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Date:      Wed, 13 Jun 2018 11:32:08 +0800
From:      Ganbold Tsagaankhuu <ganbold@gmail.com>
To:        Kyle Evans <kevans@freebsd.org>, Emmanuel Vadot <manu@bidouilliste.com>
Cc:        Rogiel Sulzbach <rogiel@rogiel.com>, "freebsd-arm@freebsd.org" <arm@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: De-orbit Allwinner A10/A20/A31 for 12.0
Message-ID:  <CAGtf9xNxFQUumLid9AD5j9pPR8Kj4wRSjjMA6P4_Ztb=Od0ZqA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CACNAnaFXWhEjdpQB8DZzRPHwcPLuYkhbjVLV%2BJWbHOt=yGZhRw@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <20180612223248.f95d9ce3961187576e220614@bidouilliste.com> <1270d2d0-7f10-4454-af30-d5d62ec5bd73@Spark> <CACNAnaFXWhEjdpQB8DZzRPHwcPLuYkhbjVLV%2BJWbHOt=yGZhRw@mail.gmail.com>

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Hi,

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 7:47 AM, Kyle Evans <kevans@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Rogiel Sulzbach <rogiel@rogiel.com>
> wrote:
> > On Jun 12, 2018, 5:33 PM -0300, Emmanuel Vadot <manu@bidouilliste.com>,
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello arm@
> >>
> >> I don't like to send this email but ...
> >>
> >> I want to remove A10/A20/A31 support for FreeBSD 12, here is the
> >> reason why :
> >>
> >> - I don't have time to maintain thoses SoC
> >> - For A10/A20 we currently don't boot on it since it requires new
> >> clocks binding (handled by aw_ccung) and I have no time to do the
> >> switch.
> >> - H3 (which is 32bits too) is way better in term of performance and
> >> price, you can buy a "good" $10 board while getting an A20 will cost
> >> you more for some reason.
> >> - My A31 board (BananapiM1) just died today after a long time of being
> >> my arm32 reference board.
> >> - I don't want the code to stay like the old 32 bits rockchip or
> >> amlogic code that can't even boot nowadays.
> >>
> >> If someone want to step up and convert A10/A20 to ccung I'll be
> >> glad to help/review but if no one step up it's unreasonable for me to
> >> support those right now and I prefer to remove completely the support.
> >>
> >> The plan is to remove support in one month (July 12th) if there is no
> >> volunteer to update the current code.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> --
> >> Emmanuel Vadot <manu@bidouilliste.com> <manu@freebsd.org>
> >
> > Hello Emmanuel,
> >
> > we have recently considered to switching from i.MX6 to a A20 for cost
> reasons.
> >
> > I have just bought a Banana Pi with an A20 to test performance and
> compare it to the Wandboard. The problem with H3 (and all other better
> socs) is the lack of a proper SATA controller. A real controller is only
> available in A10/A20 SoCs, all others go through a horrible SATA-to-USB
> adapter that is horribly slow.
> >
> > Anyway, in case we decide to switch, I can keep the A20 running
> -CURRENT. I might need some help getting started since I do not have a lot
> of experience in the kernel, other than the AHCI driver for the imx.
>
> Hi Rogiel,
>
> FWIW- I'm going to go ahead and write the ccung bits for A10/A20 so
> that I can make use of my Lamobo R1 when the switch driver for that is
> finished.
>
> This is probably not a bad time to pare down the DTS+U-Boot we build
> for these SoC to what people are actually willing to claim they use
> with FreeBSD, though.
>


First of all I would like to thank manu@ and kevans@ and other committers
who improved the support of Allwinner SoC related codes and maintaining
them up to now.
I basically agree with manu@, but there could be few points we may have to
consider:
- It is nice to have the support of a board which has SATA controller, as
mentioned Rogiel
- According to https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Allwinner most of
drivers work on A20 boards (if we add ccung support) and it could be a
reference code for attracting new developers, users etc.
- If we nuke A10/A20 bits, then we maybe need to obtain some other boards
with H3 SoC for gjb@ or anyone who builds official images, I believe those
images are tested on those boards.
- I know it is time consuming, but I think a developer has to make sure
his/her code changes work across boards/SoC family, or at least ask others
to test or apply similar changes to their boards/SoCs just to make sure
everything works. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
- I know I should be blamed for not updating Rockchip RK3188 and Amlogic
codes, but I hope some of the bits can be used/referenced later on for
boards with SoC like RK3328, RK3399 etc, since I do have the latter one.

Kyle,

Adding ccung support to A10/A20 is very much appreciated.
I will wait for your switch driver, that would be really awesome.
I think I have same board too :)

thanks a lot for understanding,

Ganbold



>
> Thanks,
>
> Kyle Evans
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