Bozza

This is not aarch64,,, THIS IS SPARTTTAA. Joking There have been retro games for Windows and Linux since the 90s. All you have to do is to try and compile them. If they don't compile because of a missing dynarec for aarch64 than it is how it is, unless you decide to port the dynarec yourself. The good news however is that there is now 3d acceleration on some amlogic cpus due to the panfrost drivers!

xrandr --output DP-0-0 --mode 1280x720

What TV do you have? I think I figured the problem out. It isn't switching to 30hz. It is switching to 1080i@60hz which your tv should probably support, but for some reason the mainline kernel has issues with the interlaced mode with some TV models. I don't think it is related to the dtb. What TV box are you using? If you run xrandr it will show you which display mode it really switched into.

I have the same issue with HDMI in Balbes 5.8.5 images. HDMI switches to 30hz which makes the image garbled on my TV. I can switch it manually to 60hz in the system settings which fixes the issue MOSTLY. There are still problems with HDMI. Even in the other modes HDMI takes over ALL other HDMI inputs on my AVR. So even if I have switched on my sat box on HDMI 1 I can only see armbian even though it is connected to HDMI 3. I have never seen anything like this. Is armbian growing a mind of its own and taking over? hehe. I think there must be an issue with HDMI clocks, the implementation of the protocol or perhaps the implementation of CEC. Edit: the exact same behaviour with HDMI can also be observed in LE with the mainline kernel Edit2: So it turns out that it switches into 1080i@60hz which is the preferred display mode of this TV. For whatever reason it says that it switches into 30hz in the display settings and also inside Kodi in libreelec. Either way this particular mode glitches out badly in the mainline kernel

This box has the s905x3 and not the s905x2. Yes, sound and ethernet is okay. According to chewitt bluetooth should also work since kernel version 5.7. The dtb file needs to be adapted to include this change. The major hurdle is wifi. The source code for the driver is around and a few boards use this chip. The biggest problem is that apparently the driver for the wifi chip only compiles on kernel version 4.9. I am not sure if anyone can confirm this or try to compile it.

There is a value called the phandle. This value is very much like a unique ID number. As far as I understand it is assigned to each device, however the ID can be anything you want it to be. The phandle is used to link different entries in different locations of the dts/dtb. (like a trace on a pcb). Now this is where it gets complicated and can get confusing. If your audio or WiFi isn't working it is tempting to take parts of two dtb files and stitch them together. This is not possible because the phandles are arbitrary and can differ from dtb to dtb. For example your x.dtb might give the audio device the phandle ID of 25, while your y.dtb might give that same phandle to your USB device. If you attempt to stitch them together you might lose both audio and USB. I have a suspicion that a lot of these TV box devices were made by stitching different files together while leaving a lot of bad syntax in the device trees. These dtb files are turning out to be more fun than I thought.

It is funny how new kernel versions break some things, and yet fix things that have worked in older versions but have been broken in more recent versions. 5.8.5 for example fixes audio over HDMI for instance. It has been recently broken, but is now fixed. Will there be a kernel version where everything is fixed + where panfrost is stable?

@Uwu I have successfully booted 20.09 from SD but I have not tried flashing it to the emmc. I will not try until someone reports it being successful. (I don't want to intentionally brick my box). Regarding 20.09. Sound over HDMI works again using the old dtb file without the fix! The boot screen no longer flickers! As soon as the desktop is reached however armbian switches into 1080p@30hz which my display doesn't support and it starts to flicker. The good news though is that now there is no more overscan and the "dot by dot" mode is no longer greyed out on the TV.

Let's try to understand the dts/dtb file. At least this way we can modify the file to hopefully make our boxes and boards work better. The format of the dts file is pretty straightforward. On the left you have the variable names which are the devices on the pcb. On the right hand side you have the hexadecimal address location of the said device. First we need to know the device name we want to modify. I am guessing the names are determined by the kernel and drivers. For instance in android4.9 you might have the device name bluetooth but in a mainline kernel it might be bt_dev. Again, as I understand this name might be determined by the drivers so it could differ on each box even with the same kernel version. For example on my stock image I have an entry for cyx-vdt. In other dtb files openvdt is used. Another thing that we need to know is the hexadecimal address of the devices. One way this could be found is through trial and error by looking at dtb files that work for your box and making a custom dtb file. If only your WiFi works with x.dtb but ethernet only works with y.dtb you could find the relevant bits to make an xy.dtb with both WiFi and ethernet. However if hexadecimal locations change with kernel or driver revisions I have no idea how the new address can be identified. Does anyone have any idea how any of this can be done?

Are there any differences when compiling natively on the TV box? Can we just use compile.sh or are any special modifications needed?

Hello fellow armbianites, It has been put to me that arm based boards require a DTB file because arm works a bit differently than x86. The difference between an arm and an x86 board, is that x86 is standardised and always has the same form factor. When you plug in a device into an expansion slot or port on your motherboard the new device announces itself. All the addresses are known in advance and hence there is no need for a DTB file. On arm on the other hand board design is not standardised. You can design a PCB whichever way you would like and solder any component onto the board that your heart desires. There is no single way to design an arm PCB. The devices you solder onto the board do not announce themselves. It is therefore important to know the address location of each device and chip that is connected to the arm CPU. This is where the DTB file comes in. Every chip and device that is wired to the CPU is linked in the DTB file. I am trying to modify a DTB file to suit my box. Why is it that I cannot just take the DTB that came with the box and use it for an OS like armbian? Moreover I have noticed that more recent mainline kernels have now lost audio on one of the ms1 dtb files. Someone has modified a dtb file with a fix for audio. Why is a modified file needed? The hardware itself hasn't changed, and only the minor kernel revision. The audio chip didn't suddenly grow legs and migrate -1 hexadecimal locations. How can this be explained?

How do you install Ubuntu on your system? Is there a way to run other operating systems besides Balbes' images?

Have you tried using panfrost?

I managed to boot into armbian on my box. I used the dtb applicable to my box and the S905X2 u-boot.ext that Balbes' image contains. I wasn't able to use the u-boot.ext that someone posted here for s905x3. The box boots into armbian with the S905X2 uboot but the image is flickering and tearing. https://imgur.com/a/96sAz81 UPDATE It turned out that armbian was selecting the wrong HDMI output mode. It was selecting 1080p@30hz which by the looks of it doesn't work with this TV. When I manually set it to 1080p@60hz or anything else it works just fine. When switched to 1080p or 720p there is some overscan. The outermost edges are cut. Is that normal on a TV screen?

Do I need to comment out the # at the begging of the relevant lines in extlinux.conf? Answer: Yes of course the # need to be deleted. I was confused because someone said to leave them in.

Which exact files do I need to boot armbian on a s905x3 box? Is there an archive with the .img files and the corresponding DTB files? EDIT: for example people are saying they downloaded "Armbian_20.06.0_Arm-64_focal_current....img". Where exactly would that file be located?