AndrewDB

Hello Oleg and Amlogic TV box users, I need some help here. I am still battling the same problem I wrote about a few days ago: I can boot my Mecool Km8-P 1G/8G boxes with any of Oleg's images based on kernel 3.14.29, using the gxm_q201_1g.dtb. Absolutely no problem and the boxes are really stable. I cannot boot any image based on any 4.xx kernel, using any of the meson-gxm-xxxxxx dtb's. Yes I have tried them all! The original 2015 u-boot loads all the scripts and kernel, initrd and dtb from the SD card, without any problem. But the box freezes instantly as soon as u-boot jumps to the kernel. I have finally soldered a USB to serial cable on one of my Km8-P boxes and I can debug u-boot, but since I get strictly zero messages from the kernel, I have no idea what is happening. @balbes150 Oleg, do you have any suggestion, considering I now have a serial console and can control u-boot? Thank you very much for your help and suggestions. If anybody is interested, here are some pics of the TV box PCB, also attached is a log of the box booting. boot-km8p-linux-3.14.29.log

Check the HOWTO's here: - http://wiki.loverpi.com/faq:sbc:libre-aml-s805x-howto-native-compile-kernel - http://wiki.loverpi.com/faq:sbc:libre-aml-s805x-howto-compile-kernel And all the kernel compilation related pages here: http://wiki.loverpi.com/sbc:libre-computer-aml-s805x-ac 1. I suggest you use the patched kernels from Oleg (balbes150 on Github). 2. cat /proc/config.gz 3. Explained here: http://wiki.loverpi.com/faq:sbc:libre-aml-s805x-install-newly-compiled-kernel

The S905Y2 is the new generation of S9XXXX chips and is not supported by any available Linux kernel at the moment. So no Armbian for any box based on the S905X2 or S905Y2. You can expect it to take some time too.

In principle in Armbian you don't have to do anything special to optimize for server / VPN apps. And no you can't use the GPU or the VPU for server apps. These are strictly for multimedia applications. In your case the Mali GPU and everything related to it are of strictly no use, but yes, the S905/D/W/X share the same identical Mali GPU. The S912 has a different GPU and cannot use the Mali code.

Great work on your S9XXX kernels, Oleg!

@Reddwarf Run the command uname -r, that gives you the kernel version string that you should add at the end of the update-initramfs command. Oh, yes, and when nothing works, read the documentation for update-initramfs!

The main difference I think is that late 4.XX kernels are much more suited to Ubuntu 18.04. The 3.14 kernel is basically the kernel Amlogic released back in 2015/2016, so it's very old. But I have not been able to boot a 4.XX kernel yet on my Km8 P S912 boxes, still waiting to solder a UART cable and check what's going on. Edit: finally managed to boot 4.xx kernels on the Km8-P S912 tv boxes, it was a problem with u-boot.

Thank you very much! I am going to try them and will report here! Edit: I found the original source of the two patches in the LKML archive, in this thread: https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/3/1/1401

You have to read a little bit on the internet about "device tree", google for "Linux device tree" and read a few documents, then you'll understand.

Please Oleg tell me what these patches are and where to download them from!

Just wanted to report that I have been experimenting compiling the kernel for Oleg's various Armbian images for S9XXX TV boxes and have managed to compile and boot mainline kernel, but this required a small change in Oleg's S905_autoscript in /boot. Basically I just added a couple of lines that bootm the uImage if it is present. If there is no uImage it proceeds to booti Oleg's zImage: setenv boot_start_ml bootm ${kernel_addr} ${initrd_addr} ${dtb_mem_addr} if fatload mmc 0 ${kernel_addr} uImage; then if fatload mmc 0 ${initrd_addr} uInitrd; then if fatload mmc 0 ${env_addr} uEnv.ini; then env import -t ${env_addr} ${filesize};fi; if fatload mmc 0 ${dtb_mem_addr} ${dtb_name}; then run boot_start_ml; else store dtb read ${dtb_mem_addr}; run boot_start_ml;fi;fi;fi; I wrote two documents - 1. HOWTO compile the Linux kernel (either Oleg's patched kernel or mainline kernel straight from kernel.org) and 2. How to install the Linux kernel - that can be found here: http://wiki.loverpi.com/faq:sbc:libre-aml-s805x-install-newly-compiled-kernel Right now I am running mainline 4.19.20 on a S905 TV box: andrew@mxqpro4k:~$ uname -a Linux mxqpro4k 4.19.20-adb9ml #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Feb 10 19:29:08 CET 2019 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/ Linux andrew@mxqpro4k:~$ uptime 22:25:55 up 23:52, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 Note that there are two distinct ways to compile the Linux kernel for any S9XXXX TV box: you can cross-compile the kernel on a PC running Linux, or you can natively compile the Linux kernel on the TV box itself. I am routinely doing native compiles, using distcc on a build farm to speed compilation.

Thank you Seasalt. Unfortunately that image is not available anymore. And yes I am aware that uEnv.ini needs to be edited to select the correct dtb.

Thank you Oleg. I tried the image with various DTB's for GXM and GXL, but still nothing. I have ordered a UART cable and will solder it to the UART pads on one of the Km8 P TV boxes I have here (opened it already and the UART pads are clearly labeled on the PCB).

