SteeMan
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Posts posted by SteeMan
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12 minutes ago, boxmeister said:
One more question: I now copied the system onto the emmc, after copying, is there anything else that has to be done to make it fully functional?
From the forum i found contradicting info that might also be outdated.I don't know what you might be referring to from the archives, but there isn't anything that I can think of that is a post-install step after the installation to emmc.
12 minutes ago, boxmeister said:And a bonus question that might not belong here but maybe you can give me an idea anyway: i installed xrdp to be able to access the box via remote desktop but when i connect the box desktop remains blank (it used to work with the old armbian ubuntu build i was using), now i read somewhere that the xrdp installation needs to be compiled in a way to fit the kernel. I have only general understanding of what that means and i have no idea what i can do about it. Is there anything that i can do about it?
My experience with xrdp is hit and miss. Sometimes it just works, and other times not so much (and that applies to both x86 as well as arm installs). I have found some success with the following script: https://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=14093 Armbian-config also has an option to enable xrdp which I haven't used (I honestly just recently found its existence). But the balbes builds are different enough that sometimes the armbian-config options don't work on these builds (install to nand-emmc is an example where it works differently in the tv builds than the standard armbian-config method).
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Glad I was able to help. Enjoy your H96 Max running armbian ubuntu.
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I would also add in trying to set appropriate expectations that no tv boxes are 'supported' by the Armbian project. You can get an understanding of how tv boxes fit into the armbian world by looking at the following (work in process) post:
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@boxmeister I see from your previous posts that you have had this working in the past. So in general I would expect that you are familiar with the overall processes of getting these builds running on a tv box. But as you are finding there have been some changes in the installation process over time. It can make searching the archives of the forum for answers difficult. I recently wrote a post in response to a similar request for a different amlogic based box. It walks through the current 'documentation' and I try to give a simplified set of steps for the basic amlogic box case.
I would like to point out that the Oct 14th build is the last build that includes support for amlogic cpus in these tv box builds. I see in some of your older posts you were asking about updates. Well as the last build you will be on the 5.9.0 kernel with no future updates. Of course all other ubuntu/debian packages will still be updateable, but the kernel won't be.
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6 hours ago, Master One said:
Support for gigabit ethernet would be nice. I wonder if this depends on the used DTB or kernel.
Most likely it will be the dtb that is the issue.
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2 hours ago, Nuno Cruz said:
Last time I was not able to find amlogic dtb files in build, something change about the support to amlogic tv boxes?
Amlogic is no longer being supported in these builds after Oct 14, 2020. If you need amlogic support you will need to grab an earlier build.
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Since this is a box I actually own, what you are trying is certainly possible. But you should be aware that tv boxes are not officially supported by the armbian project and that the Amlogic cpu (that your box has) isn't any longer included in the builds done by the developer who makes the general purpose builds for tv boxes. See this post for more details:
Having said that, there are a couple of things you mention that need to be addressed.
None of the builds you mention are even close to what you should be working with. You should be using a build from October 14, 2020 (the last build that works with amlogic cpus) from here:
https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014
Then follow the instructions in the first post of this thread:
Note particularly that since you have used coreelec with this box, you will need to restore an original android firmware to reset the boot system to the state that the armbian tv build is expecting. And by restore, I mean find the android image for your box, and use the Amlogic Burning Tool to install the original firmware on your device.
I am running my h96 max x2 with the meson-g12a-u200.dtb
For a perhaps more clear set of instructions for the installation on amlogic based boxes you can also review the following post I wrote:
Other than using a different dtb and different uboot, those instructions should be the same for your situation.
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I am running at 1800. I haven't looked into trying to increase that any higher. As this is my newest box that I am still feeling my way around, I'm not running anything on it that really pushes the cpu, except for a benchmark utility here or there.
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I fully agree with @TRS-80 comments above directing most users towards officially supported SBC hardware options. However, I do want to add my own personal thoughts on why I choose to continue to use these Android TV boxes with unsupported armbian running on them:
1) It is a challenge and therefore a learning opportunity. I would never have learnt to build my own linux kernels from source if I was still exclusively using x86 hardware. If you want a challenge you will find it here.
2) Price vs specs. The Android TV boxes are built to be cheap consumer devices. They are produced in larger quantities which drives down the per unit price. You will generally not be able to get the same level of hardware for the same price with a standard SBC. But that cheapness with - no support by the manufacturers and potentially sub-standard components. If the manufacturers goal is to sell the lowest price box they are likely cutting corners somewhere to make that happen.
3) emmc is standard. TV boxes always come with internal storage while most SBCs do not. Again from a price/performance standpoint having internal emmc storage vs running off an SD card is a plus. emmc storage *should* be faster and longer lasting than storage on an sd card. The caveats here being that this is one of the areas that the manufacturers may cut corners. For example I have two TX3 mini boxes that are supposed to have 16GB of emmc memory (like the other TX3 mini boxes I have), but they were instead manufactured with cheaper nand memory for which there is no mainline kernel support. There is no visible difference between the identically packaged boxes that had emmc vs those that came with nand, other than opening the case and looking at the physical chips on the boards.
