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SteeMan

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Posts posted by SteeMan

  1. @mfizz If you have ever booted coreelec (even on SD) you will likely need to restore the original android firmware before being able to use armbian.  The 'multiboot' enabling process updates the uboot environment on emmc to enable booting from sd card.  coreelec and armbian do that in incompatible ways, so once you have the coreelec multiboot installed you won't be able to boot armbian from sd.

  2. I'm not aware of anyone else trying armbian with this device, but since it it amlogic cpu based there is a chance it might work.  The latest instructions for amlogic based devices can be found in the TV box FAQ here: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus

    also look at this FAQ entry:

    https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first

     

  3. Note that since you are using a build for a completely different device (orangepizero2 vs tx6s) you aren't going to get everything working without a proper dtb file.  So at a minimum you would need to find/modify a dtb file that describes to the kernel the actual hardware in your box.  Unless the opzero2 has the exact same hardware on the board as the tx6s the dtb file you are using will be wrong and the hardware that is different will not be working.  I'm honestly amazed that you have as much working as you do.

  4. 1 hour ago, rzu said:

    Would be nice to hear others experiences on this, if 279 and 280 work for others too there must be some reason why only these are more compatible with H616 TV boxes.

    The 4.9.x kernels are 'legacy' kernels in armbian speak.  That means they are the kernels supplied by the board vendor.  Vendor kernels are generally heavily modified and the changes don't get put into the mainline kernels.  Because of the heavy modifications these vendor kernels are always very old kernels and therefore not receiving any support/bugfixes/patches.  Armbian focuses on support of mainline kernels and the mainline kernel tree and tries to minimize any out of tree kernel patches (when there are patches necessary, it is the goal that these changes will ultimately be accepted into the mainline tree).  Because the vendor kernel and mainline are so far apart, it often isn't realistic to merge the vendor changes into mainline, but instead the work needs to be redone.  Since the vendors generally don't put any effort into mainlining all that falls upon the community which can take a long time.

  5. The h616 is a relatively new cpu from allwinner.  Support for that cpu by mainline linux (and therefore armbian is still in the early stages).  Currently development efforts are making progress but still have a ways to go.  The best working code bases right now don't use mainline linux but custom vendor supplied kernels with a bunch of out of tree linux modifications.

    What I mention above is for SBCs like the Opi Zero2.

    Armbian does not support TV boxes.  The handfull of people who hang out in these TV box forums have an interest in running armbian on TV boxes, but no one is working on the h616.  I would say you are a year or two away from potentially running armbian on your box (if that ever happens).

  6. On 5/7/2022 at 10:06 AM, FilSan said:

    The blue light just keeps blinking no matter how long i hold the reset button. Any ideas/clues?

     

    Is this chip hopeless? Should i get a box with S905X4 or rockchip, allwinner?? I just want a box with gigabit working for a micro server. The shop's page showed this box had gigabit, but iperf3 says otherwise.

     

    I'll try to respond to your questions as best as I can, but since I don't have that box, I can only guess.

    First you mention that 'no matter how long you hold the reset button'.  It isn't a matter of time and the process is that you need to boot with the reset button pressed for about 5 seconds, then after a bit, remove the power and boot with out the reset button pressed.  This second boot should boot into your sd card image.  The first boot holding the reset button is installing 'multiboot' which is a set of changed variables in the uboot environment that essetially changes the boot order.  Then the second boot uses this new uboot environment to boot from the sd card.  Note that you should only need to do the reset button step once (unless or until the uboot environment gets reset to default).

     

    You mention the s905x4 chip.  Do not get a box with this.  When it comes to TV boxes, older is better.  So s905x is better supported than s905x2, etc.  This is because it takes a lot of time and effort for the open source community to reverse engineer and get support into mainline linux (as the cpu manufacturers don't generally support linux openly, i.e. they don't release source code, and box manufacturers are even worse at supporting their products).  So the older something is the more likely someone has put in the time to get it somewhat working.  So for the s905x4 there isn't any support yet, and perhaps there may never be.

     

    The same general rule (older is better) goes for the other cpu families as well, allwinner and rockchip.  But if you are looking for something in the armbian community I would currently recommend looking at rockchip based boxes.  That is the only cpu family that has an active tv box developer working on support.

     

    Then finally, you mention gigabit networking.  I would recomend you set your sights on 100mbit networking.  Generally gigabit networking is implemented in off cpu networking chips that have no/limited support in mainstream linux.  It is very rare that you will get gigabit networking to work on a tv box with armbian.

     

     

    On 5/7/2022 at 6:12 PM, FilSan said:

    How can  i see the hardware in the box? lspci returns nothing.

    Generally the recommendation is to open the box and inspect the chips on the board for their markings and work from there.

     

  7. @Rohaaq  A further comment that might help clarify.  Applying 'multiboot' is a one time operation.  It changes the boot environment which only needs to be done once.  So if you have properly applied multiboot (through either toothpick or update methods) then you are done and subsequently all you need to do is insert your sd card and it should first try to boot from there before falling back to booting android from emmc.  If it doesn't boot what you have on your sd card, you either haven't properly installed multiboot or your sd card is incorrectly setup.

  8. On 9/20/2021 at 8:09 AM, sfs said:

    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root           735459 дек 28  2020 u-boot.ext
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root           609247 дек 28  2020 u-boot-s905
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root           735459 дек 28  2020 u-boot-s905x2-s922

    @ravijol1  per this information posted above, you can see that (by looking at file sizes) he is using the u-boot-s905x2-s922 boot from the distribution.  If you were to follow the instructions in the FAQ item (https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus) this is the uboot file that should be used for this cpu.

     

  9. First off, I would point you to the following FAQ post to set expectations:  https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first

    Second comment is that both of the videos you linked point to builds that are from 2018.  My suggestion would be to avoid them as you are dealing with kernel versions that are very old and full of known vulnerabilities as there are no security updates for them.

    If you want to pursue this with an s805 based box, then I would point you to the following thread:  https://forum.armbian.com/topic/3023-armbian-for-amlogic-s805-and-s802s812   The last few pages of that thread will have more recent builds on newer kernels.  But since there is no active work on amlogic based tv boxes even those are now outdated.

     

  10. I find your research interesting.  I don't have this particular box (I have a TX3 based on the s905x3 cpu).  If you provided links to the source code for the dtbs (i.e. the .dts files) I'd be willing to at least look at the source code to see if anything jumps out.  Also since you want the gigabit ethernet working, do you know what ethernet chip your box has installed (i.e. could you open the box and take a picture of the board and especially the ethernet chip)?

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