@balbes150 Hello Oleg, I am trying to change some u-boot parameters on a S905X TV box on which I have installed your Armbian 5.67 Ubuntu Bionic image, flashed to the internal eMMC. I have also flashed the new u-bootS905X.img. So it's booting OK from the eMMC, but it is changing the MAC address of the Ethernet interface at every boot. I have tried to run the fw_printenv tool to check the u-boot parameters but it complains about non existent /etc/fw_env.config. Would you know what I have to write in fw_env.config? # <device> <offset> <length> /dev/mmcblk1 0x??????? 0x?????? Thank you for your help.

No problems with armbian monitor here: andrew@mxqpro4k:~$ cat /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input 38000 andrew@mxqpro4k:~$ armbianmonitor -m Running unprivileged. CPU frequency will not be displayed. Stop monitoring using [ctrl]-[c] Time CPU load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq CPU 08:21:12: --- 0.09 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.0°C 08:21:17: --- 0.08 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.0°C 08:21:22: --- 0.08 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 39.0°C^C The box does not turn off, it's probably the HDMI output that is disabled after 300s (5 minutes). Either a hardware problem with monitor detection or a small bug in the hdmi driver code.

Yes I tried that dtb with the Armbian 5.67 with kernel 4.19.7 and the result was the same, u-boot loads the kernel but the TV box does not finish booting. And I don't have a USB serial cable on the Km8P so I can't diagnose the problem. So for the moment I am still using kernel 3.14.29 on these S912 TV boxes.

Hi xispita, the Linux kernel always reserves some memory for its internal use so it's impossible to have the full 1GB for applications. Also, sometimes it's possible to disable the video driver and recover some RAM without having to recompile the kernel, just by passing some arguments on the kernel command line (that's found in the file uEnv.ini in the BOOT partition on Armbian images). I would have to investigate this issue but have not had enough time yet. As soon as I have some news on this front I'll post here in this thread. You can also do some research on your side by googling "running linux headless command line parameters" or something similar to see if you find some relevant information. Surely somebody must have investigated this before!

Hi Oleg, I believe the Tronsmart Vega S95 Telos has a USB to SATA bridge JM20329 (datasheet: http://www.jmicron.com/PDF/brief/jm20329.pdf) which may be supported by recent Linux kernels. The Tronsmart Vega S95 Telos was reviewed at CNX Software and they provided a pic of the board here:

Since the S912 SoC does not have an on-chip SATA controller, I assume a USB 2.0 to SATA bridge chip is used... so it should work with the adequate driver module, but don't expect any better performance than with your average USB flash key. And of course a much cheaper solution is to use a normal S912 TV box and just plug an external USB hard disk.

With some further optimization, kernel compile times using distcc on my small S9XXX TV box build farm with 28 Cortex-A53 cores is: time make -j28 CC="distcc gcc" Image modules dtbs real 15m31.226s user 89m33.590s sys 10m34.380s More details here: http://wiki.loverpi.com/specs:sbc:distcc-kernel-compile This is all thanks to Oleg's great work on providing Ubuntu images for Amlogic S9XXX based TV boxes, so again, thank you Oleg for your amazing work.

Hello xispita, Yes, the 3.14.29 kernel as configured by default reserves 256MB of RAM for video out of the installed 1GB. To get more RAM for these headless compile nodes I guess I have to recompile the kernel and disable video completely, but I have not tried it yet, it's on my TODO list. And yes, these Km8P boxes only work with ethernet under Linux, the wifi is not available unless one is willing to hack a special device tree for them, but that's a lot of work and it's not guaranteed to work. Note that for a build farm, wifi is not recommended. On the other hand if you just need a TV box for multimedia applications, it's simpler to stay with Android.

Hello Oleg, sorry for the late reply. And yes, you are absolutely correct, the build farm will work with any Aarch64 capable SBC or TV box. The big advantage I see for the S912 TV boxes is that one gets 8 Cortex-A53 cores for just $23 in my case (that's what I paid for each of my Mecool Km8P TV boxes, shipping included!). The RK3399 TV boxes would probably be faster but they cost more than $50 each these days, so I'll wait until their price drops to experiment with one... or wait for the future Amlogic S922 TV boxes, with 4 x Cortex-A73 cores each.

You can check the temperature of the soc with the following command: cat /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input

Hello Oleg, Here it is (see attached text file). Thank you very much for your help. fw_printenv_Km8P.txt

Hello Oleg, thank you very much for your quick reply. Unfortunately no, I don't have a UART on any of my S912 boxes, only on the S905 box, so I am unable to debug the problem. I have tried various Armbian images with different 4.XX and even 5.0rcX kernels, and various meson-gxm-xxxxxxx dtb's, but never managed to boot. But these Mecool KM8 P boxes boot OK with the 3.14.29 kernel with the gxm_q201_1g.dtb. I know user Seasalt here in this forum also has 3 x KM8 P boxes and he is booting late Armbian with a 4.xx kernel on them, but I don't know which dtb file he is using or if he boot from SD card or USB key.