4) cases come standard. TV boxes always come with cases, whereas for SBCs that is an extra cost. For my uses having a case is a big improvement vs not having one. A downside if that these cases are not necessarily well designed to provide adequate cooling. So depending on your use case, overheating might be a problem.
While I own both SBCs and TV boxes, I personally find the TV boxes work best for my needs (running server based software) and I enjoy the challenge of getting them running and keeping them running with the great underlying work that the armbian project is doing to build on top of.
I feel that if someone wants to use *unsupported* armbian on TV boxes and has the correct expectations (set your expectations low) and is looking to learn and is up for a challenge these are fun things to work with. And I look forward to working with you on these forums.
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It should be noted that many of the limitations mentioned above are specific to the Amlogic builds historically created by balbes150. There is also the good work being done by @jock and others for Rockchip based TV boxes (see the 'CSC Armbian for RKxxx' threads). And while the general statements about Android TV boxes not being officially supported armbian supported hardware, etc are still true, because these CSC builds are focused on a smaller subset of the TV box world there is likely better support for various hardware like wifi etc. And as of right now, there are a few more active developers working on those code bases.
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I will let you know. One of the changes between 5.9 and 5.10 for the rock-pi-4 dtb is that in 5.10 it now has three versions rock-pi-4a, 4b and 4c. I am currently using the 4b version for the N6 max. If the networking stability remains, I may experiment with the other dtb files and/or try to revert back to the way they were structured in 5.9 to see if that may be the cause of the issues.
I bought the N6 max board because of your recommendation and am very impressed with the overall performance. But I really don't know how closely the box hardware matches the rock-pi-4 dtb that I am currently using. This is the most recent board I have purchased and I am still getting to know it better.
Do you run your N6 max box from sd card or internal emmc? It took me a bit of work to adjust balbes scripts, but I eventually got the os installed on emmc.
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It is my own kernel build from mainline kernel sources. I build 5.4 and 5.9 kernels for my 'production' boxes. I just this past weekend got a build environment put together for 5.10 for my test boxes.
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First I want to restate some of the basics around armbian on android tv boxes. 1) They are not supported. 2) A single developer (balbes150) has worked years on getting things to the state they are. 3) As of October 14th balbes150 removed support for amlog cpus, so that is the last build that will maybe work on your box, 4) There is a very small number of people on this forum/club that are able to provide any guidance, 5) Most likely no one on this forum/club has ever seen your specific box, 6) Expectations should be set low (i.e. don't expect anything to work) but if you do get the box to boot, get hdmi and wired ethernet to work, you are doing good. 7) Really don't expect things like wifi, bluetooth, remote control etc to work. 8) If you get this working on your box, it will likely only be useful for server type tasks, maybe a little light graphical desktop usage, but certainly not video/multimedia.
There is a lot of information in the two threads you have opened on your installation problems. I think at this point it would make sense to start from the beginning and step through the basics to try to help you. There were a couple of very important questions asked of you in the old closed thread that you didn't answer. I am going to make some recommendations in an effort to try to help.
1) Use the latest/last build that supports amlogic cpus: https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014
2) Follow the instructions (I agree that the instructions are often not clear) from the first post of this thread:
I recently wrote a post that attempted to help someone better understand the instructions for an amlogic cpu as he was having difficulty understanding the instructions from balbes150. This may help you:
3) Pay particular attention to the first sentence in red. If you have ever tried to install other linux builds on this box, stop. You will first need to restore the box with an original android firmware before continuing. This is true even if the box is still running android. The key here is if you have ever 'attempted' to install something else. The installation process for some other firmwares will modify the booting environment in ways that cause the armbian install to no longer work. The armbiantv installation is dependent on an unmodified default android environment. I have more than once solved problems I have had by reverting a box to a clean fresh state by reinstalling the android firmware. Note, when I say reinstall the android firmware, that doesn't mean using the android functionality to reset the box, it means going out and finding the correct manufactures firmware file and using the low level amlogic tools to install that on your box. This is one of the questions asked in the previous thread that you didn't answer, which is why I am spending so much time on it. It is critical that the state of the box be known and clean otherwise we are all just wasting time.
4) In your previous thread you have a screen shot showing you trying to run aml_autoscript.zip from android recovery. From my understanding if you find yourself in android recovery you are doing something wrong. No part of the installation process uses android recovery. I have always been successful with the 'toothpick' method and would recommend you stick with that.
5) The extlinux.conf file you posted in the previous thread had a number of errors in it. Please post the extlinux.conf file you are currently trying to use.
You are working with a box that isn't common. I have no experience with it. But by correctly following the installation, you may yet be successful.
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Just to set expectations, I have five different tv boxes that are running armbiantv, and wifi doesn't work on any of them. While you may get lucky and solve your wifi issues for your specific box, you shouldn't have an expectation that wifi will work. As for audio, i'm not sure what you mean by 'inside audio channel'. But like wifi, audio support has been difficult for these boxes. While I do now have audio working via hdmi on most, it doesn't work via any of the other connectors a box may have in my cases. But since I use my boxes for server type usage, these limitations don't impact me. But everyone should be aware of the limitations and set expectations accordingly. Good luck on your continued efforts and do please report back what you find to help others who may want to embark down a similar path.
