awawa

TX6 design summary and of course new release.
Today was the day I decided to promote the TX6 as a my main native ARM development center. This brought some improvements and I finally decided to open it. There were no screws, just plastic snaps.

It seems that the manufacturer tried to improve the thermal characteristics of this device. On the right side: a flat metal block and a plastic mass.
At first I removed them but to my surprise the temperatures were worse. So this thermal bridge helps somehow.
The next step was to drill a few holes at the bottom and turn the box upside down (which meant putting it back in its "right" position). I also included some new rubber feet on the "new" bottom.
The box is cooler now, but the idle CPU temperature remains the same (it's better under load and the temperature returns to normal very quickly when the load is gone). So probably the TX6 design is not as flawed as I thought and the high temperature must be for some other reason.



I've managed also to enable installation on the eMMC storage: the installer works now without errors and uboot's DTS was updated in bit different manner (from Aarch DTS patches).
The speed is not great:


Images are being uploaded:
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.03.08

Thank you and success.

@awawa@markst I found out how POWEROFF the RED led of SPIDF

 
echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/working/brightness  
Strange as it can be 1 = OFF and 0 = ON

@jock Grazie ancora per tutto quello che fai!! 

No, I didn't install system on eMMC. I've got some other TV boxes that are tested for my HyperHDR project as Rpi 4 replacement. Rpi doesn't have eMMC and I want to provide them equal chances (and I don't want to break them if something with eMMC goes wrong , maybe later). BTW so far Rpi4 USB3.0 handling/bandwidth is no match for them...probably tvboxes' USB3.0 drivers are inferior. CPU/Thermal handling is very tricky on H6. For example: one of Armbian patches that should improve CPU's temps is introducing massive instability in fact (it can be observed in dmesg after some time). Despite CPU temps in valid range. So now I'm very cautious when it comes to modify related things.

Had better luck using OpenVfd. The watch is working. But currently really have no idea how to include it in the build scripts.

TX6 design summary and of course new release.
Today was the day I decided to promote the TX6 as a my main native ARM development center. This brought some improvements and I finally decided to open it. There were no screws, just plastic snaps.

It seems that the manufacturer tried to improve the thermal characteristics of this device. On the right side: a flat metal block and a plastic mass.
At first I removed them but to my surprise the temperatures were worse. So this thermal bridge helps somehow.
The next step was to drill a few holes at the bottom and turn the box upside down (which meant putting it back in its "right" position). I also included some new rubber feet on the "new" bottom.
The box is cooler now, but the idle CPU temperature remains the same (it's better under load and the temperature returns to normal very quickly when the load is gone). So probably the TX6 design is not as flawed as I thought and the high temperature must be for some other reason.



I've managed also to enable installation on the eMMC storage: the installer works now without errors and uboot's DTS was updated in bit different manner (from Aarch DTS patches).
The speed is not great:


Images are being uploaded:
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.03.08

@Pic55 These are the same errors as earlier: now they disappear so fast that I didn't notice them too.
I just uploaded new experimental undervoltage image to the release (switch voltage table designed for better CPU batch). Seems safe jugging by some old alternative patches but can't guarantee it.
As a "side-effect" 1.8GHz works now. Still need to test it in long-term.

My repo is back. With new release of course Bump Kernel to new 5.15.25 and include all valid for us LibreElec patches after their review. https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.24
The fork is now linked to armbian:master and it is ahead by 1 commit that contains all my changes. It will be easy to refresh origin with future Armbian upstream changes.
Unfortunately for us tvboxes have a low priority for mainline development: few patches that are included in Armbian probably for other SCBs, prevent Tanix TX6 from booting or they are causing unstable behavior so I needed to exclude them. So that board needs to have its own patch repository (99% armbian patches included and most of LibreElec).

@danboid Haven't tried dis/reconnecting HDMI yet. MATE version will be uploaded.

