Hi Jonas, Unfortunately as of today in my opinion Firefly is a 'Android' development board. Like most of the ARM boards Linux software support intends to rely on a community effort which in turn relies on good co-operation from the SOC vendor (especially for CPU/VPU support). Historically the Chinese SOC vendors (AllWinner/Rockchip) haven't been willing to work closely with the community which has meant that most boards die a slow death.
We should see fb drivers released by ARM by the end of this week (fingers crossed) which should give us some GPU support unfortunately I had to raise the issue with ARM because Rockchip were unwilling to supply them (which isn't a good sign). From what I understand Rockchip should be releasing there own drivers in the forth coming months but will target the 'TopMetal' platform which must be a different h/w design from the current reference designs.
Again, in my opinion the challenges facing the Firefly are:
1. Application developers want an 'out of box' experience and not having to endure the arduous task of building kernels, working out how to get GPU/VPU support etc ... 2. The market is saturated with ARM boards and the lower end $35 boards have bigger community support plus closer co-operation with the SOC vendor. 3. The development community aren't willing to embrace the newer generation of boards because of the potential lack of co-operation from the SOC vendor based on historical experience. 4. The board is expensive (including taxes + shipping) and I would argue competes in the x86 space where Linux support is far superior. |