[9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[sirjofri]

Hello,

adventuresin9 recently mentioned the A64 in the last video[1]. There are quite a few people interested in getting a 9front system on A64 powered devices (e.g. the pinephone).

Here's my attempt at porting 9front to that platform[2]. It's in the early stages and only a few things work.

To be precise, I can only boot the program (I wouldn't call it "kernel" yet) using uboot and output stuff to the serial console. I tried setting up a proper memory map, but when activating it I can't get the mapped hardware addresses for the serial connection working.

The linked source directory is meant to be placed as a full directory to /sys/src/9/a64. Feel free to use that as a starter (or not as it really is not much).

For me, I can try to help as much as I can. I own a pinephone and can test things, but I probably can't help much with lowlevel stuff (although I'd love to). I have to learn most things and I don't have much time to focus on learning it.

If you want to reach me off-list, my mail address is the same, but without the plus stuff, so just sirjofri@....

sirjofri


[1] https://youtu.be/WG4zIu9KLPA
[2] http://sirjofri.de/a64/

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[adventures in9]

Looks like I have some extra reading to do tonight.
The Pine64 folks were kind enough to post the datasheet for the A64
https://files.pine64.org/doc/datasheet/pine64/Allwinner_A64_User_Manual_V1.0.pdf

On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 11:49 AM sirjofri
<sirjofri+ml-9front@sirjofri.de> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> adventuresin9 recently mentioned the A64 in the last video[1]. There are quite a few people interested in getting a 9front system on A64 powered devices (e.g. the pinephone).
>
> Here's my attempt at porting 9front to that platform[2]. It's in the early stages and only a few things work.
>
> To be precise, I can only boot the program (I wouldn't call it "kernel" yet) using uboot and output stuff to the serial console. I tried setting up a proper memory map, but when activating it I can't get the mapped hardware addresses for the serial connection working.
>
> The linked source directory is meant to be placed as a full directory to /sys/src/9/a64. Feel free to use that as a starter (or not as it really is not much).
>
> For me, I can try to help as much as I can. I own a pinephone and can test things, but I probably can't help much with lowlevel stuff (although I'd love to). I have to learn most things and I don't have much time to focus on learning it.
>
> If you want to reach me off-list, my mail address is the same, but without the plus stuff, so just sirjofri@....
>
> sirjofri
>
>
> [1] https://youtu.be/WG4zIu9KLPA
> [2] http://sirjofri.de/a64/

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[sirjofri]

28.11.2022 01:27:59 adventures in9 <adventuresin9@gmail.com>:

> Looks like I have some extra reading to do tonight.
> The Pine64 folks were kind enough to post the datasheet for the A64
> https://files.pine64.org/doc/datasheet/pine64/Allwinner_A64_User_Manual_V1.0.pdf

Yes, and they also have the schematics for their boards you'll definitely find useful. I skimmed through the A64 manual (and obviously skipped the irrelevant pages for now), it's big, but well structured.

Btw there's also a lowlevel community specifically for pine devs on their discord (which is also available through matrix and maybe even irc, idk). There's a handful of nice and helpful people there. They also would be happy about a Plan 9 on pinephone, though they probably wouldn't know what to do with it.

My long-term goal is to create a basis for a full Plan 9 phone, that means, building a few basic touch-friendly apps, like a launcher and stuff like that. It will really be a challenge since I want to try capturing the Plan 9 concepts there, for example, it should be easily possible to plumb things, snarf-and-paste, and I'd like to develop a touch-friendly text interface. Obviously there's a long way until I can really run software like that on the pinephone, but due to compatibility I should be able to develop those apps fully on an amd64, run with mouse, and it should work on a pinephone automatically (after recompile).

sirjofri

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[adventures in9]

If you just want rio on a handheld, that has been done.  You can dig
around the old plan9 code for stuff for the compaq ipaq.  There is
bitsy/keyboard for on screen keyboard.

The trickier part is going to be rethinking everything for what is
effectively a "1 button mouse" style of input.  And that apps run more
as full screen in virtual desktops than as windows that change
position.  Or maybe use a tiling window manager?

