fabiobassa

@chinhhut

Try these steps:
1) push the little switch inside the hole while inserting a male-male cable into the otg
2) on another linux machine you should have now a new device (lsusb will help you) and you can run rkdeveloptool
3) rkdeveloptool ld should List Device
4) rkdeveloptool rd 3 should Reset Device into mode 3  ( maskrom )
5) rkdeveloptool db MiniLoaderAll.bin ( of course from your path) should upload a temporary loader to recognize the internal emmc
6) if all is successfull until now you can rkdeveloptool wl 0X0 yourimage.img . This should flash the internal emmc .

DISCLAIMER: very " dangerous" approach , be ready to have the opportunity to short the emmc clock pin to ground to go back into mask rom
 
MiniLoaderAll.zip

@chinhhut
Will try to explain you what loader is with an analogy: in normal pc you have bios and master boot record. Well, maskrom is bios and is contained in the soc itself, loader is a sort of master boot record and it enables the emmc and ddr.
You can have a look here
http://opensource.rock-chips.com/wiki_Boot_option

 

I did extract it by a working firmware using a tool that unpacked the whole firmware. Try to google for RK3xxx_firmware_tools_5.23.1_by_SergioPoverony.zip and leave alone that github since it is just one piece of the puzzle. The detailed infos how to get a working loader are in the rockchip instructions

 

Of course and the command would be rkdeveloptoo rl 0x0 etc etc etc ( try rkdeveloptool -h to get the help)
But if you are lucky that works multitool, well that is the easiest way to clone and clone back

@chinhhut
Glad you got success .
Don't forget to put a like that helps @jock and myself in community reputation
 
 
 

@chinhhut

Try these steps:
1) push the little switch inside the hole while inserting a male-male cable into the otg
2) on another linux machine you should have now a new device (lsusb will help you) and you can run rkdeveloptool
3) rkdeveloptool ld should List Device
4) rkdeveloptool rd 3 should Reset Device into mode 3  ( maskrom )
5) rkdeveloptool db MiniLoaderAll.bin ( of course from your path) should upload a temporary loader to recognize the internal emmc
6) if all is successfull until now you can rkdeveloptool wl 0X0 yourimage.img . This should flash the internal emmc .

DISCLAIMER: very " dangerous" approach , be ready to have the opportunity to short the emmc clock pin to ground to go back into mask rom
 
MiniLoaderAll.zip

@MattWestB ok, you're the second in row (after @Petroz) that are reporting such mmc problems, so probably there is something on your board that needs to be fixed.
 
Photos of the board, dmesg, original firmware or (better) the original dtb are useful.

my "install" of rk box :-)

Multitool update!
 
Hello! I'm pleased to announce that multitool finally got network and SSH access, and now can be used on headless systems!
 
The latest release will retrieve an IP from the network DHCP server automatically, so you can consult your local network router to discover what IP the box got.
SSH access can be obtained logging in as root user; no password is requested.
Example with IP 192.168.1.18:
paolo@predatorg:~$ ssh root@192.168.1.18 Welcome to Multitool SSH session! root@multitool:~#  
 
Link-local access:
 
Multitool will also, by default, listen to link-local 169.254.120.120/16 address. This is useful if you have no DHCP server or have troubles retrieving the IP address.
Note that to access such private IP you need to set a network interface of your PC on the same subnet, or also use a virtual interface.
 
Here there is an example using ip assigning address 169.254.89.32/16 to virtual interface eth0:1 (address can be changed at your pleasure, interface must be the same interface you use to access the box, ie: wlan0, enp0s25, or whatever):
ip addr add 169.254.89.32/16 brd + dev eth0 label eth0:1  
or if you prefer old but good ifconfig:
ifconfig eth0:1 169.254.89.32/16  
then the multitool is accessible to 169.254.120.120:
paolo@predatorg:~$ ssh root@169.254.120.120 Welcome to Multitool SSH session! root@multitool:~#  
Of course link-local access won't work if you have multiple devices running multitool on the same network, since all of them will conflict because they have the same IP; in such case use the IP provided by DHCP.

Thanks @jock for comments.
The problem is that user like my with boxes that the HDMI is not working and then cant getting mulltitool working at all also from serial console so being complete blind and if copy your first part of mulltitool and copy one armbian to on partitation after the boot part is possible installing armbian without problem in EMMC with SSH.
Is it OK posing part of your mulltitool with added system partition on git-hub if some user is requesting it ?
 
