Problem with consumer/dragonboard820c/getting-started/README.md

[daniel-thompson]

This is a Getting Started guide for the DB820C but most of the table is just stating the 820E hardware specs and, for the DB820C may not be strictly accurate.

Two issues:

1. "custom 64-bit Kryo quad-core CPU up to 2.35GHz" is contradicted by the Qualcomm website which suggests 2.15GHz (is the 2.35GHz figure cross talk from the Snapdragon 821?)
2. "Adreno™ 530 GPU OpenGL ES 3.1 + AEP, OpenCL2.0 Full1, Vulcan, Renderscript, 64-bit virtual addressing" describes the GPU hardware but AFAIK there are no plans to release any drivers that support OpenCL2 or Renderscript. Not sure if Mesa3D+Freedreno will support Vulkan but it would be good to check (and to fix the spelling).

Both of these issues originate on the forums:

1. https://discuss.96boards.org/t/820e-cpu-speed-1-593ghz/4103
2. https://discuss.96boards.org/t/opencl-2-0-on-dragonboard-820c/4171

URL: https://www.96boards.org/documentation/consumer/dragonboard820c/getting-started/

[ndechesne]

well, i think most of our 'getting started' describe the hardware platform, which I think make sense. This is the full capability of the platform.

the software support on a given platform depends , well on the software loaded on the board. How do you think we should organize information? if we want to list software features, which software do we pick?

I would suggest to make it clear that the capabilities are for the platform itself, and that each software build is likely a subset of it, and ask users to check associated software release notes for the details.

[daniel-thompson]

Sorry but no... there is a product page to describe the hardware (and even there I think raising false expectations is misguided).

However, the Getting Started page should provide practical help on how to get started using the board. Knowing how fast the Kyro clocks and what the GPU would have been able to do if you had bought a Pixel instead does absolutely nothing to help the user get started using the board. It merely raises false expectation at the beginning of the journey.

[daniel-thompson]

A simple solution would be to see if a number of 96Boards folks (paging @sdrobertw @ric96 @Mani-Sadhasivam ) agree that hardware specs have no business being repeated in a getting started guide. If so we nuke the whole useless section and turn out attention to putting helpful material in the getting started pages instead ;-) .

Sorry to be harsh about these tables but to me they fill like padding, especially with "Hardware Docs" being immediately below "Getting Started" these tables aren't even what you expect to read when you follow the click trail.

Note that a good argument and/or discussion about streamlining the docs to be better for getting started, is already pencilled in for connect ;-)

[ndechesne]

what i meant is that a hardware description is a valid thing to have, and that an up-to-date software description is very hard to get.. now that i read your latest comments:

• software description belongs to release notes, since they are specific to kernel, distro, build, ..
• hardware description belongs to the vendor and qualcomm has a good page on qdn already (https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/dragonboard-820c)
• i agree that this section in the 'getting started' should be removed.