low level C development skills, but what I understood from the mainline development is that, even when looking at the roadmaps of the Amlogic support in mainline up to 5.5, DSI is mentioned as ‘not supported’. As DSI is not standardised and the specs for Amlogic are most likely only available under NDA, it’s virtually impossible for an individual to engage on this alone. I’ve done such projects in my professional carreer and it’s literally manyears of work. So, at best we can hope for 5.6 support, but as 5.4 is just out, I think we’re talking about at best 1-2 years out…
I think I’m going to revert to R-Pi, or maybe to a custum i.MX8 implementation as at least the last one has a strong backing company spending lots of money supporting their chipsets.
Problem with Amlogic, AllWinner and similar low cost SoC providers is that they really target the phone and tablet mass markets, with these SBCs being very low on the priority list to do anything with. Very understandable, but unfortunate for those hoping to build something with a relative low volume on these wonderful devices.

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Hardkernel published SoC datasheets for the N2 and S922X and A311D are pin compatible and share the same BSP sources; which are available and provide an example (prior art) that can be reworked or cribbed from. I’m not personally sure what’s involved with TS050 support but the usual scenario is that Amlogic wrote some kind of monolitic driver that will need to be deconstructed between several kernel subsystems to be done “properly” before being sent upstream. So the only thing stopping a mainline driver is time and curiosity/motivation :slight_smile:

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Upstreaming it will take long time but atleast it will be good if someone who is curious to get it work on Mainline can put in sometime and effort to get it ported to mainline.

Hoping someone will take the initiative to get it ready :smiley:

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Hi @numbqq Is the MIPI DSI support now available for mainline kernels now for VIM3? For kernel 5.7?

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No, only support on 4.9 now.

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Okay thanks @numbqq, can you tell me when can khadas plan to add MIPI support to kernel 5.7, because MIPI CSI camera is also not working in it. Or if its possible just add support to screen rotation in kernel 4.9. Its very frustrating using ubuntu in portrait mode on touchscreen. Just a light suggest to satisfy all.

Thanks

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Did you find a way to rotate it and use in landscape mode?

I’ve read in other Linux forums that you can do it with xrandr, but don’t have a MIPI screen yet to test it. You could give it a try

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You can rotate it in server (the framebuffer console), but it is locked to portrait in 4.9
I have gone back and forth to rotate the screen, but with no luck…

however here is my experience to say, why xrandr, or arandr, won’t work in 4.9…
The mipi display is Identified as a “generic display”, to be exact (screen1), meaning system has no control over it, other than it is a video output, it is literally invisible to those two functions…

an example xrandar command would be like this…
xrandr --output eDP1 --rotate left
here you can Identify that, eDP1 is the Display output interface…

now supposed you wanted to do the same with mipi screen…
xrandr --output LVDS --rotate left

This only results in errors because, as per the system, there is no screen on the mipi port,

if you tried, xrandr --output screen1 --rotate left
also becomes an error, as that is not a valid output…

In general, using a normal DE with portrait is kinda bad, especially in a small screen like the TS050, is just not optimized, the buttons are too small to click, and it becomes cramped and unless you had something like a mobile UI, for example, Plasma mobile DE or something…

you’ll be living sideways for now…

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@Electr1 you are the man (or woman :smile:), thanks for the info

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very much like a housewife
:wink:

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Is it perhaps now possible to have both Touch Screen TS050 and HDMI connected display working at the same time?

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So, did anyone get this working and rotatable to landscape after another 1.5 years? Or is pretty much dead in the water?

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Check here:

Please use the latest Ubuntu 20.04 image.

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