On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 11:58 PM sirjofri
<sirjofri+ml-9front@sirjofri.de> wrote:
>
>
> 28.11.2022 01:27:59 adventures in9 <adventuresin9@gmail.com>:
>
> > Looks like I have some extra reading to do tonight.
> > The Pine64 folks were kind enough to post the datasheet for the A64
> > https://files.pine64.org/doc/datasheet/pine64/Allwinner_A64_User_Manual_V1.0.pdf
>
> Yes, and they also have the schematics for their boards you'll definitely find useful. I skimmed through the A64 manual (and obviously skipped the irrelevant pages for now), it's big, but well structured.
>
> Btw there's also a lowlevel community specifically for pine devs on their discord (which is also available through matrix and maybe even irc, idk). There's a handful of nice and helpful people there. They also would be happy about a Plan 9 on pinephone, though they probably wouldn't know what to do with it.
>
> My long-term goal is to create a basis for a full Plan 9 phone, that means, building a few basic touch-friendly apps, like a launcher and stuff like that. It will really be a challenge since I want to try capturing the Plan 9 concepts there, for example, it should be easily possible to plumb things, snarf-and-paste, and I'd like to develop a touch-friendly text interface. Obviously there's a long way until I can really run software like that on the pinephone, but due to compatibility I should be able to develop those apps fully on an amd64, run with mouse, and it should work on a pinephone automatically (after recompile).
>
> sirjofri
>

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[unobe]

Quoth adventures in9 <adventuresin9@gmail.com>:
> If you just want rio on a handheld, that has been done.  You can dig
> around the old plan9 code for stuff for the compaq ipaq.  There is
> bitsy/keyboard for on screen keyboard.
> 
> The trickier part is going to be rethinking everything for what is
> effectively a "1 button mouse" style of input.  And that apps run more
> as full screen in virtual desktops than as windows that change
> position.  Or maybe use a tiling window manager?

I ran drawterm w/bitsy/keyboard on the Pine Phone, and was using a mapping of the audio keys
as buttons 2/3 using a keymapper on the linux-side. It'd be better to be native.

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Kurt H Maier]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 01:06:19PM -0800, adventures in9 wrote:
> If you just want rio on a handheld, that has been done.  You can dig
> around the old plan9 code for stuff for the compaq ipaq.  There is
> bitsy/keyboard for on screen keyboard.
> 
> The trickier part is going to be rethinking everything for what is
> effectively a "1 button mouse" style of input.  And that apps run more
> as full screen in virtual desktops than as windows that change
> position.  Or maybe use a tiling window manager?

A lot of this was tried on inferno running on Android as part of the
'hellaphone' project.  So many of the Android abstraction layers have
changed that the project won't run on anything resembling a modern
device, but the UI work is there.  It looks like jfloren did some
pinephone stuff to it a couple years back:

https://github.com/floren/hellaphone/commits/hellaphone

khm

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[sirjofri]

Hello,

I think you guys don't fully understand what I plan to do, UI-wise.

I want a pure Plan 9 phone. This doesn't mean I want an adjusted rio and a way to do mouse clicks to fulfill the expectations of what Plan 9 intended for a desktop UI with a mouse and keyboard.

This means, I want to design a fully new UI system that matches the philosophical expectation of "Plan 9", whatever this means. It's not a definitive concept yet, although I have a few ideas that I want to test out (and bitsy/keyboard will be used as a starter).

The goal is to have a Plan 9 device that really feels like a Plan 9 phone, but with a natural way to interact with the system.

Of course I could just copy smartphone UI stuff from Android (or iOS), but you'll soon feel that it's not a Plan 9 system at all. It'd merely be a "modern" UI with a Plan 9 kernel under the hood, much like you don't feel a linux under Android although it is there.

I want the system to be so Plan 9-ey that you can feel Plan 9 each time you use it. I want the system to be fun in a way that you _want_ to use it. I want the system to be productive so that you _can_ use it. And finally (maybe not finally) I want the system so that you can use it within your bigger context of a Plan 9 grid[1].

It should feel natural to interact with existing backend system components like the plumber. In fact, Android has a similar system with its intents, but I can't just copy that and make it work with plumber; it would never feel right. I have to go back to the roots of Plan 9 UI development and design a new system from the ground up, that feels as natural as clicking with a mouse inside acme or using the context menu to send data to the plumber.

I know this is a big challenge and is definitely worth a paper. I wish I had more time to prepare design documentation and concept descriptions for you. The good thing is, I can very likely start developing (and testing, to some extent) on a Plan 9 system on a computer.

sirjofri


[1] This means, you can naturally access your phone from any grid device et vice versa. So you can basically rcpu into your phone and do phone calls.

