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ARMBIAN for Amlogic S905 and S905X (ver 5.44 =<)


balbes150

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Oh, yes, you are right, it is only 100 Mbps box.   (I should go to S912 with 10/100/1000 LAN instead), At least now I know, there is no need to waste time to fix it :)..   Thank you very much for explanation.   I will first try to play with Ethernet adapter, as 200-300 Mbps would be just fine..  And we will see..

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10 hours ago, mdel said:

thx i'll test it again and please don't forget about adding my a95x dts

Don't hesitate to periodically remind me that I can miss important moments, which promised (a lot of things you have to keep in mind). :rolleyes:

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16 minutes ago, jozicka said:

 I will first try to play with Ethernet adapter, as 200-300 Mbps would be just fine..  And we will see..

 

if you're only doing some pure nas stuff (no video) you should check that board first : Nanopi Neo2

 

it'll cost barely more than an Gbe ethernet adapter and you'll get full Gbe speed.

The H5 is a quad core 64 bit arm, similar to the s905 but will run at much lower clock speeds, especially on that small board apparently.

It's not nearly as powerful as your s905x box but should not break a sweat reading your NTFS drives at full USB2 speed (around 35MB/s). Well actually it will sweat a little so make sure you get the heatsink for a couple dollars more.

 

 

 

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@balbes150

 

i've tested your latest image on my a95x s905 box : Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_server_20170316.img

install.sh worked fine this time.

 

i did not flash my recovery image before running install.sh again.

so i forgot to add my compatible dtb.img in /BOOT/ before running install.sh.

It was already flashed during the previous install.sh run, so the dtb was loaded from flash and sd card boot did not fail, so i forgot about the dtb.img..

 

Anyways it's very nice that this works, are there any things to check / test when running armbian from emmc ?

 

I'll try your desktop image now to see how it runs, hw accel and so on.

 

 

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Pay attention all if no existing media file "dtb.img", dtb data in the internal memory remain unchanged. The internal memory is written only to the system itself and is replaced by the kernel (boot.img).

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22 hours ago, jozicka said:

s905x

 

S905x doesn't support 1000M period, look at the Amlogic schematics. That makes S905 superior in that single area but S905x compensates with the addition of crypto instructions. 

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21 hours ago, Shimon said:

 

S905x doesn't support 1000M period, look at the Amlogic schematics. That makes S905 superior in that single area but S905x compensates with the addition of crypto instructions. 

 

humm yeah you have to be careful looking at those block diagrams, aka cnx-soft about his s905x specs "Update September 2016: Removed Video Input Unit and Gigabit Ethernet MAC, since the latest documents have removed them"

 

s905 having only GMAC still requires an external PHY chip to provide Gbe thus most s905 boxes are 10/100.. 

All of my 1G/8G cheap ones are, and the one s905 (or s912?) i got because i knew it had Gbe, performs dramatically bad (150-300Mbps top depending on the dtb used), thx to that brilliant chinese "ship an forget" engineering quality.

 

Also, s905 is supposed to have a crypto engine as well according to hardkernel datasheet but without linux drivers it's pretty much useless.
But it already performs more or less decently without crypto (openssl single thread, high speed openvpn context) so it's not as bad as with alwinner socs.

 

Finally i wouldn't be surprised to see that s905x being cheaper (? was advertised that way at least) some boxes will have Gbe simply because it adds a feature at no additional compared to other boxes.. 

 

bottom line, it's really really hard to find a full featured cheap android box that will perform as advertised, and to some degree you'll be much safer getting a slightly more expensive board like odroid c2 (despite its usb2 hub) that will work great.

 

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A test version of kernel file to use when installed in NAND memory. Do not download new images, you can replace one file "linux.img" in the first FAT partition and try to install to the internal memory. BEFORE installation we strongly recommend to perform a backup of the partitions that will be overwritten (boot and data). You can use the two new script "ddbr_backup_nand"  and "ddbr_restore_nand". These scripts perform backup and restore only two partitions and boot data from NAND. Note that the backup script dd_backup_x does not work with NAND. By the way, there is a suggestion to the author, to simplify entering the command, rename it to just "ddbr" ?

