ubuntu: release notes update for 15.03

Signed-off-by: Nicolas Dechesne <nicolas.dechesne@linaro.org>

1 files changed, 83 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/ubuntu/boards/snapdragon/README.textile.in b/ubuntu/boards/snapdragon/README.textile.in
index 28aea88..6b12cde 100644
--- a/ubuntu/boards/snapdragon/README.textile.in
+++ b/ubuntu/boards/snapdragon/README.textile.in
@@ -2,12 +2,14 @@ The Linaro Qualcomm Landing Team is pleased to announce the new release of the _
 
 h4. What's new in this release
 
-* Bluetooth audio
-* USB Serial drivers are enabled by default (as modules)
+* Based on Linux kernel 3.19
+* Upgrade to Mesa master branch as of 03/10/2015 (commit: 5750595c)
+* Hardware accelerated video playback support (using Linux kernel 3.4)
+* Upgrade images build to Docker-based infrastructure
 * Bug fixed:
-** "Static eth0 configuration should be disabled":https://bugs.linaro.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1140
+** n/a
 
-This is the third release of a new series for the Linaro Linux release for Snapdragon 600 processor. Going forward, the Linaro member monthly builds for Snapdragon 600 processor will be providing a kernel based on the current Linux kernel ("www.kernel.org":https://www.kernel.org) available at the time of the release. The goals of the Linaro Linux releases for Snapdragon 600 processor are to align with the latest Linux Kernel, close the gaps in features provided and migrate from the existing 3.4 vendor kernel. One immediate consequence of this migration is that some regressions are expected. Current regressions include: lack of audio support, video hardware acceleration and support for running CPU beyond 1Ghz. Developers can continue to use the "Linaro Linux release 14.10 for Snapdragon 600 processor":http://releases.linaro.org/14.10/ubuntu/ifc6410/, which is based on Linux kernel v3.4 and Ubuntu 14.04 if needed.
+This is the fifth release of a new series for the Linaro Linux release for Snapdragon 600 processor. Going forward, the Linaro member monthly builds for Snapdragon 600 processor will be providing a kernel based on the current Linux kernel ("www.kernel.org":https://www.kernel.org) available at the time of the release. The goals of the Linaro Linux releases for Snapdragon 600 processor are to align with the latest Linux Kernel, close the gaps in features provided and migrate from the existing 3.4 vendor kernel. One immediate consequence of this migration is that some regressions are expected. Current regressions include: lack of audio support, video hardware acceleration and support for running CPU beyond 1Ghz. Developers can continue to use the "Linaro Linux release 14.10 for Snapdragon 600 processor":http://releases.linaro.org/14.10/ubuntu/ifc6410/, which is based on Linux kernel v3.4 and Ubuntu 14.04 if needed.
 
 h4. Features
 
@@ -346,6 +348,83 @@ The SD card or USB drive is now ready to be plugged and used on the target. For
 bc. abootimg -u boot-qcom-apq8064-ifc6410-qcom-snapdragon-##VERSION##.img -c "cmdline=console=ttyMSM0,115200n8 root=/dev/sda1 rootwait rw text"
 sudo fastboot flash boot boot-qcom-apq8064-ifc6410-qcom-snapdragon-##VERSION##.img
 
