hexdump

i assume that the box simply has nand and no emmc - i have a similar box (x96 mini): sold as s905w 2/16g box with emmc and in the end it is a s905x box with 1/8g and nand which fakes the 2/16g in its hacked android - your emmc chip printed name might simply be fake as well - the boot problem comes from the armbian boot script, it hangs when probing the (non existing) emmc i guess - i think i worked around it by 'setenv start_emmc_autoscript "echo hello"'' and then 'run bootcmd' on a serial console - in theory setting the start_emmc_autoscript to something not doing anything (or maybe even some cleaner solution) in some kind of alternative aml_autoscript should give you back a working android boot even without serial console ... good luck

@jock - thank you for the detailed response. this sounds really good - this way it might be even easier than i thought, as i'm completely fine with using the original u-boot part for the memory timing

hi @jock - i'm thinking about trying to follow your approach of getting a rk3288 tv-box booting well with a mainline u-boot instead of the very limited rockchip bootloader those boxes come with. the box i have is an orbsmart s92, which i think is identical to the beelink r89, orion r28 and ubox boxes. i have it running quite well so far using some sd-capable rockchip bootloader i once found on the linuxium site, but as said having a real contemporary mainline u-boot would make booting different kernel etc. much easier and maybe even gives me a serial console for the bootloader (the bootloader i have does not seem to use the normal serial port - starting from the kernel boot it works fine then though). i looked at the way you are building the u-boot for the q8 box from the original rockchip and the mainline one and i read your mainline u-boot contributions for the q8 box and have three questions about it: 1. how did you get the memory timing when booted with the original rockchip bootloader - did you add some debug prints to the kernel or did you get it via some userspace program? 2. how big might be the chance that another rk3288 tv-box like my s92 might work with your memory timings? 3. do i need any other specific information about my hardware to get mainline u-boot compiled for it? to me it looks like the memory timing is the only one and everything else i can get from the linux kernel dtb for my box, but maybe i overlooked something ... a lot of thanks in advance and best wishes - hexdump

hi @balbes150 first a big thank you for all your efforts - it is so nice to be able to use those easily available amlogic (and now rk3328 too) tv boxes as linux systems so easily! i have a question regarding your emmc install script: you are putting the beginning of the partition about 700mb after the beginning of the emmc device to avoid overwriting sensible stuff required for booting like the dtb etc. i guess - are those 700mb based on anything specific or is this just a good guess that that far nothing relevant should be anymore? do you have any more details what critical information required for booting is on the emmc and should not be overwritten - i think dtb and env are required for sure - anything else? a lot of thanks in advance and best wishes - hexdump