New version for Tanix TX6 (Allwinner H6):
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.17
 
Changelog:
Add support for OpenVfd LED clock (service is disabled on default) upgrade current branch to: 5.15.24 include 4k60 H6 fix from LibreElec update current(5.15) Armbian patches include drivers for RTL8822CS  
To enable LED clock service execute these commands:
 
sudo systemctl enable openvfd sudo systemctl start openvfd  

New build has just released and images are uploading. I've included now almost all new Kernel patches from official Armbian (a lot of changes for cedrus, sound mixer and media components): only these related to DTB/DTS and causing TX6 instability are excluded but they are not related to your subject. So @danboid in my opinion you can treat it almost as generic Armbian release in your straggling with accelerated ffmpeg. Can't help much more than that. Previous releases were primary targeting vanilla mainline Kernel using just few old balbes150 patches till I figured out where are the problems with current Armbian patches. Now I know why support for that board will probably never reach even Armbian's CSC level. I don't have a plan for sid release.

I think that's the last build for Tanix TX6 H6 till next major Kernel upgrade appears as everything seems OK now.
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.14

@danboid I've got something even better Support for 5.15 kernels, with kernel sources and headers packages this time.
 
There is a nasty bug (or let's rather say: something incompatible with TX6) introduced with the mainstream kernel 5.15 sunxi that completely breaks eMMC, introduces I/O instability and causes high CPU usage as sideeffect: FIXED.

Release (Tanix TX6, Allwinner H6, AC200/XR819 network cards):
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.12

thanks @MBB! @awawa image is superb. Seems that all is working

TX6 design summary and of course new release.
Today was the day I decided to promote the TX6 as a my main native ARM development center. This brought some improvements and I finally decided to open it. There were no screws, just plastic snaps.

It seems that the manufacturer tried to improve the thermal characteristics of this device. On the right side: a flat metal block and a plastic mass.
At first I removed them but to my surprise the temperatures were worse. So this thermal bridge helps somehow.
The next step was to drill a few holes at the bottom and turn the box upside down (which meant putting it back in its "right" position). I also included some new rubber feet on the "new" bottom.
The box is cooler now, but the idle CPU temperature remains the same (it's better under load and the temperature returns to normal very quickly when the load is gone). So probably the TX6 design is not as flawed as I thought and the high temperature must be for some other reason.



I've managed also to enable installation on the eMMC storage: the installer works now without errors and uboot's DTS was updated in bit different manner (from Aarch DTS patches).
The speed is not great:


Images are being uploaded:
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.03.08

TX6 design summary and of course new release.
Today was the day I decided to promote the TX6 as a my main native ARM development center. This brought some improvements and I finally decided to open it. There were no screws, just plastic snaps.

It seems that the manufacturer tried to improve the thermal characteristics of this device. On the right side: a flat metal block and a plastic mass.
At first I removed them but to my surprise the temperatures were worse. So this thermal bridge helps somehow.
The next step was to drill a few holes at the bottom and turn the box upside down (which meant putting it back in its "right" position). I also included some new rubber feet on the "new" bottom.
The box is cooler now, but the idle CPU temperature remains the same (it's better under load and the temperature returns to normal very quickly when the load is gone). So probably the TX6 design is not as flawed as I thought and the high temperature must be for some other reason.



I've managed also to enable installation on the eMMC storage: the installer works now without errors and uboot's DTS was updated in bit different manner (from Aarch DTS patches).
The speed is not great:


Images are being uploaded:
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.03.08

@Pic55 after creating a backup I tried to install on eMMC. But the system doesn't boot from eMMC, starting from SD is still working.
During installation using armbian-config there are some errors:
sed: can't read /mnt/nand-sata-install.yi7VMe/bootfs/boot/boot.cmd: No such file or directory sed: can't read /mnt/nand-sata-install.yi7VMe/bootfs/boot/boot.cmd: No such file or directory grep: /mnt/nand-sata-install.yi7VMe/bootfs/boot/armbianEnv.txt: No such file or directory /mnt/nand-sata-install.yi7VMe/bootfs is empty

No, I didn't install system on eMMC. I've got some other TV boxes that are tested for my HyperHDR project as Rpi 4 replacement. Rpi doesn't have eMMC and I want to provide them equal chances (and I don't want to break them if something with eMMC goes wrong , maybe later). BTW so far Rpi4 USB3.0 handling/bandwidth is no match for them...probably tvboxes' USB3.0 drivers are inferior. CPU/Thermal handling is very tricky on H6. For example: one of Armbian patches that should improve CPU's temps is introducing massive instability in fact (it can be observed in dmesg after some time). Despite CPU temps in valid range. So now I'm very cautious when it comes to modify related things.