 

https://yadi.sk/d/QLdqICJL3G8YyB

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@balbes150

small "bug" in your ubuntu desktop image.

 

I flashed your latest ubuntu desktop image and after user creation / reboot, when the (mate?) desktop auto opens, i'm getting an error message window : "The panel encountered a problem while loading "TrashAppletFactory::TrashApplet"

 

i can say "delete" or "don't delete"

if i click "don't delete" and logout (auto login) and get back in the desktop i get the message again.

if i click "delete" the error is gone but i guess the Trash Applet is gone as well..

 

 

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1 hour ago, balbes150 said:

A test version of kernel file to use when installed in NAND memory. Do not download new images, you can replace one file "linux.img" in the first FAT partition and try to install to the internal memory. 

https://yadi.sk/d/QLdqICJL3G8YyB

 

flashed it to my a95x box with ubuntu server rootfs on emmc and it booted okay here.

 

 

On another topic i'm currently trying to get an hw accelerated version of the kernel/kodi/mpv, mostly from kszaq git onto your armbian ubuntu image.

Can you confirm that you are not using any of his 3.14 kernel patches in your kernel ?

I'm also not quite sure which mali version you are using at the moment. 

 

I'm not done browsing through kszaq LE 8 files, and LE get script output,  so i'll get my answers in time but if you're kind enough to tell me what you know is missing in your image, it would be nice. thx.

 

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5 hours ago, balbes150 said:

By the way, there is a suggestion to the author, to simplify entering the command, rename it to just "ddbr" ?

I've made this script especially for your images, in order to make life of newcomers to linux a bit easier.

You can rename the script as you wish, improve it if you wish, and feel free to use it whatever way you see fit.

No problem at all from me.

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On 3/18/2017 at 7:26 PM, mdel said:

Gbe, performs dramatically bad (150-300Mbps top depending on the dtb used)

I'm going to test the Linux network performance of two different S905 GigE boxes next month so we'll be able to compare results.

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On 3/21/2017 at 0:16 AM, Shimon said:

I'm going to test the Linux network performance of two different S905 GigE boxes next month so we'll be able to compare results.

 

i've only used iperf3, make sure you test unidirectional in both directions, server then client en on box.

 

You can also test in android adb / terminal but in my case the results were the same.

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On 17.03.2017 at 0:52 AM, mdel said:

thx i'll test it again and please don't forget about adding my a95x dts 

I added the dtb to Nexbox in the kernel and updated the images 20170323 (no other changes).

 

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11 hours ago, mdel said:

i've only used iperf3, make sure you test unidirectional in both directions, server then client en on box.

Yup, that's the plan!

 

5 hours ago, balbes150 said:

updated the images 20170323

Any plans on updating the vegas95 images? I'm also curious if the composite A/V output is supposed to work on Linux? 

 

I'd already asked about overclockability of that kernel but forgot the modified binary blob allowing one to achieve over 1.6 Ghz might be Odroid specific.  Can you confirm it's even doable? 

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1 minute ago, balbes150 said:

2. Not quite understand the question ? What is meant by acceleration ?

 

i believe that @Shimon mentions the fact that s905 max real clock is 1.56GHz (not 2GHz as reported by the amlogic kernel), and there has been some work to try and "fix" that (by amlogic ? in the latest s905x kernel ?), and that fix would also try to make the s905 run a little faster (1.75GHz?)..

 

Personally i don't think it'll make a difference but of course it would be nice to have real clock speed data in your system..

 

For an apparently far more powerful soc, i'm now looking at the rockchip rk3288 ("old" 32bit soc with turbo mode of 2GHz maybe 2.2GHz?), available on the Miqi and asus tinker board. For example performance with openssl on a single thread is 40-60% faster than on s905 (which is already quite fast) and on par with big boards like xu4..

 

 

 

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@balbes150

 

23 hours ago, balbes150 said:

I added the dtb to Nexbox in the kernel and updated the images 20170323 (no other changes).

 

 

tested your image (Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_server_20170323.img) this morning with the nexbox_a95x_s905.dtb on the box from which my dts was extracted but it didn't boot.

i've attached the serial boot log, it hangs there, i powered off after 1 minute.

