[clue] Buying pi.

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Mon, 2013-02-04 at 10:58 -0800, Vincent Randal wrote:
> I'm very interested in Raspberry Pi, but I could not confirm all the
> source code and tool chain were available to build the OS and device
> drivers. 

There is a git repo for the kernel, binary firmware and userland
libraries for use with OpenGL (re: the firmware).  There are also lots
of embedded distributions that work with Pi:

http://elinux.org/RPi_Distributions

All the info you need can be gleaned from eLinux.org:

http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard

I build my own distro, PiBox, using Crosstool-NG (to build a cross
toolchain), buildroot/busybox, the RPi firmware and userland tools:

http://www.graphics-muse.org/wiki/pmwiki.php/RaspberryPi/RaspberryPi

It's specifically a build system but I do have a binary release.  The
0.4.0 release doesn't work quite right with the firmware but I fixed
that problem yesterday.  Just haven't pushed a new release yet.

> I'm a "retired" firmware developer and I must have all the source code
> or write my own. It's in my blood. But I learned Pi is not an open
> system in that Broadcom (I think?) will not release all the
> documentation on the hardware (SOC?). 

Their GPU is closed source at the moment and the GPU firmware is
actually used as the bootloader.

> Furthermore, device drivers are available as proprietary binaries only
> like in Android et al. I hope I don't scare anyone off except maybe
> myself. Heck, it's so cheap I should just get one and hack away to
> whatever extent possible.

No, the binaries you need to roll your own distro are available from the
git repo:

https://github.com/raspberrypi

You don't have to use Android or Angstrom or even Debian.  PiBox can
attest to that.  But the graphics stuff, re: video decoding, etc., is
closed source.

> BTW: The reason I wanted Pi was to turn my children's TV's (with HDMI)
> into computers with internet access, but I'm not sure about content
> providers NetFlix (for kids) being available on Linux(?).

Netflix is not available for Linux in general, though you can get it
with the Roku.  I have two of those little boxes and they work fine.
The Roku uses the same Broadcom chip as the Model B Pi, but you can't
easily hack the Roku.  Wasn't designed for that.  Pi is.

The Pi can do XBMC, which will get you lots of things including Amazon
Prime if you want to stream video from them.   There are a number of
distributions for the Pi that support XBMC.  PiBox is getting close to
supporting it.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel                         Principal Software Engineer
Mike.Hammel at coloradoengineeringinc.com         http://coloradoengineeringinc.com
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