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squarefoot

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Posts posted by squarefoot

  1. Greetings! I have acquired for cheap this old board. It runs an old Android (4.x) and I'd like to run Armbian on it, but lack the knowledge to do that by myself.

    The idea would be to start with booting a Linux a SD image, then attempt to install it on the onboard flash in place of Android.

    The board is not for sale anymore and the manufacturer removed any mention of it from their site, however Archive.org has a copy along with related files, manuals, firmware etc:  https://web.archive.org/web/20140701064007/http://www.giadatech.com/index.php?act=pShow&id=36

     

    The board presents itself when not in USB host mode as "SoftwinerEvb" which appears to be a tablet of some sort.

     

    When in FEL mode it returns

     

    USB device 001:003   Allwinner A20     1651660f:80515778:52564848:0401b1b0

     

    I also was able to retrieve some data using adb shell:

     

    root@android:/ # lsmod

    sunxi_emac 12965 0 - Live 0x00000000
    gps_power 2023 0 - Live 0x00000000
    pcf8563 7808 0 - Live 0x00000000
    vga_resolution 3916 1 - Live 0x00000000
    rtl8150 8115 0 - Live 0x00000000
    uvcvideo 54664 0 - Live 0x00000000
    videobuf_dma_contig 3817 0 - Live 0x00000000
    videobuf_core 15292 1 videobuf_dma_contig, Live 0x00000000
    mali 115734 13 - Live 0x00000000 (O)
    ump 30154 7 mali, Live 0x00000000 (O)
    gpio_sunxi 6918 0 - Live 0x00000000
    sun7i_ir 6559 0 - Live 0x00000000
    nand 221273 12 - Live 0x00000000 (O)
     

    -----

     

    dmesg output is attached.

     

     

    I never tried to build a new one or adapt an existing image to a new or non supported board

    and I hope to find some directions to do that without bricking this device.

    I tried to read the documentation at linux-sunxi.org, but it's huge and I found hard to even

    understand where to start.

    Thanks for any help.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Giada-NI-A20_dmesgout

  2. 7 hours ago, guidol said:

    but at the NanoPi Neo2 LTS the additional update-price from 512MB to 1GB is now "only" $10 (before it was $17) :)

    True, but that is a different product. The Duo DIL form factor IMHO makes it a killer product for being both breadboard friendly and as an add on for other boards. Let's hope the updated version will keep being wallet and solder friendly as the old one was.

  3. 13 hours ago, Yuefei Tan said:

    Hi FriendlyElec still has some 512M DUO boards. New stock of both 256M and 512M DUO boards will come in two weeks.

    In the mean time we are working on a redesigned version.

    Thanks Yuefei, that's good news! Can you disclose some details about the changes?

  4. That code is for the Raspberry PI, not the Orange PI, and the way it obtains the necessary timings looks highly platform dependent, which is probably why it doesn't work. Using an hardware timer would be a much better solution IMO, but due to Linux non-realtime nature, I would use a small cheap micro controller just to take the readings, buffer them, and transform them into serial  (i2c, whatever) packets upon request from the OPi.

  5. > I dont like these "small" systems whcih only support OpenWRT

     

    Most small systems support only OpenWRT due to lack of resources; OpenWRT was born as an alternative open OS for Linksys home/SOHO access points and similar hardware with a fraction of the resources our SBC boards can count on today. Armbian installation on that class of devices would be impossible.

     

    > armbian/debian is for server type systems and mostly doesnt need the multimedia (video) of a raspberry pi.

     

    I'd say it's a complete dress one can cut to the desired length while OpenWRT is a nice pair of shorts full of pockets packed with tools:)

     

    Regarding multimedia, one of my goals with small boards such as NanoPIs and Orange PIs etc. would rather be the feasibility of the video output to be used in instruments to show data, waveforms etc with decent speed. That should require only 2D acceleration with no codecs involved.

     

     

  6. I use Armbian because it's very close to the original Debian and I feel at home using it, also there is some good effort to support a growing number of processors/boards which is really good also because we have a common system to test against, not to mention the forum which is among my favorite reads in the morning at the local cafe :D Now if I really had to find something I don't like about Armbian, that would be some more recent boards which seem supported only by the Ubuntu-flavored Armbian.

    ps- arox, I share pretty much your same opinion on the RPF, especially the whole RPi-Zero thing, that's why I use RPis only for media players and other boards for everything else.

     

  7. Just stumbled upon this new board by the Friendlyarm folks.

    http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=197

    Lots of signals exposed on the strip contacts, including Ethernet and USB, though magnetics

    and connectors aren't there, which makes this even more interesting to build thin appliances:

    you add connectors when you need them. Good!

    I'll probably order a couple to start playing with, but will take forever to ship over here.

     

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