RoseapplePi ex LemonPi

zezba9000 · Published in 2015-7-15 09:27:30

Edited by fritz at 2015-11-29 12:43

Hey was hoping this board wouldn't fail as it uses a PowerVR GPU and I love GPU programming and testing.
Figured like minded people here might be interested in helping and wanting the project succeed.

Here is the link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projec ... ux/x/5018249#/story

There marketing sucks monkey balls and i'm just trying to help out as I want one ;p

bronco · Published in 2015-7-15 16:48:26

zezba9000 replied at 2015-7-15 15:56
Aww I didn't notice it was "Flexible campaign". Its the first thing iv'e ever backed on IndieGoGo, ...

Well, the situation with Actions Semi will be the same as with Allwinner now. If there's some help from the manufacturer (providing specs, documentation, source code) and if a community arises then the software situation will improve automagically for all boards sharing the same SoC. This is the reason why Orange Pi and the Mini had excellent software support from the very beginning (since everything already existed due to Cubieboards, the linux-sunxi community and LeMaker -- they ported the GPIO stuff from the Raspberry Pi) and this is the very same reason why the software situation with the H3 based boards sucks.
LeMaker tries to sell 1 SoM and 1 SBC based on Actions Semi's SoCs: http://www.lemaker.org

And they claim everything has changed regarding Actions Semi and their relationship to the open source community:

http://www.lemaker.org/forum.php ... 81505&fromuid=33332
http://www.lemaker.org/forum.php ... 81524&fromuid=33332

If this is true, if the Lemon Pi gets sold and isn't just a piece of buggy silicone you can be assured that it will work sometimes in the future. Running Android since you're interested in GPU stuff (Imagination/PowerVR wasn't interested in the Linux community at all in the past and at the moment all you can expect is some HW acceleration in VLC for PowerVR GPUs running in Linux).

fritz · Published in 2015-7-15 13:46:33

I could be wrong, but I think you waisted your money.
Another Fruit board, same cinese marketing scheme.
Many promises and not a single line of code!
probably 0 support and 0 documentation.
Good luck!

bronco · Published in 2015-7-15 14:25:46

Edited by bronco at 2015-7-15 14:35

This board tries to use an Actions Semi SoC. You can have a look here what sunxi developers (linux-sunxi community is around Allwinner's SoCs) think about: https://groups.google.com/forum/ ... diWSp4/Ds5snG8ZHTkJ

Most important quotes:

There's no mention of Actions Techology SoCs in the latest mainline
kernel tree and neither in relevant mailing lists. Besides I can't even
find a proper datasheet or programmers manual for S500 SoC. And good
luck with PowerVR.

And

ActSemi seems to have no community at all

And most importantly (regarding the money spent by supporters of the 'next Pi around the corner'):

The campaign on Indiegogo is a "Flexible campaign", which means that even if you do not manage to reach the funding target, you get to keep the money.
The standard Indiegogo campaign type ("Fixed") is to return the money if you do not manage to reach the funding target.

Good luck, situation with Actions Semi is like with Allwinner 3 years ago. Might change according to LeMaker (go to their site and realize that they're about to release 2 SBCs in the next weeks based an S500 and S900 -- they claim they now get better support from Actions Semi than from Allwinner) but only time will tell.

zezba9000 · Published in 2015-7-15 15:56:57

Aww I didn't notice it was "Flexible campaign". Its the first thing iv'e ever backed on IndieGoGo, thats total BS.
Probably did get ripped one there.

zezba9000 · Published in 2015-7-16 01:41:27

Edited by zezba9000 at 2015-7-16 01:48

Imagination/PowerVR wasn't interested in the Linux community at all

Actually I also have a MIPS PowerVR Creator C120 board from Imagination and there stuff works out of the box on Debian Linux WITH EXAMPLES, GPU drivers installed and ready.  Better then any other board I have for GNU Linux GPU stuff other then the RaspberryPi.

OrangePi and BananaPi don't come with drivers installed in GNU Linux?  What gives?  Am I missing something?
Android does seem to be best for GPU dev on the Orange and Banana but if both are supported out of the box and i'm missing something I like to support both OS types.

I think the LemonPi campaign is just for taking orders for the most part.  The're only $100 off there goal so I think/hope I still get the board I paid for. "Fingers crossed"

DigitalToys · Published in 2015-7-17 18:07:49

They reached their goal in the meantime... so I am also hoping to receive mine... early bird samples were to be sent in June, I am curious how long it will still take them.

zezba9000 · Published in 2015-7-19 03:11:04

Edited by zezba9000 at 2015-7-19 03:12

DigitalToys replied at 2015-7-17 18:07
They reached their goal in the meantime... so I am also hoping to receive mine... early bird samples ...

Ya really want to test this one out with Android 5. Hope they update to Android 5.1+. Also looks like there Android dist uses the standard launcher. Can't stand the one in OrangePi. Way more practical and feature rich but I think OrangePi is changing the default launcher later?

Also LemonPi were talking about a 64bit ARM chip for the next version which is interesting.

Anyway cool cool, love them all ;p

fritz · Published in 2015-7-19 03:33:18

well, by keep us informed.
You never know maybe it's the right ......
But closed nand driver and closed mediacodecs sounds not good.

zezba9000 · Published in 2015-7-19 03:59:57

Ya Open Source is the way to go ;)
I'm into these things for the hardware even if there not as open as the OrangePi because GLES2 can be a "bitch" if you don't test on lots of hardware.
To bad we didn't have more Open Source chips. Its just so expensive to make chips and the world is still based on what soon will be outdated monetary systems.

Elon Musk understands how to make open source hardware in the current times. Such as Tesla Electric factories will be open source.