[Openpvrsgx-devgroup] Reverse engineering SGX 540 userspace driver

[Lucas Fryzek]

> Hello Nikolaus,
> 
>> 
>> It *could* work but was never tested. We have the matching DDK 
>> release version in the tree. Just choose 
>> CONFIG_PVRSGX_1_14_3759903=y
>> It may be that the branch is missing some fixes that have been 
>> applied to the versions CONFIG_PVRSGX_1_14_3699939 and 
>> CONFIG_PVRSGX_1_17_4948957 which are more or less well running on 
>> OMAP3/4/5.
>> 
>> Do you have the user space for 1.14.3759903? I am not sure but it 
>> may be stored in the factory flash image.
>> 
>>>  I'm trying to get a setup right now where I can compile a kernel 
>>> mode driver and make modifications to get a better idea on how 
>>> the GPU is being controlled. If I can use a more modern kernel 
>>> and linux userland that would be very nice.
>> 
>> Just get the letux tree: 
>> https://github.com/goldelico/letux-kernel/tree/letux-5.15
>> 
>> It includes everything incl. HDMI driver for the CI20 (use 
>> letux_defconfig) and compiles the SGX driver that is configured. 
>> But the default is CONFIG_PVRSGX_1_17_4948957=y so there may be 
>> surprises when switching to CONFIG_PVRSGX_1_14_3759903 we can 
>> discuss how to fix.
> I believe my board is currently flashed with the `Debian 8 
> 2015-09-09` image from this webpage https://elinux.org/CI20_Distros.
> I took a look through the filesystem and I cannot find the DDK as a 
> zip package, but all of the PVR libraries seem to be versioned as 
> `1.14.544606452`. The reason I referred to `1.14.3759903` before was 
> this is the version listed on this web page 
> https://elinux.org/CI20-SGX_kernel_module.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what the latest available kernel module + userland is 
> for the CI20. I did find this git repo 
> https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_PVR-prebuilts, that seems to have 
> userland libraries for version `1.15.4568187`. But I'm not if there 
> is a matching open source kernel driver for this repo.
> 
> 
> I am currently trying to get a setup where I can build the open PVR 
> kernel module and have it work with the userspace. I've been working. 
> Building my own kernel with the old debian images seems to break DRM, 
> so I suspect there is so version mismatching going on. I'll take a 
> look at the kernel in the letux project instead as this looks like a 
> more productive use of my time. I'll also take a look at some of the 
> older debian images for the CI20 to see if the `1.14.3759903` to 
> attempt to use with the letux kernel.
So I managed to get the letux kernel building and running on my CI20. 
Had a bit of trouble there where the prebuilt kernels don't see to run 
properly on the CI20, but once I grabbed the latest kernel from github 
and built that everything seemed to work fine. I managed to find the 
`1.14.3759903` userland at this link 
https://ftp.radix.pro/3pp/Imagination/ci20/

I changed the kernel config to build the kernel module version 
`1.14.3759903`, there were several errors but I just looked at the 
`1.17` version and copied the fixed from there. Unfortunately the 
userland does not seem to be happy, I tried testing a few of the 
applications and none of them seem to work. I ran `strace` on the 
binaries and it looks like they call `DRM_IOCTL_VERSION`, are unhappy 
with results and then error out saying they can't find a PVR GPU.

I think to do any effective reverse engineering of the GPU I'll need a 
working userland, so it looks like I have a bit of work there :P The 
DRM version error gives a path to start looking, so I'll try messing 
with that and see where I can go from there.