ramoncio

I installed latest Ubuntu bionic desktop image with kernel 5.5-rc6 in my H96 Max X3 (S905X3). https://www.h96tvbox.com/home/91-398-rounded-h96-max-x3-android-tv-box-s905x3.html I tried many dtbs and the best was meson-g12a-x96-max.dtb, with gigabit ethernet and usb ports working. sm1 dtbs were not working fine, meson-sm1-sei610.dtb didn't boot and meson-sm1-khadas-vim3l.dtb only had usb3 working but usb2 wasn't. But I noticed that with meson-sm1-khadas-vim3l.dtb budgie desktop and gnome worked, while not with g12a dtbs. I guess it is because g12a have different graphics chips. So I modified meson-sm1-khadas-vim3l.dtb, converted it to dts and tried some minimal changes. Finally I got USB2 working too with this image. Here are the attached dts and dtb files. Sound works after removing pulseaudio and running g12_sound.sh wifi and bt aren't working, as expected. meson-sm1-H96max-X3.dtb meson-sm1-H96max-X3.dts

Language support can't add more languages in ubuntu disco image, I get an PolicyKit error. You can solve it installing policykit-1-gnome and rebooting as seen here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031319/language-support-in-18-04-not-working-org-freedesktop-policykiterror-failed @balbes150 maybe you could include it in the images if you have the time? Do you have a bug tracker where we can report (and fix if possible) stuff like this or this is the right place? xfce4-power-manager and xfce4-power-manager-plugins would be also a nice addition, for those who want to avoid screen turning off by default.

I see, now ethernet is not working in armbian in my S905, and it was working before running coreelec. Anyway, in this case we are trying to get usb working in the X88 King, there is no support at all at the moment, so armbian is not very useful until we get it working. Only for a headless server.

Problems why? Well, in worst case scenario he just needs to recover factory firmware, right? I haven't had problems in 2 different devices without restoring them I can boot armbian from USB again, after coreelec from microsd.

I think this is only if you install it in the emmc, I have tried it in at least 2 boxes (S905, S905X2) with no problems at all, when you remove the microsd/usb it boots to android. And after this armbian worked, only had to use the toothstick again. Anyway you can always restore the original firmware easily with USB tool or microsd recovery.

Yes, I think so. But first I would try in coreelec 9.2.1 that has nearly identical dts. And if it works there we know that in armbian will work as well, just need to find the right dts settings, but kernel modules should be the same and are installed in armbian kernel, as in odroid n2 they work.

So you can modify g12b_s922x_odroid_n2.dts using the reg values in dtb_2 and rename it as g12b_s922x_x88king.dts, compile the dtb and try it in coreelec 9.2.1. If this works, we will need to adapt the odroid n2 armbian dts with the different reg values and maybe usb can work. My box will take a couple of weeks for shipping. I think the H6 MAX X3 S905X3 will be here first.

I have a very nice find. g12b_s922x_odroid_n2.dts from Coreelec 9.2.1 has a really similar structure to the dts I extracted from the X88 King image, check it out in the attached files, at least the usb related stuff. It looks pretty straightforward to adapt, and make it work at least with the kernel they use, and get usbs working in corelec. g12b_s922x_odroid_n2.dts dtb_2

I think I read somewhere @balbes150 said he had to update the script for images creation. I guess you'll have to wait or do it yourself if you find out how. I'm not very familiar with uboot yet, just knew about armbian a few weeks ago. Edit : Here:

I have just ordered this one for me, a H96 Max X3, with a S905x3 and 4Gb/128Gb, for 42€ included shipping. 😁 https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.es%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F274165708444 so I can test with more different socks. I will probably also get a 25€ TX9S S912 2Gb/8Gb so I can test latest midgard support in panfrost that should be already working. I also have a S905 that works great with coreelec.

It seems that Odroid N2 also uses the same amlogic-new-usb2-v2 driver, and should be included in the kernel, as it appears in a coreelec log here: https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/odroid-n2-test-builds/4560%3Fpage%3D89&ved=2ahUKEwj4n8b9z-rmAhXI0eAKHUL1Ce0QFjAAegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1iva3UyWfsd1781fs0eTVh&cshid=1578164449966 Yesterday I ordered a X88 King for a good friend of mine who lives next door. He will just use kodi and very light gaming in Android, and he wanted a very fast box with good internal memory, and gigabit network, so he chose it amongst the rest of S922X devices we saw. No brainer, 80€ for this beast with 4Gb LPDDR4 and 128 Emmc is amazing. I will be able to do armbian testing with it, I guess usb and Ethernet will get supported soon, I don't care much about wifi and BT atm. I have started to read some device trees tutorials to see if I can help with it. And I'll keep my A95X F2 4/64 for now, instead of selling it and getting a new box. Maybe Ugoos AM6 will drop price in some moment and I'll get one, we'll see.

