# FreeBSD on Amlogic S912



## balanga (Jun 30, 2019)

Is there any chance of being able to run FreeBSD on an Amlogic S912 based system?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amlogic

The S912 is an Octa-core ARM Cortex-A53-based SoC. Not sure if this used on an RPi 3....


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## acheron (Jun 30, 2019)

If you do the port then yes. But amlogic documentation usually is quite... nonexistent.


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## BuzzMarshall (Jul 8, 2019)

Actually for someone not extremely informed on Amlogic you would be right but thankfully a few of us have been messing with Amlogic now for years, tho privately and that is soon going to change as a new group is being formed to create a os for the Amlogic based sbc's so things will slowly change once a few of us get back to re-learning some of the bsd stuff we started out on so many years ago before most of us slowly migrated over to linux and kinda forgot all about bsd... man how dumb were we... anyways were coming back to bsd and in the embedded area is where we will start...

Don't pay attention to Ray or Adam on CE as they only demonstrate their ignorance on the subject with the typical response of saying because someone else hasn't been able to do it that its not going to happen, i seriously doubt either one of them even know anything about any of the bsd's other then what they are parroting from others...  

If it can't be done as he says it won't be for lack of trying as some of us believe it is doable with work and are willing to start looking into it, as some of us had Amlogic working right from the git go while those script-kiddies were probably still wearing diapers... ...


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## CraigHB (Jul 8, 2019)

Go for it man.  If you can do it, I'd try it.  I don't know though, sounds like there's some big hurdles to overcome.  For one there's no Kodi Leia port.  Hardware video acceleration would probably be out of the question since it relies on a blob from AMLogic.  They barely have any interest in the one for Linux, let alone FreeBSD.

I don't know how much those CoreELEC guys get down to the coding level, so yeah, they might just be naysaying.  Seems they mostly just package things, more like techs than engineers.  Consider all that stuff is already out there for Linux, just needs to be put into a package.  For example the kernel comes from HardKernel which gets their video drivers from AMLogic.  The "just enough Linux" userland is based on Busybox which again is already out there.

It might be possible to run stuff under FreeBSD's Linux emulator, might save some work, but I don't know how feasible that is.


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## BuzzMarshall (Jul 9, 2019)

Heres the real problem as i see it and a few others that have doing this since Amlogic came along in the box market and that is based on how well the people involved actually understand the whole production cycle including the manufacturing methods and software development stages and how they interconnect and what responsibilities lie with who thru-out that whole cycle...

If you really want to RE something you need to know all those pieces and even be willing to use research tools like the patent offices and disertation papers because everything in the modern world is about money and a companies abilitiy to protect those revenue streams... so unless your prepared to go down those roads you just end up like these social guru's that really have a very basic and limited view on how things worked... I've already had debates and arguments over the years on sites like OE and LE and others over the simple fact that some actually think companies like Amlogic actually create the SoC's they make and sell to downstream manufacturers... i usually get mad and tell the dummies trying to argue with me to simply go look at Amlogics website and they even tell you what they do... which is design and layout the SoC and then contract that out to some other private fab shop or foundary... and being they are only interested in Android Amlogic basically licences a cann'ed version of Android that they provide to the downstream manufacturers as software support for the devices they sell... that link between companies may vary a bit from one maker to the other but basics are provided anything outside that is a contracted extra the end customer pays extra for... and being its done like that with only Andriod support coming from Amlogic means that even tho Amlogic licenced the Arm cores for the processor they Never bought the Mali DDK so they don't have the ability to create their own blobs or source code... Those GPU blobs in Android are tied to the Kernel revisions keeping things stalled and way back in the current kernel levels.  A simple fix would have been for companies like Amlogic to licence the DDK for the GPU"s and then build when they need allowing them to progress forward... being cheap tho and having a user market willing to try and fix things has let them carry this type of mentality for years now... So theres the simplified version of whats really gone on for years and with to many not really understanding even that to pursue things its been a stalemate out in the public... privately tho things are different...

The long and the short of it is that why would companies like Amlogic, Allwinner, Rockchip ... want to spend the money to see Linux done properly as they have already seen from the established end users the willingness to take on all those burdens on their own... and to even shuff it further into the enduser all those companies keep forcing and introducing new SoC's way before any of the already in the market devices are actually working properly even on Android... Companies are greedy and people are gullable in general terms and when it comes to the end users i have always found the sites that spring up trying to help usually start out ok under the tutaledge of a couple smart coders but then get over-whelm'd with the types looking mostly for social attention by feeding the public with simple little things convincing the public there the guys with the answers... thats what enevitably happened at sites like FreakTab, OpenELEC, LibreELEC and now is causing issues on CE...

