OpenCPN Runs on Embedded ARM

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by verkerkbr

Have you tried the Banana Pi ? Or the BananaPro board.

Small sized board that looks like a Raspberry Pi (cloned of course) but with better hardware.

CPU ARM Cortex A7 Dual core.
1 GB DDR3
CPU Mali400 MP2 Runs Open GL ES 2.0
Ethernet 10/100/1000.

OS and software on a SD card. Runs Chromium and Firefox etc. Samba etc.

The Banana PI board cost around € 36,- including VAT. The Pro is around € 45,- and has wireless on the Board.

With Lubuntu Linux and OpenCPN latest version it works perfect.

Power supply is 5 volt and max 2 amps.

Bram

Are you using CM93 charts ?
Are you using OpenGL with Sean's GLShim ?
If so, do you see a problem with the most detailed level of charts ?

Cheers,
JM.

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by GHammond

....
Now...next task is to figure out how to create an image with the correct updated drivers for the mali 400: ie r3p2 which has better graphics performance. The driver in both the Cubian and aRuntu image is the older r3p0 which only uses one of the cores.
Best
Pete

I would like to try and figure out what the problem is with some of the images for ARM.

How do you determine what graphics driver is installed ?

I tried: $/sbin/modinfo mali

But the version number reported is blank ?

Are you having any luck getting the r3p2 driver working ?

Cheers,
JM.

[verkerkbr]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

Are you using CM93 charts ?
Are you using OpenGL with Sean's GLShim ?
If so, do you see a problem with the most detailed level of charts ?

Cheers,
JM.

No, I have not done anything special. Installed Lubuntu form the Banana Lemaker board.
Then the upgrade of Lubuntu. Added the server adress for OpenCPN for Thrusty.

Installed OpenCPN.

I'am using ENC Charts in the highest resolution 6.

Activated Accelated Graphics in the OpenCPN setup and for 4 colours.

The Mali Graphics in the Banana works ARM Mali400MP2 complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1.

The Banada does indeed OpenGL. It is certainly a clone and not only the Name. But it has much better specs then the Raspy. And works perfect with OpenCPN 4.00.

I have tried the Raspy at first. But it gave problems when zooming in and out.

But the Banana has just the right specs for running OpenCPN on a small power saving system. And is also very cheap.

Flashing the image to a SD card 16 gig 10 left a amount on the Card unused. But with
Gparted the unused part can be activated.

I'am using the Banana now as my daily system for Internet use. Does Firefox, Chromium, printer support, samba for file sharing and even Citrix client works.

Regards,


Bram

[rgleason]

Banana Pro | Banana Pi | Open source platform makes more possibilities.

[bcn]

Just posted in the Marinux thread our experiences and concerns:

We are running here an Olimex A20 under Debian - no OpenGL at the moment.
Sean has the same one but he built his own image.
Little consumption, broad power input, a lot of ports.
We had to put the OS image on a bigger SD card tweaking the partition. And the charts are on second MMC in the second slot.

This system did run more than two weeks unattended gathering AIS stuff under OpenCPN. Route planning, panning zooming etc is a bit tedious but works. Monitor 22" 1920 x 1080 HDMI.
It is under 4.0.0 now

The issue for all this ARM devices/modules/products is having a stable image to run. You are adding another zillion of possible hardware and software options.
Who will be able to take care? And to answer the questions here.

If there are people to support this architectures - great.

[verkerkbr]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Banana Pro | Banana Pi | Open source platform makes more possibilities.

If you look for accelarated Graphics and the Banana family you will find CedarX as the "engine" behind Open GL. I don't know if this can be used on other hardware systems.

Bram

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by verkerkbr

If you look for accelarated Graphics and the Banana family you will find CedarX as the "engine" behind Open GL. I don't know if this can be used on other hardware systems.

Bram

I think CedarX is for processing Audio and Video streams not Opengl.

Cheers,
JM.

[sbfreddie]

Hi All:
I have a working version of Aruntu1.001 (Ubuntu 13.10) (with OpenGL-ES2 working) with OpenCPN 4.0 installed and all the US Maps provided by NOAA and Army Core of Engineers.
This image is for a CubieTruck or (maybe) a Cubie2.
Is anyone interested in this image?
I could post it, if I had a place to put it. It is about 3Gig in size, and expands to fill a 16GB SD card.