I have found this GREAT post by odroidn2user explaining hardware acceleration info and status in Amlogic devices. It answers most of the questions I've had since I first installed Armbian, maybe some admin can make a sticky. https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=36675 @balbes150 now I'm thinking about getting a RK3399 with a midgard GPU instead of a Ugoos AM6 Pro with S922X and a bifrost GPU. Or do you think bifrost support will be added soon?

Having a look at the X88 dts files extracted from the android image, I think you need to add some new amlogic USB modules in the armbian kernel: amlogic-new-usb2-v2 and amlogic-new-usb3-v2

The vfat partition is needed for the boot sequence, it contains the kernel, initrd and dtb files. Burn a image with etcher and replace the vfat partition contents with your generated /boot contents and the ext4 root partition contents with the rest of your generated image. Also depending on the version of uboot you might need to set your proper dtb in /extlinux/extlinux.conf You can set it in both files uEnv.ini and extlinux.conf And try all the dtbs of your model family (GXL for S905W) until you find one that boots. Good luck!

You don't say anything about Amlogic, are you dropping support for Ugoos Am6 and S9XX models? I was thinking about getting an AM6 Pro in a few days, as you have been saying for long it is the best device, and I was thinking about paying the extra for it. Any chances of X11 accelerated desktop anytime soon? Do lima and panfrost work properly with the current images? Do kodi and mpv work with full vpu decoding in armbian at least? Thanks for your great work!!!

I think the dts extracted from the X88 King image is linked to the android kernel, so when you create the meson-g12b-X88king.dts file it has to be linked to the armbian kernel, I guess only kernel developers know how to do that.

With dtc tool you can also get the dts (text) from the dtb (binary) $ dtc -I dtb -O dts meson-g12b-ugoos-am6.dtb > meson-g12b-ugoos-am6.dts And you get the device tree in a text file, see attachment. I guess you need to get data from the X88 android dts files I uploaded in the last post and create a linux dts like the one in this attachment. I guess it won't be easy. And then you can compile the dtb binary and try it $ dtc -O dtb -o meson-g12b-X88king.dtb meson-g12b-X88king.dts meson-g12b-ugoos-am6.dts

I have compiled those android dts files into dtbs using dtc in linux, I got tons of warnings but the dtbs got compiled. dtc -O dtb -o x88_1.dtb dtb_1 dtc -O dtb -o x88_2.dtb dtb_2 Here they are in a zip file, but I would be amazed if they worked :-) x88_android_dtb.zip

I guess it won't be so easy, or there would be plenty of customized dtbs for all devices. I have extracted the android dtbs from that image, but I think you will need to adapt it for linux and then compile it into a binary somehow. Here is a zip file attached with what I got extracted in the dtb directory using customization tool from amlogic tools. I still haven't decided which new box I'm getting, if usb eventually works with this X88 King I might get one. Or maybe I'll get a cheaper one with S905X3 and 4G/64G dtb.zip

Something went wrong or that is not the proper tool, file size is too small.

What parameters do you need, .configure files, full kernel sources? If we had the proper dtb file would it work? Isn't it possible to extract and convert the dts/dtb file from android as root to use in armbian and LE? Or maybe it's not that simple?

Yes, I have used it in most of my devices to make nandroid backups. You need to get the proper recovery.img for a similar S922X 4G, put it in the root of the microsd/usb, and boot it in recovery mode (toothstick) and twrp should boot up. You can also flash it to the recovery partition, but I prefer to leave the original recovery untouched, if possible.