+h4. Gstreamer video playback technology preview
+
+An intial version of Gstreamer video decoder plugin is now available. It is not included in the image by default, and this section provides detailed information to build and use the Gstreamer plugin.
+
+As of this release, this plugin can decode MPEG4 and H264 videos, and it generates raw video using a custom NV12 tiled format. The support for this non standard raw video format has been added to upstream Gstreamer v1.4. This raw video format is depicted in details "here":http://linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis/re31.html. You can use Gstreamer to generate a raw video frame test pattern using this format and render in a X11 window. To do so, you first need to install the following packages on the board:
+
+bc. sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
+
+Then you can run the following commands from the root console prompt, that first initialize a minimal X11 window manager:
+
+bc. export DISPLAY=:0
+X&
+metacity&
+gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! video/x-raw,format=NV12_64Z32,width=1280,height=720 ! videoconvert ! ximagesink
+
+This Gstreamer application will generate raw video frames and render them in an X11 window. The scaling and color conversion are all done using the CPU, as you can see from the CPU load. Gstreamer also provides another video sink that can be used as an alternative: @glimagesink@. This Gstreamer video sink, which is working fine with this release, uses the GPU, through the freedreno driver, to render the raw video frames:
+
+bc. gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! video/x-raw,format=NV12_64Z32,width=1280,height=720 ! videoconvert ! glimagesink
+
+In this case the CPU is used for the conversion from NV12 tiled format to raw un-tiled YUV, and the GPU is used for scaling and color converstion, you can check the CPU load is much less.
+
+In order to use video acceleration, a specific kernel must be used. Hence you need to download, install and boot the kernel from the Linaro 14.10 release:
+
+On the board running the current release, you need to run the following commands:
+
+bc. cd /tmp
+wget dpkg -x linux-image-3.4.0-linaro-ifc6410_3.4.0-linaro-ifc6410-1_armhf.deb linaro_14.10
+dpkg -x linux-image-3.4.0-linaro-ifc6410_3.4.0-linaro-ifc6410-1_armhf.deb linaro_14.10
+cp -a linaro_14.10/lib/modules/3.4.0-linaro-ifc6410/ /lib/modules
+
+On your PC, download the following file:
+
+bc. wget http://releases.linaro.org/14.10/ubuntu/ifc6410/boot-ifc6410-20141024-37.img.gz
+gunzip http://releases.linaro.org/14.10/ubuntu/ifc6410/boot-ifc6410-20141024-37.img.gz
+
+To play a video file using the hardware acceleration, you also need to install the following package on the board:
+
+bc. sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-qcvideo gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
+
+Finally, you need to reboot the board:
+
+bc. sudo reboot
+
+And boot with the Linaro 14.10 kernel, you just downloaded:
+
+bc. sudo fastboot boot boot-ifc6410-20141024-37.img
+
+Once the plugin is installed and the board booted with the 3.4 kernel from Linaro 14.10, you can use the plugin:
+
+bc. X&
+metacity&
+gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=http://mirrorblender.top-ix.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_720p_surround.avi
+
+Note that dependeing on your network bandwidth, it is probably better to download the video file locally first, and play a local file.
+
+If you are running the Gnome image, you can also login into Gnome shell with the @linaro@ user, and from the terminal console, you can run:
+
+bc. gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=http://mirrorblender.top-ix.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_720p_surround.avi
+
+To print the plugin debug messages you can use the standard Gstreamer debug infrastructure:
+
+bc. export GST_DEBUG=qcvideodec:5
+gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=http://mirrorblender.top-ix.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_720p_surround.avi
+
+Firefox is using Gstreamer as its main media framework, as a consequence, if you try to open a web page with HTML video, such as Video.js:"http://www.videojs.com/", then the video will be decoded using hardware acceleration. If @GST_DEBUG@ is set before you start Firefox, you will be able to see the plugin debug messages in the terminal.
+
+If you want to rebuild the plugin from source, you can use the following instructions:
+
+bc. sudo apt-get install build-essential git autotools-dev autoconf libtool libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev
+git clone http://git.linaro.org/landing-teams/working/qualcomm/gst-plugin-qcvideo.git
+cd gst-plugin-qcvideo/
+./autogen.sh
+make
+sudo make install
+
 h4. Known issues and limitations
 
 * The serial/uart driver does not support high speed transfer, and is limited to 115200 speed. Since UART is used between the on-boart Bluetooth devices and the SoC, this limits the bandwidth between Bluetooth device and the Snapdragon 600. Some use cases such as Bluetooth audio cannot work properly at such low speed. Some other use cases such as data transfer will work but slower than expected. Suppport for high speed UART is being implemented, and will be released in a future release.