Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

.:B:. · 2010-01-11 14:26:54

After the announcement of Broadcom's Crystal HD BCM970012 chip that allows hardware-accelerated 1080p playback with GPL'ed Linux drivers I am contemplating purchasing one of these and an Apple TV to still my hunger for breaking things (and running Linux on them).

I grabbed the source code out of curiosity (the Broadcom product page says any kernel from 2.6.11 on should work), unzipped it, but I cannot find out how to build the driver. There is C code, some headers, and a configure.ac and a Makefile.in, but nothing more (I panic when I see anything non-autotools ):

/home/stijn/downloads/crystalhd/driver/linux
[stijn@hermes linux]$ ls
bcm_70012_dev.sh  configure.ac      crystalhd_cmds.h   crystalhd_hw.c  crystalhd_lnx.c  crystalhd_misc.c  Makefile.in     modules.order
bcm_70012_run.sh  crystalhd_cmds.c  crystalhd_fw_if.h  crystalhd_hw.h  crystalhd_lnx.h  crystalhd_misc.h  Module.markers

Configure.ac reads like this:

AC_INIT(configure.ac)
AC_CHECK_TOOL(LD, ld, :)

AC_ARG_WITH(kernel-path, [  --with-kernel-path    Specify kernel path],
    KERN_DIR=$withval, KERN_DIR="/lib/modules/"$(uname -r)"/build")


CRYSTALHDROOT="$(pwd)"

AC_SUBST(CRYSTALHDROOT)
AC_SUBST(KERN_DIR)

AC_OUTPUT([
./Makefile
])

I ran autoconf on that file (seems it's an input file for autoconf?) and get a configure script produced, which gives me this when i run it:

[stijn@hermes linux]$ ./configure 
checking for ld... ld
configure: creating ./config.status
.in'ig.status: error: cannot find input file: `

Anyone?

.:B:. · 2010-01-12 17:02:13

Well... I can see where this is going .

punakuono · 2010-01-23 06:57:50

I am also wery interested in this chip and found this git repository:
http://git.wilsonet.com/crystalhd.git/

I found the link there from this XBMC forum thread:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=66650&page=3

The driver seemed to compile ok on my netbook, but I didn't really know what to do with it since I don't have the chip yet. I'm not that familiar with creating PKGBUILDs for this kind of stuff either. Maybe someone more experienced could help out here?

If anyone gets this chip working in Arch linux, I would very much like to hear from it.

.:B:. · 2010-01-23 07:02:22

Cool, thanks. I plan on getting an Apple TV and putting Linux on it - not sure if it will be Arch or Ubuntu (Ubuntu would be the lazy way ). I'll report back once I have the hardware, but it won't be for a few months....

punakuono · 2010-02-04 16:27:29

I got my crystalHD-chip yesterday. There were already some packages in AUR (crystalhd, libcrystalhd, crystalhd-firmware), but those were for some reason using the sources from broadcom and not the git version of wilsonet.com, so I made git-versions of those PKGBUILDS. They can be found here:

crystalhd-git (the kernel module):
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=34308

libcrystalhd-git (the library):
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=34309

I figured the firmware is the same as in git, so no point remaking that.
Now I have the kernel module loaded, but I haven't got a media player that would know how to make use of this. I compiled xbmc-svn from AUR, but it gave me an "out of memory" error, when I tried to run it. I really hope that mplayer gains support for this chip soon.
So, if you have any ideas about how to test this, or find some errors in the PKGBUILDs, please let me know.

Last edited by punakuono (2010-02-04 16:30:20)

pablored · 2010-02-07 15:46:29

I have been using the CrystalHD chip in my netbook for a week and a bit now. It works great with 720p MKV in xbmc-svn, so long as you have selected to use the decoder in the settings menu. I didn't use any AUR packages just did the old make, make install on the kernel and lib packages but that should be the same. I am using xbmc-svn version 27285-1. I recommend using the alaska skin.

... just remembered, I had to add --enable-crystalhd to the configure options of xbmc-svn. Pretty d*mn important.

Last edited by pablored (2010-02-07 15:49:02)

.:B:. · 2010-03-02 13:31:13

I bought a second-hand Apple TV and ordered a Broadcom Crystal HD. Pretty excited about it . If there's anyone who's done the legwork of getting Arch to run on the Apple TV, let me know if you have any useful info. I think in the long run I'll be happier with Arch than with Ubuntu on it.

brendan · 2010-03-03 11:55:58

.:B:. wrote:

I bought a second-hand Apple TV and ordered a Broadcom Crystal HD. Pretty excited about it . If there's anyone who's done the legwork of getting Arch to run on the Apple TV, let me know if you have any useful info. I think in the long run I'll be happier with Arch than with Ubuntu on it.

Why would you get an apple TV instead of an Acer revo R3600? (this is an actual question not just a fanboi rave)

.:B:. · 2010-03-08 04:24:44

Well i think the AppleTV fits better into a living room, for one. A second plus is it has integrated IR (which the Acer Revo does not seem to have). A third plus is (according to some reviews) it seems to consume less than your typical Atom/Ion setup. A few of those sites tend to test 35W setups with 1000W PSUs though, so that's not really a reference... A fourth plus is it's a passively cooled system. I don't know if the Revo has a fan?

I have been considering nVidia's Ion platform (and the Acer Revo) but I'm really excited about this whole Atom thing, as good as nVidia's chipset may be. The hardware in the AppleTV is inferior when it comes to Full HD playback, but the Broadcom Crystal HD remedies that . The limited storage in the AppleTV is no problem for me either; I will be streaming almost everything to it, I have a nice server to put my stuff on.

There's also the geek factor of course, I love a good hacking project .

I have seen some crystalhd packages in the AUR. Do I need all three? I know you need the firmware and the kernel driver, but I was wondering about libcrystalhd.

Edit: seems the latter is a userspace library, so I guess I'll need all three.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-11 14:26:54

Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#2 2010-01-12 17:02:13

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#3 2010-01-23 06:57:50

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#4 2010-01-23 07:02:22

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#5 2010-02-04 16:27:29

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#6 2010-02-07 15:46:29

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#7 2010-03-02 13:31:13

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#8 2010-03-03 11:55:58

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

#9 2010-03-08 04:24:44

Re: Broadcom Crystal HD driver - building instructions?

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