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Kurt H Maier]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 09:04:01AM +0100, sirjofri wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I think you guys don't fully understand what I plan to do, UI-wise.
> 
> I want a pure Plan 9 phone. This doesn't mean I want an adjusted rio and a way to do mouse clicks to fulfill the expectations of what Plan 9 intended for a desktop UI with a mouse and keyboard.
> 
> This means, I want to design a fully new UI system that matches the philosophical expectation of "Plan 9", whatever this means. It's not a definitive concept yet, although I have a few ideas that I want to test out (and bitsy/keyboard will be used as a starter).
> 
> The goal is to have a Plan 9 device that really feels like a Plan 9 phone, but with a natural way to interact with the system.
> 
> Of course I could just copy smartphone UI stuff from Android (or iOS), but you'll soon feel that it's not a Plan 9 system at all. It'd merely be a "modern" UI with a Plan 9 kernel under the hood, much like you don't feel a linux under Android although it is there.
> 
> I want the system to be so Plan 9-ey that you can feel Plan 9 each time you use it. I want the system to be fun in a way that you _want_ to use it. I want the system to be productive so that you _can_ use it. And finally (maybe not finally) I want the system so that you can use it within your bigger context of a Plan 9 grid[1].
> 
> It should feel natural to interact with existing backend system components like the plumber. In fact, Android has a similar system with its intents, but I can't just copy that and make it work with plumber; it would never feel right. I have to go back to the roots of Plan 9 UI development and design a new system from the ground up, that feels as natural as clicking with a mouse inside acme or using the context menu to send data to the plumber.
> 
> I know this is a big challenge and is definitely worth a paper. I wish I had more time to prepare design documentation and concept descriptions for you. The good thing is, I can very likely start developing (and testing, to some extent) on a Plan 9 system on a computer.
> 
> sirjofri
> 
> 
> [1] This means, you can naturally access your phone from any grid device et vice versa. So you can basically rcpu into your phone and do phone calls.

Yes, this is what the hellaphone project was, but with inferno.  The
Android pieces were basically hardware enablement and inferno tied into
things like audioflinger.  There was no android UI left running.  You
instead had a filesystem-based interface to the phone radio etc, with
some basic touch-oriented UI served on top.  It was a similar approach
to Mer's libhybris effort but with inferno doing plan-9-style things
instead of lumping more linux on top.

I suggest you look at what hellphone did before dismissing it entirely.
I also suggest that before you start developing anything you come to
some kind of definition of what Plan 9 "feels like."

Good luck,
khm

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[sirjofri]

29.11.2022 15:44:31 Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net>:
> Yes, this is what the hellaphone project was, but with inferno.  The
> Android pieces were basically hardware enablement and inferno tied into
> things like audioflinger.  There was no android UI left running.  You
> instead had a filesystem-based interface to the phone radio etc, with
> some basic touch-oriented UI served on top.  It was a similar approach
> to Mer's libhybris effort but with inferno doing plan-9-style things
> instead of lumping more linux on top.
>
> I suggest you look at what hellphone did before dismissing it entirely.
> I also suggest that before you start developing anything you come to
> some kind of definition of what Plan 9 "feels like."

I am very aware of what hellaphone did. Probably not that much into detail, but I really like their approach (besides having Android as a backend and that I generally don't really like the inferno UI stuff). Also I didn't really dismiss hellaphone entirely, my response was more towards the other mails in this thread.

I can start developing anything I like (as much as you can suggest anything you like), and surely, looking at what Plan 9 "feels like" is part of that development.

I think it's really hard (if not impossible) to find a definitive definition for that, especially considering "the user factor". But I believe it is necessary to develop something(TM) and give it to testers to see if it matches their expectations and extract the "Plan 9 feel" from user feedback to further improve.