Which of this boxes would you recommend for Armbian? Ugoos AM6 is out of my budget, I would prefer one of this list, better the cheaper ones under 50€. 1. X96 Air 4/64 (S905X3) 38€ - Powerful and cheap but not sure if 4G/64G version has gigabit ethernet 2. A95XF3 4/64 (S905X3) 40€ - Powerful and cheap and the seller says it has gigabit - I might get this one 3. Magicsee N6 MAX 4/32 (RK3399) 98€ - I see there is a media script to install mesa and VPU drivers. also for the other chips? 4. Beelink GT King 4/64 (S922X) 97€ - It is the fastest and has voice remote and air mouse. Does RK3399 have a lot better multimedia support or the Amlogic cpus can also have mesa and VPU drivers in armbian with panfrost? In LE and coreelec they work fine I think. Can I compile Kodi 18 in armbian or are there any repository where I can get it with dependencies? Do you know if integrated BT and wifi works/will work soon in armbian in these models? Do Netflix, HBO, and Prime Video work in chromium with any of these models? Thank you!!

OK, I found the instructions for hdmi audio. Uninstalled pulseaudio and ran the g12_sound script in the /root directory. I still need to figure out how to configure a working mixer, I'll keep trying.

Hi @Balbes150 congratulations and thanks a lot for your great work bringing Linux and LE to many kinds of TV Boxes, maybe a few chinese sellers would be glad to sponsor you. I have a Sammix M9 Box with S905 and 1G/8G, installed Coreelec 9.2 on it and it works really great: LAN, Wifi, BT and even remote work perfect out of the box using the proper dtb. Everything works fine from SD, so I won't touch that one until it breaks. Probably I'll try to install it to EMMC later, I did a EMMC backup just in case. Recently I got a A95X F2 with S905X2 and 4Gb/64gb. I installed the bionic desktop from here https://yadi.sk/d/pHxaRAs-tZiei/19.11.3 and LAN works ok using meson-g12a-x96-max-rmii.dtb But I haven't been able to configure sound, only get a dummy output whatever I do and many errors in dmesg like: fe.dai-link-0: ASoC: no backend DAIs enabled for fe.dai-link-0 This is the output for lsmod root@tvbox:/home/ramoncio# lsmod Module Size Used by sg 40960 0 fuse 110592 5 bnep 32768 2 zstd 16384 4 zram 32768 2 hci_uart 135168 0 btqca 20480 1 hci_uart btrtl 24576 1 hci_uart cdc_ether 20480 0 btbcm 16384 1 hci_uart usbnet 49152 1 cdc_ether btintel 28672 1 hci_uart r8152 65536 0 bluetooth 557056 13 btrtl,btqca,btintel,hci_uart,btbcm,bnep ecdh_generic 16384 1 bluetooth ecc 32768 1 ecdh_generic rfkill 28672 4 bluetooth crct10dif_ce 16384 1 snd_soc_meson_axg_sound_card 20480 0 ir_nec_decoder 20480 0 meson_ir 16384 0 ao_cec_g12a 16384 0 dw_hdmi_cec 16384 0 snd_soc_meson_axg_tdmout 20480 1 snd_soc_meson_axg_spdifout 16384 2 snd_soc_meson_g12a_tohdmitx 20480 1 snd_soc_meson_axg_frddr 24576 3 snd_soc_meson_axg_fifo 20480 1 snd_soc_meson_axg_frddr snd_soc_meson_axg_tdm_interface 16384 2 snd_soc_meson_axg_sound_card snd_soc_meson_axg_tdm_formatter 16384 2 snd_soc_meson_axg_tdm_interface,snd_soc_meson_axg_tdmout snd_soc_spdif_tx 16384 1 sch_fq_codel 20480 3 ip_tables 32768 0 x_tables 40960 1 ip_tables ipv6 516096 90 nf_defrag_ipv6 24576 1 ipv6 crc_ccitt 16384 1 ipv6 mdio_mux_meson_g12a 16384 0 I have tried forcing reloading alsa and pulseaudio with no success. Any hints to get HDMI audio working? I have kernel Linux tvbox 5.3.0-aml-g12 #5.99 SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 25 14:50:13 MSK 2019 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux originally it had kernel 5.4 RC4 DEV, but after upgrading with apt I ended with this 5.3 kernel. It would be nice to have at the first post some links to faqs and howtos. To configure HDMI audio, wifi and BT with the most common chips, etc. And also updated info on how to get mali drivers working and video decoders on models where it works. I think I saw you have a media-package.tar.gz in an old 3.2 kernel version for S905, but haven't found any instructions on how to deal with it. I also tried your images of LE 9.80, but they have kodi 19 and some of my addons have problems with it. Any image with kodi 18.4/.5 available for my G12A? I would like to have armbian ubuntu but with a working kodi 18.5 with G31 drivers and video decoders working fine, is this possible or near? Thanks again for your great work!!!