The purpose of this page is to describe how the ARM MALI driver is integrated into Zynq™ UltraScale+™ MPSoC

Overview

Zynq™ UltraScale+™ MPSoC has the MALI 400MP GPU from ARM. The ARM MALI 400MP is an OpenGLES 2.0 capable GPU.

Driver access and license

The driver for MALI 400MP consists of Linux kernel driver and user library. The user space library is proprietary licensed and will have to be distributed as binaries. The user space library will be provided through AMD's PetaLinux release. The Linux kernel driver is GPL licensed, and downloadable from http://malideveloper.arm.com/. Until 2016.4, the kernel driver was hosted on github. From 2017.1, the kernel driver hosted on github is deprecated. This will now be downloaded from ARM website and packaged into the PetaLinux BSP.

Note: From 2019.2 onwards the user-space binaries in the lounge are not hosted. Customers can download from https://github.com/Xilinx/mali-userspace-binaries with appropriate branch.

Release version
The driver is released periodically by ARM. Thus there can be multiple versions available. The default version in Kconfig points to the latest working release.

Device tree binding

The DT binding documentation is included in the driver release. Download the kernel driver tarball from http://malideveloper.arm.com/., unzip it and the DT binding documentation is available at the folder path.
"driver/documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/mali-utgard.txt"

Runtime power management

The MALI driver supports fine grained runtime power management based on Linux runtime PM APIs, with its own scheduler. This section describes the flow of specific driver version, r7p0-00rel0, to give an overview.

First the driver implements the Linux runtime PM callbacks (in mali_kernel_linux.c), and the runtime pm is enabled in device initialization (arm.c)

static const struct dev_pm_ops mali_dev_pm_ops = {
#ifdef CONFIG_PM_RUNTIME
        .runtime_suspend = mali_driver_runtime_suspend,
        .runtime_resume = mali_driver_runtime_resume,
        .runtime_idle = mali_driver_runtime_idle,
#endif
        .suspend = mali_driver_suspend_scheduler,
        .resume = mali_driver_resume_scheduler,
        .freeze = mali_driver_suspend_scheduler,
        .thaw = mali_driver_resume_scheduler,
        .poweroff = mali_driver_suspend_scheduler,
};
#endif

mali_platform_device_register()
{
        ...
        pm_runtime_set_autosuspend_delay(&&(mali_gpu_device.dev), 1000);
        pm_runtime_use_autosuspend(&&(mali_gpu_device.dev));
#endif
        pm_runtime_enable(&&(mali_gpu_device.dev));
        ...
}

Then, the driver has its own scheduler (mali_scheduler.c) that tracks any activities of all GPU processors (GP: geometry processor, PP: pixel processor). All activities on those processors are created as a job (ex, gp job / pp job) and scheduled through this scheduler. The scheduler tracks the completion of the job as well. Based on the status, the scheduler sets the runtime pm reference count accordingly (mali_scheduler.c). Below is an example for GP. Equivalent functions exist for PP.

mali_scheduler_queue_gp_job()
{
        ...
        _mali_osk_pm_dev_ref_get_async()
        ...
}
 
mali_scheduler_complete_gp_job()
{
        ...
        _mali_osk_pm_dev_ref_pet_async()
        ...
}

When the reference count reaches to 0, the runtime_suspend callback will be triggered: runtime_suspend callback -> mali_driver_runtime_suspend() -> mali_pm_runtime_suspend() -> mali_pm_common_suspend(). mali_pm_common_suspend() performs a series of operations to put all relevant modules, ex, l2 cache and mmu, in idle state. Reverse operations is performed when resuming.

mali_pm_common_suspend()
{
        ...
        if (0 < num_groups_down) {
                mali_executor_group_power_down(groups_down, num_groups_down);
                }
 
        for (i = 0; i < num_l2_down; i++) {
                mali_l2_cache_power_down(l2_down[i]);
        }
 
        ...
}

The driver level handling eventually triggers the platform level power domain management. Underlying runtime pm and genpd implementation triggers the firmware APIs at the end. It's not scope of this documentation.

