GT King Pro - Debian10 Buster & Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa Firmware

JFL

Hi Darkstar,

Thanks. The reason I am asking, I noticed you are able to play video Debian FireFox at 1080p/60 without high dropped frames and playback sound is normal I supposed.  In Debian Firefox-ESR that I just installed the voice is still wrong but now video playback at 720p/60 with no dropped frame or low dropped frames.  In Chromium voice playback is wrong and high dropped frames at any resoulution.

In Ubuntu, the Firefox (80.0.1) can playback video at 1080p/60 with normal voice and low dropped frames.  

JFL

Hi Darkstar,

For you info, I am new to Linux system and is a new learning experience. Enjoying it on GT King Pro so far.

When I faced issues in Debian Chromium on video playback, I search the web for solutions, like how to install Firefox non-esr version on Debian (reason being in Ubuntu Firefox 80.0.1 have no issue on video playback) but when still faced the same issue of not being able to install Firefox non-esr (v80.0.1) properly and successfully launch it in Debian and noticed on the first page of this forum that both Debian Buster and Ubuntu should be able to support video playback at 1080p and during our earlier correspondence you have been using Firefox and video playback normally (actually great: 1080p/60 with no dropped frames) that is why I came to you to seek guidance.  I hope you don't mind.

Thanks always for your kind assistance and guidance.

darkstar

JFL replied at 2020-09-15 12:13
Hi Darkstar,

For you info, I am new to Linux system and is a new learning experience. Enjoying it o ...

It is alright we are here to help each other.

JFL

darkstar replied at 2020-08-31 17:08
Actually both of my firmwares have hardware acceleration for framebuffer interface.
I used same ker ...

Hi Darkstar,

I saw the Odroid N2Plus video demos (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) with mali-bifrost-wayland-driver and WebGL on Chromium with Wayland etc looks impressive. Does this means in near future we can expect this can be ported over to Beelink GT King Pro since Odroid N2 use the same or similar Amlogic S922X variant of SOC?

Best Rgds

JFL

darkstar replied at 2020-09-15 21:52
It is alright we are here to help each other.

Hi Darkstar,

I suspect the sound/voice (playback speed or pitch) issue in Debian Buster might be due to the incorrect audio driver or incorrect configuration of PulseAudio or ALSA.  Not sure whether this also affected the high dropped frames.  


I noticed in Debian Buster the "Default Sink: Built-in Audio Analog Mono" where in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS the "Default Sink: Built-in Audio Stereo" and in Ubuntu the video playback sound/voice is normal and correct.  The reason I suspect it is due to the incorret audio driver or incorrect configuration of PulseAudio or ALSA is because both the Debian Buster and Ubuntu 20.04 are running on the same hardware and using the same PulseAudio and ALSA Utils, why would the Default Sink: be configured differently?  I tried purging PulseAudio and reinstall in Debian but I still have the issue Default Sink: Built-in Audio Analog Mono".  For your info, I am using HDMI output from GT King Pro to Monitor and Audio Out from Monitor Line Output to Headphone.


Any suggestions on reconfiguring Debian PulseAudio or ALSA so that "Default Sink: Built-in Audio Stereo" like in the Ubuntu 20.04?

Best Rgds

darkstar

JFL replied at 2020-09-18 22:10
Hi Darkstar,

I saw the Odroid N2Plus video demos (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) with mali-bifrost-wayland-dri ...

Actually ARM started to support Panfrost-Bifrost driver officially of course we will have panfrost + wayland in near future.

https://www.cnx-software.com/202 ... driver-development/

JFL

darkstar replied at 2020-08-31 17:08
Actually both of my firmwares have hardware acceleration for framebuffer interface.
I used same ker ...

Hi Darkstar,

Any good news on your new kernel build for Debian or Ubuntu for release or share?  Look forward to your new build.

Best Rgds.

darkstar

JFL replied at 2020-09-23 20:54
Hi Darkstar,

Any good news on your new kernel build for Debian or Ubuntu for release or share?  L ...

I build Debian and Ubuntu firmware regularly the last build that I made was 2 days ago.
With mainline kernel 5.9 Firefox can play 1080p / 60fps VP9  files on youtube without frame drops.

Actually the builds I shared on this topic are not bad and they are both from stable branch of Debian and Ubuntu.

For new releases we need some improvements about hardware acceleration or Mainline Kernel side or there must be new Debian / Ubuntu release. For now there are no such improvements yet it is better to wait.
I hope you understand.

JFL

darkstar replied at 2020-09-24 21:28
I build Debian and Ubuntu firmware regularly the last build that I made was 2 days ago.
With mainli ...

Hi Darkstar,

I was looking to see whether with newer kernels or main line kernels will improve the performance.  I read some of the latest drivers are being included in the main line kernels.

The GT King Pro performance with KDE desktop environment on Debian Buster was a bit sluggish, applications loaded slower and the window are being refreshed/redrawn slower compared Xfce desktop environment.  I turned-off the KDE Compositor and other KDE system animations effects and this did improved the performance a bit but in general still felt a bit less snappy.  However, have not tried the Kubuntu Desktop Environment on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS yet.

Even in Debian Buster Xfce, at times some windows are being refreshed or redrawn slower when you resize the window especially when the window have a lot of contents.  

According to one article on Firefox 80 and Firefox 81:

“Firefox 80 introduces a highly anticipated feature for Linux users, namely VA-API/FFmpeg hardware acceleration for video playback on systems using the traditional X11/X.Org Server display server.”

“On top of that, Mozilla also extended its WebRender GPU-based 2D rendering engine for AMD Evergreen hardware (a.k.a Radeon HD 5000 series of GPUs) on all supported platforms, including Linux systems, as well as for Mali-Gxx devices. Yet, WebRender remains disabled by default on Linux in Firefox 81.”

I tried the above, Firefox 80.0.1 running in Ubuntu, force enable WebRender on Firefox 80.0.1, instead of improving the web page refresh or redraw performance it actually suffer.  Turning off the WebRender give better performance in Firefox 80.0.1.  

I thought with newer Linux Kernel, performance might improve, this lead me to check whether you have build Debian or Ubuntu or other Linux distro with newer kernels for GT King Pro.

darkstar

JFL replied at 2020-09-26 01:35
Hi Darkstar,

I was looking to see whether with newer kernels or main line kernels will improve th ...

Mainline kernel is not stable enough yet, for now I will not release a firmware with mainline kernel.
If you want you can try Armbian releases, they are released with mainline kernel.

If you decide to use KDE as desktop you should know:
KDE has many Desktop Effects that uses 3D hardware acceleration XFCE doesn't have Desktop Effects.
Another setting you must set is Compositor Settings which needs 3d hardware acceleration too.

Please try Armbian too and share your thoughts.