April Update: New Developments

yjftsjthsd-h|4 years ago

> We are presently stuck using the pre-built SPL and Trust binaries from Rockchip-Android until mainline ATF is released.

Anyone know what SPL and ATF are in this context? Web search gives me Secondary Program Loader and ARM Trusted Firmware, but I don't grok what that means - some early boot blobs?

kop316|4 years ago

Yes, that is what they are:

SPL is the very very first thing the ARM chip boots, similar to the old BIOS that was at the front of your HDD?

ARM Trusted Firmware roughly (VERY roughly) analogous to Intel's ME, it is a trusted execution environment for ARM

ac29|4 years ago

As near as I can tell the SPL is part of early stage boot that initializes RAM, then loads the later stage bootloader to it (like uboot).

rmorey|4 years ago

@dang / HN mods - can we update the title i this to include “Pine64” ? pretty vague without

fsflover|4 years ago

It already includes it in the brackets.

syntaxing|4 years ago

Always a treat to read these. Not looking forward to the recurring theme of schedule slips because of the chip shortages. Unfortunately, this is probably just the beginning.

mPReDiToR|4 years ago

The only shortage on PinePhone was a magnetometer but that chip has been replaced with an almost identical one, to no ill effect in the latest units.

The software not being "ready" as in "it's still beta" is more the issue.

Making a million and handing them out like smarties is all well and good, but you'll get 750,000 back with "<program> doesn't work".

The community is doing fantastic things, leaps and bounds. Pretty much everything works, but tinkering is still very much on the cards for owners.

megous|4 years ago

Looking forward to tomorrow to have more details about the keyboard. :)

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