Re: [yocto] looking for YP-supported Rockchip RK3588-based eval board

On 11/5/25 6:04 PM, Robert P. J. Day via lists.yoctoproject.org wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2025, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> 
>>
>>    (caveat: i have *no* experience with rockchip processors so i am
>> entirely at the mercy of people who want to make recommendations.)
>>
>>    a friend wants me to advise on a good choice for a RK3588-based
>> evaluation board, and has already purchased a banana pi bpi-w3:
>>
>>    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009156110477.html
>>
>>    that looks like a decent and fairly powerful baord, but i notice
>> that the banana pi is not a supported MACHINE in meta-rockchip:
>>
>>    https://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-rockchip/tree/conf/machine
>>
>> so can anyone suggest something equivalent in terms of pure horsepower
>> that would be equivalent and has solid YP support? i am totally open
>> to good advice.
> 
>    i will also point out that i see some mention that the RK3588 is not
> fully open source, while the earlier RK3399 is:
> 
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40497232
> 

Outdated info, only the first stage bootloader (TPL also called DDR bin 
by Rockchip; it runs in EL3, who knows what it does) is closed-source 
still. BL31 (TF-A) can be replaced by upstream TF-A.

The first stage is being reverse-engineered right now by some people 
from oreboot I believe. If and how this will come out is a different topic.

Note that the ARM Mali GPU also requires a blob (from linux-firmware), 
so do all Mali GPUs based on the CSF "architecture" (which is probably 
every recent version and upcoming). Open-source drivers 
(panthor/panfrost in Linux kernel and mesa) though.

Cheers,
Quentin