Could someone from Broadcom post here on GPU support ?

[wkulesza]

Hey,
it's been almost 3 months from the date of the post that Broadcom has an internal version of Android running with hardware accelleration for GPU.
Since then, there has only be roumors, speculations and no official news. I understand its also licensing issues and most probably it wont be open source.
But, for the sake of many, many (including one of ours) projects, that are on hold simply because of this problem, could anyone from Broadcom or associated, let us everybody know IF this will be released or not? Keeping everybody uncertain does not help the Raspberry Pi community to grow.

Thanks
Wojciech Kulesza

[jamesh]

I'm investigating. As far as I know things are still ongoing.

Meanwhile, if you have put of purchasing a Pi because of lack of Android support...why? It's fun even without Android!!!!

[wkulesza]

jamesh: i haven't! it is fun, im using it everyday with raspbmc on for my home entertainment. better than television!
i have a small company and android on raspberry would allow me to introduce a digital signage system tailored at public transport buses. I already have a 22 inch screens in vandal-proof metal cases, equipped with 24V voltage, power converters, usb hubs, GPS on usb and a place to put my rasbperry with android on SD card, so that's why im eager to know if I wait a bit longer, or put something else in (but i guess raspberry would work better with GPS on usb and 3g modem than a 'standard' Android stick

[kolk]

May be you can just sell Android accelerated drivers same way as MPEG 2 codec? I think $15 would be OK.

[ghans]

@wkulesza
Perhaps you can use Qt for that ? AFAIK there are devs only working on the
QtonPi project.

@kolk
Nice idea ! But i think even for 10 $ Broadcom would fare well.


ghans

[jamesh]

It's not a question of giving anyone any money I don't think - it's a question of actually getting it all to work! It's not finished yet, which is why the drivers are not released yet. I know this, because I am working on Android camera stuff right now!

[aaa801]

It's not a question of giving anyone any money I don't think - it's a question of actually getting it all to work! It's not finished yet, which is why the drivers are not released yet. I know this, because I am working on Android camera stuff right now!

Eben said it was stuck in legal, i assume he was referring to getting the gpu code re-licensed,
soo we may see something soon

[cgonzalez]

GPU Driver is released... so Android is around the corner.

[precious_pony]

Key Lime Pi, here we come.

[Gary Littlemore]

GPU Driver is released... so Android is around the corner.

Clicks 'Like' button!

[aaa801]

GPU Driver is released... so Android is around the corner.

Clicks 'Like' button!

Its missing gralloc

[verasen]

"It's not finished yet, which is why the drivers are not released yet. I know this, because I am working on Android camera stuff right now"

Does this mean the camera module being developed will work on Android?

[SimplyRyan]

I have pretty much given up on using my RPi. Not to be a downer, but it's simply not that useful to me without a single hardware accelerated OS available. There's no hardware acceleration in X11 on Linux and I'm fairly confident that internal build of Android 4.0 they had posted video of MONTHS ago will never see the light of day. Why else haven't they mentioned a single word about it since?
Maybe it's licensing issues. Maybe the hardware support wasn't anywhere near as far along as they had claimed. Maybe it's both, or something else entirely. Periodically I check back here to see if they've finally posted the Android image, or at the very least a hardware accelerated Debian image, but I always leave disappointed.
My Nintendo Wii now fulfills the job that I had hoped to task my RPi with, and provide a cheap way of getting videos, photos and music from my living room HTPC to the TV in the other room.
I do understand that the RPi was intended as an inexpensive computer for children to learn how to program on, but I tried letting my kids use it and the only thing they ever managed to do was crash it. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Besides, I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of Pi owners exclusively want to use it as a cheap media streaming device.
My RPi is sadly sitting wrapped back up in an ESD bag in a desk drawer, woefully waiting for the day that a decent OS will be released for it with proper hardware support, something that I have a feeling may never actually happen.

[ghans]

Are you running the latest software ?
Anyway , why don't you sell it ? Or lend it to somebody who can give the Pi a purpose ?
There might be board revisions on the future anyway.


ghans

[Paul Webster]

My Nintendo Wii now fulfills the job that I had hoped to task my RPi with, and provide a cheap way of getting videos, photos and music from my living room HTPC to the TV in the other room.

Did you try any of the XBMC distributions to fulfill that role?