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I think that script is specifically for the older s905 cpu. Not the newer varients s905x/s905w. I think you want to be running the install-aml.sh
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10 minutes ago, amirul said:
eth0 seems to disengage after a while.
What box/sbc are you seeing the eth0 issues? I am seeing something similar on a N6 max (rk3399) but don't have issues with a TX3 mini (s905w) when running 5.10.0-rc7.
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So I just downloaded Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_focal_current_5.9.0.img.xz from https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014 and mounted it and this is the contents from the boot partition:
BOOT % ls
System.map-5.9.0-arm-64 extlinux
aml_autoscript initrd.img-5.9.0-arm-64
aml_autoscript.zip s905_autoscript
armbian_first_run.txt.template u-boot-s905
boot.bmp u-boot-s905x-s912
boot.ini u-boot-s905x2-s922
config-5.9.0-arm-64 uInitrd
dtb zImage
emmc_autoscript
So yes the files do exist where I said they would.
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balbes150's armbiantv builds do not use the install to nand/emmc support in armbian-config. Instead you need to run the corresponding script in /root for your particular cpu.
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2 minutes ago, pomelo said:
I managed to boot into CoreELEC and LibreELEC.
As is mentioned elsewhere, the CoreELEC boot system is incompatible with the armbiantv boot system. If you have run CoreELEC you will need to reinstall an original android firmware to restore the boot system to the expected state that armbiantv expects/needs. What you describe above is showing that you are entering into the android recovery mode, which isn't what you want/need to install armbiantv.
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5 hours ago, pomelo said:
I am having the exact same problem. I am having a hard time figuring out where to look for the "u-boot-s905x-s912.img" file.
This is only needed for amlogic based boxes. Balbes150 dropped support for amlogic boxes on October 14, 2020. So any build after that will not have these files. If you really want to work with something that a) isn't supported by the Armbian project (TV boxes are not supported devices) and b) is no longer supported by the lone developer that was working on this fork of armbian for TV boxes, then look for the 5.9.0 kernel builds from October 14th and you will find these files. https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014
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Are we supposed to guess what errors you are having? Your question provides no information on what errors you are receiving or anything really that we could use to try to help you. Also, I am assuming you mean emmc when you say nand, as 5.x kernels don't support nand at all.
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On 12/2/2020 at 10:49 PM, Master One said:
is it possible that any of the other DTBs works better (or at all?) than meson-sm1-sei610.dtb?
Yes it is possible. The dtb is the mapping of all the hardware to the software (not just the cpu). So a dtb that isn't a perfect fit for the cpu may work overall better for the rest of the hardware on the board. For amlogic cpus the differences between the s905x2 and s905x3 series are not major, so a dtb for an x2 board may work as good or better for your x3 based board. So I would look at the meson-g12a-*.dtb files as well.
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As long as you understand the limitations that dante6913 mentioned, and as long as you are only expecting to use it for server work, and I would add one additional item that you should only be expecting to use wired ethernet (wifi/bluetooth support is very spotty).
I would recommend just trying the last build that supports amlogic cpus (The 5.9.0 October 14th 2020 build) and follow the instructions in the first post of this thread:
Try the various dtbs for s905x3, sm1 (or s905x2, g12a) and see if any of them work well enough for your needs. I have a TX3x3 box which contains a s905x3 and I use the meson-sm1-sei610.dtb for that box.
The one thing specific to the s905x3 that might be unclear from the instructions on that post is that you will need to copy the u-boot-s905x2-s922 file to u-boot.ext as there is no x3 specific version, but the x2 version should work (at least it does on my TX3x3 box).
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23 hours ago, Ngo Thang said:
If I boot into Android, I can read content in my SDCard and my USB that mean SDCard slot and USB slot are OK
Just because you can read the contents of the boot and root partitions on the SDcard does not mean it is OK or that it was created correctly. The boot sectors of the card need to be correct as well and those you aren't going to see.
23 hours ago, Ngo Thang said:I plug only USB (no SDCard) and no need to hold reset, it still boots into text screen and restarts forever as my video clip above, it shows error "Unexpected XHCI event TRB,..."
This would look like potential progress. This is what you would expect to see if you have the wrong boot configuration parameters (i.e. your extlinux.conf). Could you attach the extlinux.conf file you are trying to use.
One final comment, is that you only need to successfully enable multiboot once (i.e. press the reset button while applying power). It isn't something you need to do every time. But since you don't know if you have done it successfully, I understand why you are continuing that method, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn't something you will need to do repeatedly if you can get your box working.
X96 Max 4g/32g (S905x2) Armbian Help
in Amlogic CPU Boxes
Posted
The armbian desktop installs use the XFCE desktop manager which is lighter weight and more appropriate to the performance characteristics of SBCs. While on an x86 install of ubuntu you will be using by default the gdm3 desktop manager. So yes there are differences.