Thanks,
Freddie

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by sbfreddie

Hi All:
I have a working version of Aruntu1.001 (Ubuntu 13.10) (with OpenGL-ES2 working) with OpenCPN 4.0 installed and all the US Maps provided by NOAA and Army Core of Engineers.
This image is for a CubieTruck or (maybe) a Cubie2.
Is anyone interested in this image?
I could post it, if I had a place to put it. It is about 3Gig in size, and expands to fill a 16GB SD card.

Thanks,
Freddie

That's great !

Is that all the US ENC's ? Are they pre-compressed ?
Is the image for HDMI only ?

If there is enough interest perhaps we could sustain a torrent;
If you do that, post the torrent here, and I'm sure a few people will download then seed it.

Cheers,
JM.

[nohal]

Guys...
Before you burn the cards with Cubian or other Wheezy based distros, could you please give Download opencpnplugins from SourceForge.net a try and let me know if it installs and runs?

Many thanks

Pavel

[sbfreddie]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

That's great !

Is that all the US ENC's ? Are they pre-compressed ?
Is the image for HDMI only ?

If there is enough interest perhaps we could sustain a torrent;
If you do that, post the torrent here, and I'm sure a few people will download then seed it.

Cheers,
JM.

JM:
Yes, I have decided to install all the US Maps and run the compression algorithm on the RNC's before I post it. It will greatly increase the size of the Image though. The compressed RNC's take up about 1.5 Gig on the SD card, and the uncompressed files take up around 5.8 Gigs on the SD card. I'll try to stuff as much as I can on the image before I compress it.

The pre compression algorithm in OpenCPN only works on RNC's, not ENC's.

Once I finish including all the extra files I'll see about a torrent.

Thanks,
Freddie

[seandepagnier]

I hope a future improvement to make opencpn store the bsb header in the compressed raster chart so that you no longer need to have the chart file. This is convenient if you build the compressed cache from networked or removable storage as it could be unplugged once completed, but would also reduce the image size a lot.

[verkerkbr]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

I hope a future improvement to make opencpn store the bsb header in the compressed raster chart so that you no longer need to have the chart file. This is convenient if you build the compressed cache from networked or removable storage as it could be unplugged once completed, but would also reduce the image size a lot.

Perhaps is it of interest to know what the Lubuntu, OpenCPN, Samba, Citrix, Emails and 1 set of ENC Charts uses on a 8Gig SD Card on the Banana Pi.

[sbfreddie]

Cubie Owners:
I have completed building the SD image for Aruntu 1.001 with OpenCPN 4.0, and all US RNC maps (dated 1/8/2015) installed and reduced by the built-in reduction algorithm in OpenCPN. OpenGL-ES2 is also enabled in OpenCPN making it pretty fast (approx 15-30 FPS). The US ENC's and Army IENC's are also included but they are still compressed because of lack of room on the 16GB SD card. I would recommend a larger card if you need more charts.
The SD image is large, about 6.73GB compressed, and 15.93 uncompressed.

I don't have a place to put it, so if anyone has any advice I would like to hear from you.
I have read here that there are a few CubieTruck owners who would like to have a SD Card Image, well here is your chance.

Thanks,
Freddie

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by sbfreddie

Cubie Owners:
I have completed building the SD image for Aruntu 1.001 with OpenCPN 4.0, and all US RNC maps (dated 1/8/2015) installed and reduced by the built-in reduction algorithm in OpenCPN. OpenGL-ES2 is also enabled in OpenCPN making it pretty fast (approx 15-30 FPS). The US ENC's and Army IENC's are also included but they are still compressed because of lack of room on the 16GB SD card. I would recommend a larger card if you need more charts.
The SD image is large, about 6.73GB compressed, and 15.93 uncompressed.

I don't have a place to put it, so if anyone has any advice I would like to hear from you.
I have read here that there are a few CubieTruck owners who would like to have a SD Card Image, well here is your chance.

Thanks,
Freddie

I tried Aruntu, but was unable to enable the VGA port. I was able to run it and see it with VNC but it did not work with VGA or with my DVI to HDMI adapter.

Did you include all the plugins ?

For a file that big, I would again suggest starting a torrent to share the bandwidth burden.

Cheers,
JM.