I have only found focal with desktop and installing it i only have little more than 2G free flash and HA is needing that or more so i need mounting the SD-card in docker storage directory then i have 64G for containers and still can installing things and doing updates.
 
The LEDs is right configuration and changing is not helping (the LED is power off mode) so i must trying your trigger if google can giving my the right guldens.
 
@fabiobassa you are more then welcome PM my or you can open issue in one of my git-hubs repros like https://github.com/MattWestb/R29-MXQ-LP3-V2.3-00908.
Im not one expert on HA but have much knowledge with ZHA part and the Zigbee system and device.
If i can help with some problem or sharing some good or bad experience is very OK for my and you looks have much knowledge in other interesting technical things.
 
PS the soldering is not so good that it can being but working and it can being better done but with the age its more Shaking Stevens have doing it ;-))
 
Mvh  Mattias

@MattWestB
compliments for your installation, looks fine

Are you ok on home assistant ? would ask something,  maybe i can send you a private message ?

 

I was rebooting the box after nearly 8 days of up time with HA supervised and that is not bad for the "first try" running it on the new hardware.
I was not liking the external SD-Card that is 4/5 outside of the box and im using micro SD-card so i was baying one cheep USB card reader and desolating the SD socket and soldering up side down on the back side of the external in the box so i can mounting the SD-card or one adapter for micro SD-card inside the box and having the docker container storage on it and its working OK. (only 2 pads was tricky getting OK in the middle and dont looks so nice but is working OK)
 
I was doing one mistake that i can fixing but im sure some knowing how to do that.
By using commands shutdown the box is being shutdown and cant being powered on then its not having any power button so must re powering by taking  the power cord away and back but after that the power LED is always off also if i changing the LED config with RK-config.
Is it possible sending one command type "LED on" so its start working or some other work around ?
If booting on external SD-card or USB with one new installed armbian its working  OK until using shutdown.
 
@jock in the first post in "Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:" you is writing "Erase flash" and then Build or download your preferred Armbian image and writing it to one SD-card and booting armbian.
But its not working then its not bootloader in the internal flash so the chip is trying to finding one on the SD-card = OK but all armbian images is only system in and no bootloder so the chip cant booting if not adding one bootloader and  u-boot on the SD-card before the system partition. Have i misunderstanding some thing or is it one typo ?
If having one image with "normal" bootloader and u-boot and one minimal system partition (one meg or so) then it shall being extending the partition and copy one system partition the card having it booting OK also for no Linux skill window user with minitols that can extending Linux partitions and also copy them between dicks from windows.
 
Thanks for great support and work with our boxes and hope next Ubuntu LTS is coming soon (beta is booting OK but is not  working OK for one week ago) and working great on them in near future !!
 

@Wester_Minsk
 

I suppose you want to build a uboot for supporting booting from usb3 .
This isn't a simple task and if it was simple,  somebody else already could had done for all of us. It is needed deep knowledge of processes undergoing the compilation and the modding of c sources. It isn't just a flag " boot from usb3..." but a chain on changes to do to the code, if someone already has written a code for it

By the way here is the link
https://github.com/rockchip-linux/u-boot

but then don't ask for assistance in what when and where apply patch since if this infos were clear and well known uboot already had have usb3 support.

But you really welcome to study and share your results

@chinhhut

Try these steps:
1) push the little switch inside the hole while inserting a male-male cable into the otg
2) on another linux machine you should have now a new device (lsusb will help you) and you can run rkdeveloptool
3) rkdeveloptool ld should List Device
4) rkdeveloptool rd 3 should Reset Device into mode 3  ( maskrom )
5) rkdeveloptool db MiniLoaderAll.bin ( of course from your path) should upload a temporary loader to recognize the internal emmc
6) if all is successfull until now you can rkdeveloptool wl 0X0 yourimage.img . This should flash the internal emmc .

DISCLAIMER: very " dangerous" approach , be ready to have the opportunity to short the emmc clock pin to ground to go back into mask rom
 
MiniLoaderAll.zip

@chinhhut
Glad you got success .
Don't forget to put a like that helps @jock and myself in community reputation
 
 
 

@Trần Minh Thảo
what operating system are you using to flash device ?
you need UBUNTU or DEBIAN , latest versions

@Trần Minh Thảo

 

What is for rkbin-master for you  ???????  What do you think  is it purpose ?

