If i understand correct, i have to install some closed source PowerVR SDR library to run the current GPGPU google summer of code project from @jduchniewicz Weekly Progress Report Thread: GPGPU with GLES
Is there someone working on getting this capable of running with only free (as in freedom) software? It would be great to have the GPU as a separate computing core like benchmarked here Benchmarking | GPGPU with GLES
Hi, you don’t need the PowerVR SDK in order to do the acceleration. All you need is the special image from beagleboard that contains all the necessary drivers to interact with the GPU via proprietary libraries (but this is required since they provide their IP as closed-source). I am not sure if anyone has ever worked on creating open source equivalents to these GPUs (as they are mostly undocumented).
Thanks for the quick answer. Maybe at some time someone would make it possible to run GPGPU with just free software running Linux-Libre kernel.
Imagination was working on free PowerVR drivers in 2015
and 2020
Lets hope at some point this would get into some usable free software result for the SGX530 that is inside the BeagleBone Black. Then they also wont have to fix this headless-issue in their library they know about since 2019 and dont fix it: Headless rendering with PVR SGX530, EGL, OpenGL - is it supported? - PowerVR Insider - PowerVR Developer Community Forums
I am not sure that the Imagination team is inclined to provide us with the free drivers soon enough. Fingers crossed though. I saw an initiative on eLinux but nothing in progress AFAIK (it was rumored to be leaked at one point but this is not a viable option for a sensible community 