gdm85

@legogris I don't have benchmarks; on ethernet it is recognized as 1Gbps/Full. Generally for SBCs I care most about not having kernel panics and other instability problems. Just avoid boards which have a single silicon for ethernet/usb/sdio and you should be good.

I noticed this commit there; would they be re-created automatically given enough time? (I am not familiar with the Armbian image building process). I can volunteer for testing images on eMMC/microSD, although this device might not always be easy to reach for me in a month or so.

@Igor I have edited the URL in first post, that was a copy/paste mistake. I intended https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-neo-plus2/ also there. Thanks, I was looking for a way to contribute specifically for this issue on GitHub, I will try.

"NO OFFICIAL SUPPORT (CSC)" as displayed in red in https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-neo-plus2/ I don't need Buster for this box; do you know where I should report the 404 missing images issue since it's missing by mistake?

Recently I wanted to give another try to a NanoPi NEO Plus2 but I noticed that it is marked as not supported and there is no Armbian Bionic image for it (the links in https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-neo-plus2/ return 404). So I checked about other FriendlyElec H5 boards: https://www.armbian.com/download/?tx_soc=h5&tx_maker=friendlyelec (I had to edit the URL as otherwise one cannot add multiple filters) And I picked the K1 plus as a close relative; the Bionic image seems working without any issue, I will keep testing and report back. The only minor issue that I could find so far is that htop will show 0 Mhz for all cores. I have reported in the past about issues with the 2nd USB however this is also not reproducible with the K1 plus image. May I suggest to add it at least as a testable image, with the proper tailoring? Other relevant thread:

@Jason Law for which board did you opt? M4 or Neo4? I have fairly similar requirements and not inclined for Odroid either.

@@lex I refuse to answer your posts if you do not read what I write. Thanks for your help, I will take the issue with other users/developers.

@@lex ^ This would exclude for me any hardware problem. In your latest post you mentioned both hardware problems and kernel problems..... I have been testing with same devices and different kernels/config combinations. The devices get power but nothing is on the log.

Wouldn't hardware malfunction be excluded by the fact that I can get it working with a certain combination of kernel + .config? I can give a try to the armbian-config approach, but I would still have to walk my way back to a working kernel + .config combination as that's what I need usually.

it's very simple. The board has two normal USB ports. Only one works when using mainline kernel (Linus' tree for example). Look at the image below of the actual product: Only the USB port closest to the ethernet works. The other one does not. I do not know if it is in OTG mode, any easy way to check? Although not interesting/useful for armbian, I was asking here how it is possible that depending on the .config used this port works or not when using FriendlyElec's kernel fork. (That was my last "progress" back then). I would like to use that 2nd port as a regular one.

To summarize the previous posts/status of 2nd USB support for FriendlyElec NanoPi-NEO-Plus2: the driver was not properly upstreamed into mainline kernel although all the pieces to do that were available (in particular they had it fixed in FreeBSD). A combination of DTS + driver changes was needed. Fast forward to today: I am fetching Linus' upstream and will try to build this again. Do you guys know if anything changed regarding this specific board and the USB support?

It can probably be explained by the different kernel; I understand one shouldn't try to fix their kernel (it's a dead end) and rather work upstream for the benefit of community..

@tkaiser I have used their github kernel fork and armbian's config and the 2nd USB does not work. With their config (exact same source code) instead the USB works. That's why I said, let's look at the kernel .config..but now I am a bit confused, I admit

Okay, I was not aware of the different kernel version (and that it takes in such a breaking change already), thanks for the explanation. I was assuming most of FriendlyELEC's patches were already in the tree (and/or upstream) you're using. So eventually someone has to fix the DTS/kernel for it so that it stays mainline on latest (at least LTS) tree. The way I see this process: cherry-picking the FriendlyELEC patches on top of 4.11, right? That's something I can do easily. But changing voltages/reading datasheets for them, not really my cup of tea, and also afraid of damaging components (I know I could be running wrong voltage for long without side effects, but I don't know enough to feel safe on that type of tweaking)

@tkaiser this is the DTS of the exact branch I used (albeit I didn't replace the .dtb yet): https://github.com/friendlyarm/linux/blob/sunxi-4.11.y/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner/sun50i-h5-nanopi-neo-plus2.dts