jbird1

So learned a lot of interesting things.  3.4.113-sun8i
1.  rebuilt using armbian build system on my linux virtual box latest 
2. spent several hours digging in to SPI mess.  Turns out armbian-config is broken, none of the overlays work.
3. I found the /boot/dtb-4.13.5-sunxi/overlay/README.sun8i-h3-overlays file that explains the correct configuration information
4. Then watching boot on serial console, noticed that /boot/dtb/overlay/sun8i-h3 was not being found.
5.  Dug through /boot/dtb-4.1.3.5-sunxi/overlay and found /boot/dtb-4.13.5-sunxi/sun8i-h3-orangepi-plus.dtb
6.  I mkdir -p /boot/dtb/overlay/ and copied /boot/dtb-4.13.5-sunxi/sun8i-h3-orangepi-plus.dtb to /boot/dtb/overlay/sun8i-h3
7. That failed so went back to arbianEnv.txt and tried alternative kernel.
8.  Now the hand edited armbianEnv.txt file below works on reboot
This suggests that last nights build has broken or miss matched overlay names (see above) which results in sun8i-h3 not being found.  And possibly armbian-config has dev vs default kernal backwards as well as the armbian-config tool is crashing when you attempt to use to configure the system.  So we are successful but recommend the nightly build be inspected and an update be made available.  Thanks however to all that helped me learn how to look in the right places. Greatly appreciate your assistance and support.  
 
/boot/armbianEnv.txt
 
verbosity=7    # I set to maximum to see individual sets in the boot on the serial console thats how we found the file issue.
logo=enabled
console=both
disp_mode=1920x1080p60
overlay_prefix=sun8i-h3
overlays=spi-spidev spi-add-cs1 i2c0 i2c1 i2c2 pps-gpio pwm w1-gpio uart1 uart2 uart3 usbhost0 usbhost1 usbhost2 usbhost3 analog-codec cir
param_spidev_spi_bus=0
param_spidev_spi_cs=0
param_spidev_max_freq=1000000
rootdev=UUID=36c931bc-bed2-4783-9738-42e41805b426
rootfstype=ext4
usbstoragequirks=0x2537:0x1066:u,0x2537:0x1068:u
 
Here is how we tested spidev0.0 on a Orange PI 2+ with hand wired MCP3008 on port 0.  (confusing about spi-add-cs1 but understand why not to use spi-nor bits as they are in conflict with spidev0.0.
root@opi:/home/j/mcp3008# ls /dev/s*
/dev/sda        /dev/stderr  /dev/stdout     /dev/sunxi_soc_info
/dev/spidev0.0  /dev/stdin   /dev/sunxi-reg
/dev/shm:
/dev/snd:
by-path    controlC1  pcmC0D0p  pcmC1D0p  timer
controlC0  pcmC0D0c   pcmC1D0c  seq
 
spidev0.0 is visible and active, and testspi now works
 
root@opi:/home/j/mcp3008# tree /dev/spidev0.0
bash: tree: command not found
root@opi:/home/j/mcp3008# ./testspi
writing command 1 1 0
reading data 0 0 119 
count = 119 voltage 2.0105
writing command 1 1 0
reading data 0 0 84 
count = 84 voltage 1.4192
writing command 1 1 0
reading data 0 0 22 
count = 22 voltage 0.3717
 
Attached are the mcp3008 files used to build the testspi, comments document all the pins and bits.
 
Please share and I hope it helps others,  J 
 
 
buildit.sh
mcp3008.cpp
mcp3008Spi.h
mcp3008test.cpp