SteeMan

What do you mean by this step?

The only pointer I have on that tool is to try different versions. I have in the past found some firmwares that only load with specific versions of the amlogic tool

When you say 'flashing' what do you mean? What are you using/doing exactly.

multiboot doesn't mean you can't still have your os in emmc. That is what the /root/install-aml.sh script does in the tv box builds from balbes150 (copies the install from sd to emmc while preserving the native vendor u-boot on emmc). The concept is to reuse the vendor u-boots which are device specific (dealing with memory, storage, etc) (since there are tens if not hundreds of different amlogic tv boxes creating uboots for each is impossible) while having only a few generic chainloaded u-boots that are cpu specific bridge to loading the kernel. It is a bit tricky to preserve the vendor u-boot while overlaying the rest of the os into emmc, but generally balbes150's scripts work on most environments.

I don't know what code you are referencing here. This is not the code that is part of the armbian TV box images that balbes150 produced and I try to support through these forums. If you are looking for input from an armbian forum, please be using armbian code. You can find the download links for the code that in the TV Box FAQ post: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus

Nothing there actually says what CPU you have, "S905 series" doesn't mean anything specifically. But from what I do see, I would guess you have an s905x or s905w. The board type is p212 which is the reference board for the s905x. So I would recommend you first try using the u-boot-s905x-s912 uboot and the meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb The best way to know what cpu you have is to remove the heatsink and look at the markings on the chip

Are you sure you know what CPU you have? You keep mentioning s905 but the dtb you mentioned is for a s905x CPU (gxl*).

If you ran coreelec from an SD you will need to reinstall android firmware. Resetting is not enough. The process of running either Armbian or coreelec changes the uboot environment on emmc in incompatible ways, that you need to get back to a fresh environment by reinstalling the original firmware before attempting to run Armbian.

Generally, you just need to try them one by one. I would focus on the glx* ones. Note since you mention coreelec, if you have previously I stalled coreelec you will need to reinstall the android firmware, before attempting to install Armbian (as is described in the instructions I linked to above).

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus

But with the multiboot strategy you are running a mainline uboot (chainloaded). I run mainline kernels on my amlogic based boxes (including upto the latest rc - I'm running right now 5.19.0-rc5 on one box).

I guess I would start by asking what is your goal with this TV Box? Are you looking to be able to build a full firmware (potentially using armbian build framework) for the box to install on multiple boxes of this type? or is this just a one-off box to experiment with and you want to get a modern kernel running on it? If the latter, I would recommend going down the multiboot path that balbes150 created for these amlogic boxes (see this thread for some discussion on that: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19004-trying-to-learn-more-about-u-boot-for-amlogic-devices) This path leaves the vendor u-boot in place and chainloads a modern u-boot bypassing the risk of bricking the box by installing a non-working u-boot on emmc. In general this path also has you working from sdcard storage (although balbes150 had scripts to copy a working sdcard environment to emmc if you wanted to run from emmc). The challenge as I understand it with amlogic tv boxes is that amlogic always boots from emmc if present which presents a risk of bricking when testing different u-boots.

I've moved this post to the TV Box club forum area. Note that Armbian does not support TV Boxes. Please read the following TV Box FAQ post: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first Also note that I'm not aware of anyone working with hisilicon based boxes, all of the limited work is mostly on rockchip and amlogic cpus with some on allwinner.

@tripole I moved your original post to a new thread under the General Chat sub-forum. Then added a long explaination on why or why not your post may or may not be appropriate. Then another moderator hid the whole conversation. I have just unhid that for the time being so you can see the discussion about your content. I will however hide your repost here.

As far as jocks other points, I believe users are going to be confused wherever the tv box forum is located. But it isn't difficult as a mod to move a post to the correct location. I already do that for a good number of posts in the current format.

I forgot about the overview feature. That certainly would be missed. But I would think it should be possible to somehow recreate that functionality. If you don't know, the club overview feature is a simple search that shows the most recent posts in the entire club. Very useful for jock and myself to catch up on responding to posts in the tv box area. While the forum has a similar feature that shows everything new for the entire forum I don't know of a way to restrict it to a subsection. Of the forum.

In general I think this is a good move. Specifically I'm assuming your proposal is to replace the TV boxes link under "Unmaintained (CSC/EOL/TVB) / Other" with the content from the TV Boxes Club.

Does wired ethernet connection work? Please read the following TV Box FAQ post: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first Note: I have about 10 amlogic based tv boxes, including 4 tx3 minis and I don't have wifi working on any of those boxes. You should not expect wifi to be working. If you get it working you are lucky.

Please provide more information on what you have done. What build have you installed (exact file name), where did you download if from, what instructions have you followed to install.

Also, I wanted to mention that I have multiple of these boxes running armbian, so at least I have the same hardware as you are trying to get working. Although same hardware in terms of TV Boxes doesn't mean too much, as the manufacturers often change the internal hardware and still use the same external case/product name, so any two TV Boxes that look the same on the outside can actually be significantly different internally. Which is one of the reasons it is nearly impossible to support TV Boxes well.

Welcome to the world of Armbian on TV Boxes. I would like to point you to the two TV Box FAQ items: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus In briefly reviewing the install instructions you followed I didn't find anything significantly different than the instructions in the FAQ. (Other than I recommend that you copy, not rename the uboot file, so you still have the original around). Given the screen shots, it looks like you are booting into the uboot file from your sd card as you are getting hdmi output. What I would really want to see is the first part of the boot displayed on the screen, not the end part you have shown. Also, the extlinux.conf file you have pasted into your post isn't quite correct, but I think it may be a result of cut and paste and not a real problem. It would be helpful if you could attach the actual extlinux.conf file as a file instead of pasting it into the message. The part that is suspicious is that: "#aml s9xxx #FDT" is all on one line. The "#FDT" should be on the next line.

Yes, different boxes will have different hardware, and therefore different requirements. Even with the same box label, the manufacturer will from time to time change the internal hardware (generally to whatever is cheapest at the time). These are all part of why it is nearly impossible to support TV Boxes well.

Moved post to correct forum. Note that TV Boxes are not supported by Armbian (https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first)

Can you PM me a link to that post. I would like to research the context of what you found.

When you say extracted, what do you mean? I don't know the manjaro setup. Also, given that Armbian isn't supported on TV Boxes and especially for amlogic based boxes where the latest build is 18 months old, why are you trying to use armbian? Why not just go with what manjaro has? It looks like from the logs that with this other u-boot that it can't detect the internal emmc.