Hi,

I have a Efika MX smarttop and was wondering if it is possible to assign more dedicated memory to the GPU?

Currently this is set to 16MB (as seen in Xorg.log.0), now I know that sometimes this can be forced/changed within uBoot, but is this also the case for the smarttop?

Hello,

You can assign more (or less) memory to the frame buffer and or GPU by editing a source file and recompiling the kernel. According to the blog the latest kernel has the reserved memory fixed.

The latest source can be downloaded from

https://github.com/genesi/linux-legacy

There is a link to download the source as a zip archive.

The kernel source file to edit is

arch/arm/mach-mx5/mx51_efikamx.c

in the function "mx51_efikamx_fixup" edit the line containing
int gpu_mem =

This can be set to SZ_32M for 32MB reserved for the GPU, or SZ_64M for 64MB etc.

The kernel can be compiled by with

sudo apt-get install kernel-package;make-kpkg --revision=10.08.00 --initrd --rootcmd=fakeroot kernel_image

I do not know what all the consequences are. I edit this to lower the reserved memory. And this works for me.

It might not be safe to do this. But, perhaps, this is all there is too it.

as you can read from this commit the right gpu reserved memory amount (i.e. good enough for generic use) has already been optimized:
https://github.com/genesi/linux-legacy/ ... 1dddc42601

therefore just rebuild your own kernel from source.

_________________
acrux _at_ linuxmail _dot_ org

I want to thank you both for the information and is helpful! Will I be able to use these sources to merge them with the latest kernel release available on kernel.org, or is that still a no-go?

It isn't a patch set but a full kernel source tree (2.6.31.x) provided by Genesi.
You only have to download and build it.

_________________
acrux _at_ linuxmail _dot_ org

The latest kernel on kernel.org won't support most of the code in the "legacy" kernel since it is based on a Freescale BSP. A lot of the support required is in the kernel.org kernels, but they have moved to Device Tree. We recently removed the older platform-based Efika MX support while we figure out all the Device Tree issues and missing drivers (it made no sense and made debugging device trees difficult, and was blocking upstream work to move MX51 completely to device tree.. a friendly favor for the Freescale maintainers).

We're working on upstream but it is not a priority project as the Efika MX systems in that incarnation are no longer for sale. Most of the work carries to MX53 and MX6, though, so it is being done.. prioritized for newer products.

There is a kernel tree for 3.7.x that you can get access to (it's public, but we don't like giving out the location since it would cause a lot of support issues potentially) if you are willing to experiment with NO guarantees of support or problems being fixed.. but the display support is a little clunky, and there's no GPU support at all (the driver that needs that reserved memory will NEVER appear upstream, but it should be a drop-in replacement. As before, prioritization of projects means porting that GPU driver upstream even as a hack for a private kernel isn't really going to get done with any speed)

_________________
Matt Sealey

Hi,

Thanks for your answer!

So if I read it correctly, there is a newer kernel that can be built/booted, but does not contain any graphics driver. Is it correct that there will be no output to the display and you basically need the debug connector to at least see what the device is doing?

How would the GPU driver be a drop-in replacement? Meaning, how would that be installed? Or are there any instructions available (not official, may be for testing as well) on how to create / compile that video driver?

I would like to help and/or test on my old Efika, maybe it's of help to you (Genesi) as well?

Hi, is it possible to still receive the location for the development kernel code, so I can try/test/boot it on my Efika MX? Do you need my email address (I suppose you can get that from my user information?). I will not hand out the location here and will only use it for private use.

Thanks!

Hi, you may want to take a look at this: https://github.com/genesi

Hi, thanks for the link, it has alot of repo's, but not the 3.7 testing sources :(. I've bookmarked it anyway, you never know :)!

I have made the linux-testing repository public. linux-mainline was on one of our developer's own GitHub account, I have forked it onto the Genesi account.

https://github.com/genesi/linux-testing -> 3.2 based Linux kernel
https://github.com/genesi/linux-mainline -> 3.7 based Linux kernel

Please note we are no longer developing these kernel and are provided as is, it may compile, it may not. It may have the features you need, it may not.

That's cool! I'll try it soon. Does it have the necessary DTS files in order to create a devicetree kernel for the Efika MX?

Never mind, it seems that it is nearly identical to the Babbage board. I've compiled the kernel with ATAG and DTB support and will try booting it within a couple of days.

Too bad, it did not boot even with the DTB + ATAG options enabled. The kernel compiles just fine without errors, but upon boot the LED flashes 3 times, loads kernel from SD and the LED stays blue thereafter.

This is used on my Efika MX Smarttop, from what I've seen is that alot of work like uBoot etc is based for the smartbook and not the nettop. In this case DTB won't work as my uBoot is still the old Genesi one and mainline uBoot is only available for the smartbook.

I'm wondering what I have to do in order to boot this kernel on my nettop, I don't have the debug dongle, so I cannot look on the console what is actually happening, but my first guess is that the ARCH number is not set or set incorrectly.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Perhaps there is a PowerDeveloper visitor who no longer needs a debug board and would like to share it with you.