Note that "develop" in this context doesn't mean a finak product, but also concepts and graphics that can lead to further discussion and improvement for the designs.

sirjofri

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Tom Schwindl]

On Tue Nov 29, 2022 at 5:50 PM CET, sirjofri wrote:
>
> 29.11.2022 15:44:31 Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net>:
> > Yes, this is what the hellaphone project was, but with inferno.  The
> > Android pieces were basically hardware enablement and inferno tied into
> > things like audioflinger.  There was no android UI left running.  You
> > instead had a filesystem-based interface to the phone radio etc, with
> > some basic touch-oriented UI served on top.  It was a similar approach
> > to Mer's libhybris effort but with inferno doing plan-9-style things
> > instead of lumping more linux on top.
> >
> > I suggest you look at what hellphone did before dismissing it entirely.
> > I also suggest that before you start developing anything you come to
> > some kind of definition of what Plan 9 "feels like."
>
> I am very aware of what hellaphone did. Probably not that much into detail, but I really like their approach (besides having Android as a backend and that I generally don't really like the inferno UI stuff). Also I didn't really dismiss hellaphone entirely, my response was more towards the other mails in this thread.
>
> I can start developing anything I like (as much as you can suggest anything you like), and surely, looking at what Plan 9 "feels like" is part of that development.
>
> I think it's really hard (if not impossible) to find a definitive definition for that, especially considering "the user factor". But I believe it is necessary to develop something(TM) and give it to testers to see if it matches their expectations and extract the "Plan 9 feel" from user feedback to further improve.
>
> Note that "develop" in this context doesn't mean a finak product, but also concepts and graphics that can lead to further discussion and improvement for the designs.
>
> sirjofri

I really like this idea. Since I own a Pinephone Pro myself, feel free to email
me if you have something ready that needs to be tested.

--
Best Regards,
Tom Schwindl

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[adventures in9]

I also got the RockPro64, which uses the same rk3399 cpu the Pinephone
Pro and Pinebook Pro uses.  So it is also in line for getting a
kernel.  It does look like it will be a bit more of a challenge, since
it seems to have a reputation for poor battery life, so playing with
the power management will be important.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 10:09 AM Tom Schwindl <schwindl@posteo.de> wrote:
>
> I really like this idea. Since I own a Pinephone Pro myself, feel free to email
> me if you have something ready that needs to be tested.
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Tom Schwindl

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Tom Schwindl]

On Tue Nov 29, 2022 at 7:59 PM CET, adventures in9 wrote:
> I also got the RockPro64, which uses the same rk3399 cpu the Pinephone
> Pro and Pinebook Pro uses.  So it is also in line for getting a
> kernel.  It does look like it will be a bit more of a challenge, since
> it seems to have a reputation for poor battery life, so playing with
> the power management will be important.
>

I'll definitely look into it as soon as I got some spare time.
I also stumbled across this link[1] which lists a number of resources that
look pretty helpful.

[1] https://www.netbsd.org/~mrg/rk3399/

--
Best Regards,
Tom Schwindl

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Stuart Morrow]

On 29/11/2022, sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9front@sirjofri.de> wrote:
> I want the system to be so Plan 9-ey that you can feel Plan 9 each time
> you use it. I want the system to be fun in a way that you _want_ to use
> it. I want the system to be productive so that you _can_ use it. And
> finally (maybe not finally) I want the system so that you can use it
> within your bigger context of a Plan 9 grid

You want "a handset that's actually a computer". I think we all did,
and then smartphones actually came out as something that normies like
and the rest of us grumble over.

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[adventures in9]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 6:42 PM Stuart Morrow <morrow.stuart@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You want "a handset that's actually a computer". I think we all did,
> and then smartphones actually came out as something that normies like
> and the rest of us grumble over.

I had a Nokia N900, and I still judge every smartphone I've bought
since against it.

> I wouldn't start with the assumption that multitouch means screen is
> small when we already know that's not true.

The A64 is interesting in that there are cheap options for it in a 6"
phone, 10" tablet, 11.6" laptop, and an sbc you can hook whatever
monitor to.  So quite a few options for developing user interfaces.

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Stuart Morrow]

> The A64 is interesting in that there are cheap options for it in a 6"
> phone, 10" tablet, 11.6" laptop, and an sbc you can hook whatever
> monitor to.  So quite a few options for developing user interfaces.

I was actually referring to touchscreens in the PC world. But yeah,
it's all USB.

Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[Stuart Morrow]

On 28/11/2022, adventures in9 <adventuresin9@gmail.com> wrote:
> And that apps run more as full screen in virtual desktops than as
> windows that change position.  Or maybe use a tiling window manager?

I wouldn't start with the assumption that multitouch means screen is
small when we already know that's not true.