I now have Android-x86 running Freedreno on my IFC6410 \o/!
The setup:
on an IFC6410 (A320 GPU) with an ancient CRT
The gralloc module carries two responsibilities: providing an interface to /dev/graphics/fb0 for creating FrameBufferNativeWindow-s and, handling buffer requests that come in through a singleton system wide GraphicBufferAllocator object. Each request is stamped with a usage flag to help gralloc decide how to provide it.
Current setup uses the default eglSwapBuffers() based HWC, i.e. all-GPU composition for now:
$ dumpsys SurfaceFlinger [...] numHwLayers=3, flags=00000000 type | handle | hints | flags | tr | blend | format | source crop | frame name ------------+----------+----------+----------+----+-------+----------+---------------------------------+-------------------------------- GLES | 2a2a31e0 | 00000000 | 00000000 | 00 | 00100 | 00000005 | [ 0, 13, 1024, 744] | [ 0, 13, 1024, 744] com.example.android.home/com.example.android.home.Home GLES | 2a060ad8 | 00000000 | 00000000 | 00 | 00105 | 00000005 | [ 0, 0, 1024, 13] | [ 0, 0, 1024, 13] StatusBar GLES | 2a0614d8 | 00000000 | 00000000 | 00 | 00105 | 00000005 | [ 0, 0, 1024, 24] | [ 0, 744, 1024, 768] NavigationBar
Shortlog of issues faced:
I started with getting bare kitkat-x86 up on the IFC6410 with an ARM build setup. Fast forward multiple tries figuring out the build system and setting up the board-specific init scripts, I added Mesa to the build. The default HWC doesn’t implement blank(), which took some time to realize and fix a segfault. With all parts in place, I had the boot logo, with two boot flows due to a race condition. Disabling GPU authentication was another hack that needed to be put in.
Finally, I had Skia causing trouble while starting the UI. This turned out to be a simple fix to drm_gralloc, but had me looking everywhere through the sources and mistaking it to be a NEON specific issue with Skia.
Quirks:
Currently, Android only renders a few windows before SurfaceFlinger crashes while gralloc::unregisterBuffer() and restarts. Also, dexopt dies causing app installation failure, so not many apps to play around with.
TODOs:
- Add a KMS based Hardware Composer.
- GBM for drm_gralloc
Here is my trello board: https://trello.com/b/bIXu6QL6/freedreno-android
Thanks Rob, Emil, #freedreno, #android-x86 and #linaro!
/home/varad 
Btw, on topic of gbm, someone (Emil?) brought up the point that mesa gbm drags in dependency on all of mesa, which might be a bit heavy in terms of dependencies for gralloc. One option to consider is something like minigbm:
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/minigbm/+/master
Which implements the same gbm interface in a more minimalistic way. It would of course need freedreno/msm support, but that looks like it would be fairly straightforward (ie. more or less one ~50 line .c file). I guess from the drm_gralloc code, it shouldn’t matter one way or another, since both gbm’s implement the same interface.
Other than that, I think dri3 support for android would be a pretty good thing.. since it would avoid the need for auth hack.
Happy to see that you have managed to get the Andriod-x86 up on the Inforce 6410 board. Meanwhile, Inforce has upgraded 6410 with a new version in June with newer interfaces,GPS, shorter profile, etc. at the same price as the previous generation. See http://www.inforcecomputing.com/6410-plus-single-board-computer-sbc