Why didn't you target drm/kms gl approach? I realise not all platforms support this, but it would greatly extend the number of supported (embedded) platforms in a generic way. A quick google search seems to indicate that the sgx530 (BBB) has a kms driver as does the vivante (imx6). An RPi drm/kms driver also seems to be in the works and a lot of upcoming arm gpu's seem to be supported as well. By targeting kms/drm you'd be supporting a lot of platforms with a single codepath now and in the future.
Unrelated, embedded jfx should use http://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/ instead of it's own bug-risky evdev/raw kernel input implementation. ;) Now if just somebody would sponser me so I can work fulltime to implement these things ;) On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 7:39 PM, David Hill <david.h...@oracle.com> wrote: > On 3/17/15, 8:04 AM, Erik De Rijcke wrote: > >> Why are there limitations on the "embedded" port of javafx to begin with? >> Are there technical reasons for it? >> > Quite a few actually.... > > The "embedded" platforms have quite a few "features" that make them > difficult. (and I have the bruises to prove it :-) > > To start with, an "embedded" application is usually a single purpose > instead of a general purpose computing device. Think a kiosk for example. > When I say general purpose devices - I mean classic desktops and now the > mobile platforms, where the expectation is that the machine will be used > for a number of application. > > Several of you will say that I am wrong, that a Raspberry Pi for example > behaves just like a pokey "desktop" machine. This is a case where the lines > have blurred and will continue to get more blurry. The Pi was one of a new > generation of ARM platforms that have a community around them - a place > where you can both buy a cheap board and get an OS and drivers without an > NDA. So just as you can make a kiosk using a desktop machine, you can also > use the PI with XMBC as a media center. > > As part of the "embedded" FX team, our design center was less the Pi > running with X11, but rather a direct to framebuffer (without the overhead > and limitations of X11). And the Pi was an after thought for us, a way to > help out the community. We were targeting a more modern platforms liek the > i.MX6. > > The problem with the direct to framebuffer, and to some extent with the > rest of the ARM platforms - the platforms are really fractured and it is > hard to build a working distro. I personally spend many a frustrating day > trying to get some ARM platform to do something we take for granted on the > desktop. Starting with.... OpenGLES drivers, especially ones that would > talk to the framebuffer (and not X11). The Pi is one of the few examples > out there of a port that has an easy download that contains most of the > needed drivers already integrated (and documented). I spent almost a week > fighting the Beagle Bone Black before getting up. Oh yes - and add on top > of this all that GL initialization direct to framebuffer is non-standard > API, so we ended up with 3 code paths for the platforms we were able to > build. > > So in summary it is easy to download a Linux distro. The hardpart is right > after you do that, and you want the proprietary hardware accelerated > drivers. There are very few platforms that make this easy. > > And the Pi (version 1) is really too slow. The i.MX6 has enough power for > a real application. The ODROID U3 and XU are also pretty spiffy, but I > could not get direct to framebuffer working for either of those. If you > want to use X11 - OpenJFX will probably work for you, and it might even > have graphical acceleration if the drivers are present and integrated. > > Our Embedded team had ARM media as the next big thing to do, but ... > > So now we have all of the gstreamer code in the OpenJFX repo. I really > expect that media on the Pi (1) will probably not work well due to the > speed of the CPU and the memory bus. Maybe the Pi 2..... > > Again, you really need the right drivers in place to take advantage of > hardware accelerated decoding of the media stream. > > With the right gstreamer libraries and drivers, I expect the media port > would not take that long for someone that understands gstreamer. > > There might need to be some changes in Monocle to take the video stream > hand off. > > I really would not expect that media would work without some debugging, > and that after getting the build issues worked out. > > > > >> If you think about it, "It's arm, so it's embedded. It's x86 so it's >> desktop" doesn't make much sense... (atom is embedded, and there are arm >> windows netbooks that are not). >> >> Anyway, as a workaround, can't openjfx simply be compiled on an arm host >> (so no cross compilation is required) and as such generate the missing >> libraries? Qemu with an arm vm can be used to do that on an x86 host for >> example. >> >> On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 12:50 PM, Fabrizio Giudici< >> fabrizio.giud...@tidalwave.it> wrote: >> >> On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 01:21:29 +0100, Felix Bembrick< >>> felix.bembr...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> I really admire guys like this and wish that my own personal >>> circumstances >>> >>>> enabled me to get involved in a similar way but my main concern is that >>>> the >>>> "community" required to make JavaFX truly viable on iOS, Android and ARM >>>> needs to be about 50-100 times bigger than it currently is. Without an >>>> >>>> It's my concern too. At this point we're at 20 years of Java, and I >>> lived >>> them from the very beginning. The idea "the community will fix it" is a >>> déjà vu that, unfortunately, says that in the past the thing didn't work >>> many times. >>> >>> This doesn't mean I'm necessarily in a fatalistic mood. When my RPI2 >>> arrives, I'll try the option you and others suggested. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect @ Tidalwave s.a.s. >>> "We make Java work. Everywhere." >>> http://tidalwave.it/fabrizio/blog - fabrizio.giud...@tidalwave.it >>> >>> > > -- > David Hill<david.h...@oracle.com> > Java Embedded Development > > "A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey > the world." > -- George Santayana (1863 - 1952) > >