For me and a few others we just figured we would go our own way and going back to our roots(berkley) may provide the answers we want while they can go do their own thing , which is why i am just gonna stay here out of everyones way working on trying to see what we can do...


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## adamg (Jul 9, 2019)

BuzzMarshall said:


> Don't pay attention to Ray or Adam on CE as they only demonstrate their ignorance on the subject



This is absolute nonsense BuzzMarshall, I'm rather perplexed by your comments here because I never said anything on the subject of BSD so I'm not sure what your problem with me is, in-fact I actively encouraged you in your endeavour.

I'm sorry you wasn't invited to our Slack when you asked which is obviously what you are annoyed over but we don't give invitations to people involved in satellite piracy. If you feel the best way to create and build a community is to slander other developers in your very first post here then good luck because it really speaks volumes to your character.

Everyone can form their own opinion but the proof is in pudding and results speak louder than words, we look forward to seeing them.

CraigHB you might want to look at some of the contributions in our GitHub if you feel that we are not technically inept enough, there is an open-source dvb and vfd driver we created from scratch amongst many other contributions that never existed before we got together as a group.


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## CraigHB (Jul 9, 2019)

Sorry to imply that Adam, I don't know exactly what is involved in what you guys do.  I was just thinking that most of the stuff is assembled rather than created so if you guys are building things from scratch then great and thanks.  I don't want you to think I don't appreciate it, I certainly do regardless of the level of expertise required.  Nobody else is putting out the software you guys do for AMLogic so that's awesome alone.


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## BuzzMarshall (Jul 9, 2019)

Dont drag your bs over here... and i NEVER asked to be involves with you guys... to be honest it was one of your guys when i originally started posted that asked me if i wanted to be involved and help out and i said NO i am not into your social scene... the bottom line is you some of you are using the lack of not getting free-bee samples as a excuse of why your not currently supporting some devices and when i tried to give you a heads up you and Ray jumped me... you guys made that mess with YOUR talk so don't get mad at me because i just decided it was easier to leave and some of us will do our own thing and just act adult and leave it alone... One of ya pulled my last post telling a couple of where to find me and what some of us were going to do and rather then just leave it ya had to pull it and then twist it into the bsd thing which i never ever said...

Anyways grow up and take responsiblity fo for your own big mouth and don't drag your crap over here... lol...

Maybe CE should be called the NSNS Team... no samples no support...  

have fun and just say goodbye....


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## SirDice (Jul 9, 2019)

This is a technical user support forum for FreeBSD, please take your personal issues with each other elsewhere. This is not the place for them.


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## BuzzMarshall (Jul 9, 2019)

Thank you...


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## adamg (Jul 9, 2019)

BuzzMarshall said:


> Dont drag your bs over here... and i NEVER asked to be involves with you guys... to be honest it was one of your guys when i originally started posted that asked me if i wanted to be involved and help out and i said NO i am not into your social scene... the bottom line is you some of you are using the lack of not getting free-bee samples as a excuse of why your not currently supporting some devices and when i tried to give you a heads up you and Ray jumped me... you guys made that mess with YOUR talk so don't get mad at me because i just decided it was easier to leave and some of us will do our own thing and just act adult and leave it alone... One of ya pulled my last post telling a couple of where to find me and what some of us were going to do and rather then just leave it ya had to pull it and then twist it into the bsd thing which i never ever said...
> 
> Anyways grow up and take responsiblity fo for your own big mouth and don't drag your crap over here... lol...
> 
> ...



BuzzMarshall I never dragged anything over here, you did with your slanderous remarks towards myself and Ray and I'm still not sure why as nobody has shown hostilities towards you, you emailed us asking to be a part of our development team long before you joined our forum but we distance ourselves from anyone or anything related for piracy for a good reason, this was not anything personal towards you and I certainly don't think it warrants your ranting.

Your allegations that we only support devices that we receive samples of is nonsense and you know it because we existed long before we ever started to receive them, if Ray jumped on you then it was because of your attitude and false assumptions/allegations and the tone of your messages of which you continue here.

I'm not mad at you Mark, far from it, but you paint a picture of us that is the complete opposite to reality and I felt it prudent to address the issue, you have completely disregarded everything that was said to you and seem hell-bent on your campaign of fouled up disinformation for reasons unknown and I have no wish or desire to encourage your hate speech.

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do.


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 9, 2019)

Finito. Ignore forum rules at your own peril, this is not  a battleground for issues on other platforms. Cooling off period until Saturday.


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