 

Ciao Fabio,
 
thanks,but you are too kind.. I am just carrying out a project that allowed me not to throw away my box
Most of time I spent trying and trying again (I have no way to use a UART port because on my motherboard it's hidden ), and trying to figure out how you solved the problems. 
Then, being a lover of open source, I try to give back something to community.
 
In any case I have noticed some good progress on the 5.15.y kernel for the 322x socs.
Probably if someone else doesn't, I'll try to port libreelec to one of the recent versions.
I'm a slackware user, so forgive me if I'm not a debian lover 

Hi all,
 
I've a box with rk3228b, nand, ddr2 etc etc and I'm using it as mediacenter with Libreelec 9.2 installed on sdcard.
The box recognize the nand, but I had never been able to install the operating system in it (tried with rkdeveloptool, dd and others but without succes).
Until today, when I've discovered this beautiful tool called multitool
I had to make a few small changes (basically removed offset and gpt creation in the nand flash code), but it works great.
So my question is, it's possible to add an option to write a generic image, in order to make this tool more useful!?
 
Last question, I think that the libreelec bootloader has some trouble when boot from NAND, but it's strange, because I've readed that the multitool one shoud be the same. It's true, or there are some changes that I can apply and retry?!
 
 
Thanks for your hard work.
Michele
 
 
 
 
 

thanks @jock, meanwhile looking at your repo I stole a patch that fixes the boot from nand in my libreelec fork 
 
I have seen that this code has been inserted in recent kernels
 
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/mtd/nand/raw/rockchip-nand-controller.c
 
so maybe in the near future NAND for rockchip should works?!

@markst I understand there is no blame, but the phrase"Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked" is followed by a detailed explanation about why this is true.
The whole paragraph is important to read, not just the first few words, in particular you can note:
 
 
Don't know, but it looks to me there are enough warnings

Thank you for the job. I run successfully on H96max rk3318, debian server on emmc
 
 
 

@Huafu
The ground (GND) pin is the most important pin, you must absolutely connect it if you want a reliable result, otherwise you can get varying results starting from occasional garbage, total garbage or even adapter breakage.
If you have a common regular USB serial adapter, +5V is not needed at all and must be kept disconnected.
 
All the three pins (GND, TX and RX) must be connected before giving power to the board and possibly with the serial adapter disconnected from the computer too.
Once the hardware setup is done, you can connect the serial adapter to the computer and configure minicom with the right parameters: usually it is sufficient to keep defaults and change baud rate to 1.5Mbps.
 
Finally you can give power to the board.
 

Hi all,
Little feedback, I tried installing CasaOs, CasaOS - A simple, easy-to-use, elegant open-source Family Cloud system
it works..
It may be useful for some of you.
Thank you to the entire IceWhale team for this sharing..
 
https://github.com/IceWhaleTech/CasaOS
 
 

@Elmojo
I know is not fine answer to a question with another question but in this case
 
comes very natural ask  : why did you modded it ??? Just for fun ? You didn't have a defined purpose in trying linux ?

Anyway, just to answer , in my personal study case I have done on it:
voip pbx ( asterisk)
network nas
network firewall
pihole dns firewall
openvpv, wireguard and tinc vpn
home assistant
volumio
special ip cam monitoring and data acquisition

and I guess I could experiment more..... if only I would study more potential applications

@chinhhut

Try these steps:
1) push the little switch inside the hole while inserting a male-male cable into the otg
2) on another linux machine you should have now a new device (lsusb will help you) and you can run rkdeveloptool
3) rkdeveloptool ld should List Device
4) rkdeveloptool rd 3 should Reset Device into mode 3  ( maskrom )
5) rkdeveloptool db MiniLoaderAll.bin ( of course from your path) should upload a temporary loader to recognize the internal emmc
6) if all is successfull until now you can rkdeveloptool wl 0X0 yourimage.img . This should flash the internal emmc .

DISCLAIMER: very " dangerous" approach , be ready to have the opportunity to short the emmc clock pin to ground to go back into mask rom
 
MiniLoaderAll.zip

@Elmojo
I know is not fine answer to a question with another question but in this case
 
comes very natural ask  : why did you modded it ??? Just for fun ? You didn't have a defined purpose in trying linux ?

Anyway, just to answer , in my personal study case I have done on it:
voip pbx ( asterisk)
network nas
network firewall
pihole dns firewall
openvpv, wireguard and tinc vpn
home assistant
volumio
special ip cam monitoring and data acquisition

and I guess I could experiment more..... if only I would study more potential applications