According to linux-sunxi.org TX6 was designed for 1.5ghz. I think 1.7ghz is already too much due to very poor ventilation and I was rather considering downclocking Maybe some alternative solution could be possible like script to modifying DTB after the installation (decompiling DTB, changing voltage/max speed, compile it again).

If there is no status line, it's considered active. You have to set status to "okey" only when parent node sets it to "disabled". For example, sun50i-h6.dtsi has spdif node set to disabled. In sun50i-h6-tanix-tx6.dts we override status to "okay".

My repo is back. With new release of course Bump Kernel to new 5.15.25 and include all valid for us LibreElec patches after their review. https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.24
The fork is now linked to armbian:master and it is ahead by 1 commit that contains all my changes. It will be easy to refresh origin with future Armbian upstream changes.
Unfortunately for us tvboxes have a low priority for mainline development: few patches that are included in Armbian probably for other SCBs, prevent Tanix TX6 from booting or they are causing unstable behavior so I needed to exclude them. So that board needs to have its own patch repository (99% armbian patches included and most of LibreElec).

@awawa Great news you are switching to mainline.  It will be fantastic to have someone maintain a Tanix H6 build again!  THANK YOU FOR SHARING ALL YOUR WORK ON THIS!
 
On a somewhat related topic, I am working with a manufacturer in China to (hopefully) sell the Tanix-compatible T95 Mini under a new name to avoid confusion, with EMMC, preflashed with Armbian so ready-to-use out of the box.  If anyone is interested in such a product, please let me know.  @awawa's repo works flawlessly.
 
For anyone considering a Tanix-compatible box, I highly  recommend the T95 Mini (with EMMC - often these get shipped with NAND unless you check and they understand what you are even asking ).  The reason why we like the T95 Mini is it seems to run cooler than any other compatible model.  It is also really small and inexpensive.
 
Thanks again @awawa!

@danboid If that driver works then probably can be integrated in build script. My repo will be offline for few days: I want to switch fork to mainline Armbian and apply my changes to it. I will be much easier in future to track all the changes in official Armbian releases.

@danboid If that driver works then probably can be integrated in build script. My repo will be offline for few days: I want to switch fork to mainline Armbian and apply my changes to it. I will be much easier in future to track all the changes in official Armbian releases.

For rtl88x2bs you can try this solution but that external driver seems a bit unstable https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12162-single-armbian-image-for-rk-aml-aw-aarch64-armv8/?do=findComment&comment=97194 Probable safer choice is purchasing TX6 without a Bluetooth as support for rtl88x2bs if it happens, is currently really in bad shape (SDIO version).
 

@danboid Haven't tried dis/reconnecting HDMI yet. MATE version will be uploaded.

New version for Tanix TX6 (Allwinner H6):
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.17
 
Changelog:
Add support for OpenVfd LED clock (service is disabled on default) upgrade current branch to: 5.15.24 include 4k60 H6 fix from LibreElec update current(5.15) Armbian patches include drivers for RTL8822CS  
To enable LED clock service execute these commands:
 
sudo systemctl enable openvfd sudo systemctl start openvfd  

Great to see you got openvfd working awawa!
 
I have built and booted your 5.16 edge kernel on my T95 MAX. The good news is that ethernet and wifi are working but my HDMI reconnect problems are still present. Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting your HDMI cable when running X (eg XFCE) on your TX6?
 
What H6 device(s) have you got Jernej?
 
Please could you add MATE as a second desktop option to your images please awawa?