XBMC on Tegra2 development: Porting XBMC for Linux to NVIDIA Tegra 2 ARM SoC platform

CrashX Wrote:Do you think once it is finished product, NVIDIA will lock consumers out from loading Ubuntu on it ?

Sorry but that's a silly question, nvidia makes the tegra2 chipset. It's up to others to make platform designs using the tegra2 chipset. When that occurs, it's up to the platform designers as to if someone could load Ubuntu on it or is restricted to some other operating system.

An even sillier question then

Do you think that the platform will be supported by XBMC in the long run? I mean there are now releases for Windows, OSX and Linux, there is support for ARM and Intel/AMD CPU's, GPU's from ATI and NVidia are supported, there is the ChrystalHD thing as well...
Most of the porting work seems to rest on the shoulders of very few people. How realistic is it to expect others to be able to continue working on this and supporting this in the long run? Because capable though they are we all know how life can sometimes prevent people from working on hobby projects like XBMC. It would be a shame but not unlikely that people like davilla end up having to stop working on this for a longer period of time leaving others to pick up where he left of or the project to drop the support for these types of rather specialized ports.

davilla Wrote:Sorry but that's a silly question, nvidia makes the tegra2 chipset. It's up to others to make platform designs using the tegra2 chipset. When that occurs, it's up to the platform designers as to if someone could load Ubuntu on it or is restricted to some other operating system.

Yup I agree with you but I believe product manufacture hide behind the chip manufacture saying that they aren't making it opensource to access the hardware. ie wdtv live.

If it was all open, we could port xbmc to wdtv live for example.

CrashX Wrote:Yup I agree with you but I believe product manufacture hide behind the chip manufacture saying that they aren't making it opensource to access the hardware. ie wdtv live.

If it was all open, we could port xbmc to wdtv live for example.

The problem with wdtv is in fact with sigma and their use of closed APIs for video hardware decode. Without info on that API, booting anything else on it is useless. From day one, this was the situation with sigma related chips.

However, Nvidia uses the open APIs OpenGL/ES for display and OpenMax for hardware decode. Big difference.

rcoops Wrote:An even sillier question then

Do you think that the platform will be supported by XBMC in the long run? I mean there are now releases for Windows, OSX and Linux, there is support for ARM and Intel/AMD CPU's, GPU's from ATI and NVidia are supported, there is the ChrystalHD thing as well...
Most of the porting work seems to rest on the shoulders of very few people. How realistic is it to expect others to be able to continue working on this and supporting this in the long run? Because capable though they are we all know how life can sometimes prevent people from working on hobby projects like XBMC. It would be a shame but not unlikely that people like davilla end up having to stop working on this for a longer period of time leaving others to pick up where he left of or the project to drop the support for these types of rather specialized ports.

"supported by XBMC in the long run", that depends on what we find out during the port. Boxee has chosen the Tegra2 as a viable platform, this strongly suggests that it will be fine with XBMC. The amount of work required remains to be determined and is the main point behind this work.

As for your other question, the Tegra2 dev kit costs $400. Pretty steep entry cost for devs that work for free. Interest with working on Tegra2 depends on several things, a) access to hardware and b) desire to spend the time working on it. a) will be dealt with in due time, b) there's high interest not only with XBMC devs but other devs as well. Plus Tegra2 is just ARM+OpenGL/ES+OpenMax. There are other ARM chipsets that are similar so instead of XBMC on Tegra2, you should think XBMC for ARM instead.

davilla Wrote:The problem with wdtv is in fact with sigma and their use of closed APIs for video hardware decode. Without info on that API, booting anything else on it is useless. From day one, this was the situation with sigma related chips.

However, Nvidia uses the open APIs OpenGL/ES for display and OpenMax for hardware decode. Big difference.

I take those required library to link will be freely available to download ?

Currently dev kit is not open for everyone, you need to be apply to be selected. Also as you indicated, the cost is a high compare to beagle board which is $150. I heard that cost of dev kit will eventually go down to $200 once they shift production to china.

Hi,

will android be considered, someday?
I mean one of these Tegra tablets.

greets

CrashX Wrote:I take those required library to link will be freely available to download ?

Currently dev kit is not open for everyone, you need to be apply to be selected. Also as you indicated, the cost is a high compare to beagle board which is $150. I heard that cost of dev kit will eventually go down to $200 once they shift production to china.

Yes, the libs would be part of the released Linux SDL. The Linux SDK is not released yet because it's not ready for the masses yet.

The cost is typical of such low volume specialized developer kits, you might think $400 is expensive, I've paid much, much more in the past for such dev kits. These are aimed at companies looking to develop a product and not general hobby usage.

The Tegra2 dev kit is not really suitable for encapsulating into a product. Too much extra bits that are not needed for a production board.

aexme Wrote:Hi,

will android be considered, someday?
I mean one of these Tegra tablets.

greets

I'm focusing on Linux. Running an application on Android OS has it's own requirements and XBMC is a rather large app with a large foot print that does all sorts of things that might/might not be possible to do under the Android OS.

I just hope XBMC is at least partially supported, when BOXEE box is out. BOXEE box could be a good platform to broaden user base of XBMC. Keep doing great work!