GPU software stack

Changelog

2023.1
- Fix for compatibility with 6.1 Linux kernel
- Updated clock name to match LIMA driver
- Added attribute support for weston
- Performance Issues with Weston 10+ in 2023.1. So below is AR for downgrading weston to 9.0.0
  - https://support.xilinx.com/s/article/000035056?language=en_US
2021.1
- Update EGL headers
- Fix for compatibility with 5.10 Linux kernel

Selecting particular backends:

You can select particular backend while configuring rootfs

File: project-spec/config/rootfs_config

petalinux-config -c rootfs

Wayland/GBM backend:
By default, plnx build system will try to package all the backends in the rootfs and depending upon the rootfs config, we create a link to the correct backend. Fbdev, X11, wayland and headless are the choices we have.
For example: Once you have selected libmali through 'petalinux-config -c rootfs', select backend to wayland and unselect 'packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox' and 'packagegroup-petalinux-x11' and select 'packagegroup-petalinux-weston'. After selection your rootfs_config will look as below.
```
CONFIG_libmali-xlnx=y
CONFIG_mali-backend-wayland=y
```
This packagegroup ensures all the essential wayland/weston packages are packaged into the rootfs for having a wayland/weston application work out of the box. On boot, export following parameter in your terminal console.
```
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/
```
Now, you can run sample benchmarking application glmark2-es2-wayland.
X11 backend:
By default, Mali supports X11 backend. Just select libmali-xlnx package from 'petalinux-config -c rootfs'. The root filesystem should now have libmali with X11 support. Also, please select at least one window manager. For example: packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox.
Once you have selected libmali through 'petalinux-config -c rootfs', and selected backend to x11, your rootfs_config will look as below.
CONFIG_libmali-xlnx=y CONFIG_mali-backend-x11=y
Fbdev backend:
Just select libmali-xlnx package from 'petalinux-config -c rootfs' and select fbdev backend.
Once you have selected libmali through 'petalinux-config -c rootfs' unselect 'packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox' and 'packagegroup-petalinux-x11'. Your rootfs_config will look as below.
CONFIG_libmali-xlnx=y CONFIG_mali-backend-fbdev=y
Headless-EGL backend:
Just select libmali-xlnx package from 'petalinux-config -c rootfs' and select headless backend. Unselect 'packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox' and 'packagegroup-petalinux-x11'.
Once you have selected libmali through 'petalinux-config -c rootfs', and selected backend to headless, your rootfs_config will look as below.
```
CONFIG_libmali-xlnx=y
CONFIG_mali-backend-headless=y
```
Please find more details for Headless rendering on below page.
Mali 400 Headless rendering

Benchmark:

To run a benchmark example for x11 and wayland backend, please add below lines to build/conf/local.conf

IMAGE_INSTALL:append = "glmark2"

Update-alternatives:

You should have all backends packaged in the rootfs and you can switch between multiple backends using update-alternatives commands as follows:

To Update a link:

update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/libMali.so.9.0 libmali /usr/lib/fbdev/libMali.so.9.0 90

To remove a link:

update-alternatives --remove libmali /usr/lib/libMali.so.9.0

For more info, perform update-alternatives --help

Alternate solution: Users can always modify links using "ln" commands

Running GPU applications:

Create project

source settings.sh
petalinux-create -t project -s xilinx-zcu106-v2023.1-final.bsp

Setting Petalinux BSP configuration

File: project-spec/meta-user/conf/petalinuxbsp.conf

For generating rootfs for compiling application or any libraries add below configs

EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks dev-pkgs"