 

using the other file "gxbb_p201.dtb", it boots fine.

 

-- edit --

[ I just noticed that the hdmi video output is not displayed properly (i can see lines of "text", but all the chars are unreadable).

i believe it was okay with the previous image i've tested (Armbian_5.26_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_server_20170302.img.xz), but i don't look at the screen so i may be wrong, i can test an older image if you want. ]

 

rebooting a second time, the display is ok so it's not a permanent bug introduced by that image.

 

 

screenlog.0.a95xs905dtb

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4 hours ago, balbes150 said:

1. There are plans, but there is no time.

Do they include the A/V (3xRCA) output on Linux?

 

4 hours ago, mdel said:

Personally i don't think it'll make a difference

Amdahl's law is such a bitch on ARM though, it should definitely make some difference in single-threaded scenarios.

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i did the same thing i usually do :

cp /boot/dtb/nexbox_a95x_s905.dtb /boot/dtb.img

 

i have 2 a95x s905 boxes here, i don't have serial on that second one, but it won't boot either.

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7 minutes ago, Shimon said:

Do they include the A/V (3xRCA) output on Linux?

Don't know yet, we need to see the configuration and verify.

 

6 minutes ago, mdel said:

i did the same thing i usually do :

I looked at the log, it seems that the dtb is not suitable. I was collected in the form as You sent. Most likely it is necessary to rule under a new data format.

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would it help if i gave you the dtb in bin format taken from the android update file ?

i think it'll be exactly the same, i only converted the bin to dts with linux tools and didn't get any errors or warnings in doing that..

 

Anyways it's not very important, the box seems to run fine with the generic gxbb_p201.dtb

And with your new images the second usb port works directly, i don't need to activate it with the init script..

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rebooting again with your Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_server_20170323.img image and gxbb_p201.dtb

 

video display is ok now, so the videos errors i saw earlier may not be a real bug.

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Hi balbes150. First of all thank you for your work.

I have two android boxes. One is an Acemax KIII 2GB / 16GB and the other a Beelink Mini MX 2GB / 16GB. The first carries a WiFi / BT chip BCM4335 and the second carries an AP6330. Can you give them Bluetooth support in your next version? I have been looking for how to do it, but it escapes my knowledge.

I leave the link that I found to a thread where they get to operate the Bluetooth of the BCM4335 chip.

Https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-1408-post-29946.html#pid29946


If you need anything let me know.

Thank you very much.

(Google Translation)

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18 hours ago, mdel said:

would it help if i gave you the dtb in bin format taken from the android update file ?

i think it'll be exactly the same, i only converted the bin to dts with linux tools and didn't get any errors or warnings in doing that..

 

Anyways it's not very important, the box seems to run fine with the generic gxbb_p201.dtb

And with your new images the second usb port works directly, i don't need to activate it with the init script..

 

So can I remove this option from source that he would not mislead others ?

 

18 hours ago, mdel said:

rebooting again with your Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_server_20170323.img image and gxbb_p201.dtb

 

video display is ok now, so the videos errors i saw earlier may not be a real bug.

Sometimes this bug I see when connected via HDMI adapter. Perhaps when you activate the port of the TV box can not set the correct parameters.

 

15 hours ago, La Otra Cuenta said:

I have two android boxes. One is an Acemax KIII 2GB / 16GB and the other a Beelink Mini MX 2GB / 16GB. The first carries a WiFi / BT chip BCM4335 and the second carries an AP6330. Can you give them Bluetooth support in your next version? I have been looking for how to do it, but it escapes my knowledge.

I leave the link that I found to a thread where they get to operate the Bluetooth of the BCM4335 chip.

Https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-1408-post-29946.html#pid29946


If you need anything let me know.

Thank you very much.

 

While the BT support is not the main priority. Perhaps in future versions it to appear, but I do not guarantee.

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2 hours ago, balbes150 said:

So can I remove this option from source that he would not mislead others ?

 

yes you can remove nexbox_a95x_s905.dtb, if it's not working it's better to remove it.

 

i'll try to convert nexbox_a95x_s905.dtb to dts again and compare it to my original version to see if things are different. 

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