Enabling and disabling rootfs configs

petalinux-config -c rootfs

For enabling qt application for any backend
CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-qt=y

x11
CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox=y
CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-x11=y
fbdev
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox is not set
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-x11 is not set
wayland
CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-weston=y
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox is not set
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-x11 is not set
headless backend
CONFIG_libmali-xlnx=y
CONFIG_mali-backend-headless=y
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-x11 is not set
# CONFIG_packagegroup-petalinux-matchbox is not set

Building project

petalinux-build

Running applications

GLMARK2 application
1. x11 backend
  1. Run Xorg application in backend or start xserver service if not running
    Xorg -depth 16 & systemctl start xserver-nodm
  2. Run glmark application
    export DISPLAY=:0.0 glmark2-es2
2. wayland backend
  1. Start weston if not running
    systemctl start weston
  2. Run glmark application
    export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/ glmark2-es2-wayland

QT applications

x11 backend (Xorg should be running or xserver-nodm service should be started)

Run Xorg or xserver service

/usr/bin/Xorg -depth 16 &    (if Xorg or xserver-nodm service is not running)
or
systemctl start xserver-nodm

Set environment variables

export DISPLAY=:0.0
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=eglfs
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_WIDTH=1920
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_HEIGHT=1080
export QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS=evdevmouse,evdevkeyboard
export QT_QPA_ENABLE_TERMINAL_KEYBOARD=1
export QT_QPA_FONTDIR=/usr/share/fonts/truetype
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/lib/qt5/plugins
export QML2_IMPORT_PATH=/usr/lib/qt5/qml

Run example (eg: analogclock)

cd /usr/share/examples/gui/analogclock/
./analogclock

fbdev backend (Disable any Xorg or weston if running)

Set environment variables

export DISPLAY=:0.0
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_INTEGRATION=eglfs_mali
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=eglfs::fb=/dev/fb0
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_FB=/dev/fb0
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_WIDTH=1920
export QT_QPA_EGLFS_HEIGHT=1080
export QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS=evdevmouse,evdevkeyboard
export QT_QPA_ENABLE_TERMINAL_KEYBOARD=1
export QT_QPA_FONTDIR=/usr/share/fonts/truetype
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/lib/qt5/plugins
export QML2_IMPORT_PATH=/usr/lib/qt5/qml

Run application (eg: dockwidget)

cd /usr/share/examples/widgets/mainwindows/dockwidgets
./dockwidgets

wayland backend (weston should be running)

If weston is not running, enable weston service
```
systemctl start weston
```

Set environment variables

export DISPLAY=:0.0
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland
export QT_WAYLAND_SHELL_INTEGRATION=xdg-shell (for >2023.1 release)
export QT_WAYLAND_SHELL_INTEGRATION=wl-shell (till 2022.2 and older releases)

Run applications

cd /usr/share/examples/widgets/widgets/sliders/
./sliders
 
cd /usr/share/examples/gui/analogclock/
./analogclock
 
cd /usr/share/examples/widgets/mainwindows/dockwidgets/
./dockwidgets

Enabling LIMA for 2023.1

Add next line to the project-spec/meta-user/conf/petalinuxbsp.conf:
- DISTRO_FEATURES_BACKFILL_CONSIDERED += "libmali"
Applications ran:
1. x11:
  - vivid_tex, glmark2-es2, glcts, QT applications
2. fbdev:
  - eglfbdev, eglfbdev_gears, QT applications
3. wayland:
  - glmark2-es2-wayland, glcts, QT applications
Limitations:
1. x11:
  - All x11 applications are failing with segmentation fault while running.
2. fbdev:
  - Application compilation issues for eglfbdev and eglfbdev_gears
3. wayland:
  - glcts application compilation issues

Xilinx Wiki

Zynq™ UltraScale+™ MPSoC - Graphics Driver Stack - Mali 400

Table of Contents

Overview

Driver access and license

Device tree binding

Runtime power management

GPU software stack

Selecting particular backends:

Benchmark:

Update-alternatives:

Running GPU applications:

Related Links