Green Daddy

Boot from SSD without SD card is currently not supported on HC4. However, it is easy to have only the boot loader on SD card (as @Werner stated above): - flash armbian image to SD Card - erase petitboot as stated above - boot armbian from SD Card - run nand-sata-install within armbian after this - only the boot loader rests on SD card (i.e. you need the SD card plugged in for it to be able to boot) - but no I/O on SD card after boot loader - OS root partition (and entire system) runs from SSD - any update updates boot loader and kernel where they actually reside - so no special precautions needed (despite the usual "update may break something") I am running on this setup and it works like a charm for me. Hope that helps Green Daddy

I tried with 5.8.16 (current custom u-boot and custom dtb) and was not successful either. Going back to legacy (5.4.xx) would have required a legacy u-boot compiled and I refrained from doing that. If anyone else is lucky with a current kernel, pkease let me know...

The thread mentioned seems to be related to DRM. In the past it was much "simpler" to get the basic display to run (yet cumbersome enough) - only some dtb entries and the basic u-boot stuff, compile and dpkg. I do have a custom u-boot ready built and will try with the new DTB Editor and check if I can get it to work with an older kernel first. According to the above it should have worked with 5.4.6 ?! I suspect the LCD difficulties to be related to the HDMI troubles that have been reported as well here. I think I briefly saw that HDMI stopped working when kernel stepped in when I connected my PI to the TV last week for troubeshooting the LAN issue. My new "spare" SD card should arrive this week, I tend not to harm my "production" system but am curious to get this going again in a safe environment. Will provide update when I have any news!

Great! Is this fix part of the 20.11.7 builds and current armbian repositories kernel / dtb packages? I bought an SD Card to test which should arrive tomorrow and want to know if I need to compile my own kernel package or if it is supposed work "out of the box" with current repositories... Sorry if this is a dumb question but I am not familiar with github and build cycles and stuff - also happy to learn how I could determine this by myself... Many thanks!

Hi, I had the same effect - eth0 only worked by forcing the switch to 100FD after upgrading to 5.10.4 from 5.9.14. If I leave it on automatic, the port negotiates at 1000FD but loses most packets. No connection possible with a TP Link Switch. It seemed to be a little more stable connecting to a Fritzbox - I could login using ssh after connecting the Pi to that. After forcing the Fritzbox to 100FD I could login using SSH and downgrade to 5.9.14 (which I had before). 5.9.14 confirmed to be stable for ETH0. For HDMI I don't know. Hope that helps. KR Thorsten

I had it previously working with stretch (see https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1905-enabling-lcd-in-u-boot-kernel-472/?do=findComment&comment=46632 ) but no luck yet with buster. Exactly the same result as you - backlight OK but no display on screen with 5" display. Maybe boot.cmd or armbianEnv.txt need some tweaks? To be honest, I have no clue...

The driver you quoted is for legacy kernel. LCD enabling is much simpler with legacy. Mainline needs the steps mentioned in the tutorial. Hope that helps!

<OT> First post - so hi everyone and thanks for the great stuff here. I am new to Armbian, just installed yesterday (replace bananian), migrated everything, fine. </OT> It took me several hours to get my 5" LCD display working on Bananapro but it's working now :-) . All the stuff to do it is there, however it wasn't easy for me as a noob to get the relevant items out and to adopt to changes that occurred over time. So, by summarizing the different steps I'd like to give back - maybe it's useful. If I did not understand correctly, just drop me a note. Of course, dates and version numbers may progress. Full credits to @MartinKeppler and @zador.blood.stained It's basically 2 steps: You need a u-boot version that supports the LCD - must be compiled You need a dtb (Device Tree Blob) file that fits to your Kernel and supports pwm (Power for the LCD) ad 1) You need a Linux x64 PC to compile u-boot. NOTE: If you want to compile on a Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux, build will fail due to fakeroot incompatibility. You need to replace fakeroot with fakeroot-tcp: sudo update-alternatives --set fakeroot /usr/bin/fakeroot-tcp Go to https://github.com/armbian/build and follow instructions from README.md (as root) with change in bold: CREATE_PATCHES=yes tells the compile process to stop after downloading and preparing the sources, so they can be modified when needed (and yes, we need to do that) This takes a loooong while when run for the first time on a vanilla linux. Build u-boot and Kernel only (Kernel will not be needed). The Build process downloads the Sources. So you can only modify them when prompted to do so. When prompted to modify, change the following files: build/cache/sources/u-boot/v2017.11/configs/Bananapro_defconfig For 5" display append the following (or see your params at http://linux-sunxi.org/LCD ) CONFIG_VIDEO_LCD_MODE="x:800,y:480,depth:24,pclk_khz:30000,le:40,ri:40,up:29,lo:13,hs:48,vs:3,sync:3,vmode:0" CONFIG_VIDEO_LCD_POWER="PH12" CONFIG_VIDEO_LCD_BL_EN="PH8" CONFIG_VIDEO_LCD_BL_PWM="PB2" build/cache/sources/u-boot/v2017.11/arch/arm/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapro.dts build/cache/sources/u-boot/v2017.11/arch/arm/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapi.dts build/cache/sources/linux-mainline/linux-4.14.y/arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapro.dts build/cache/sources/linux-mainline/linux-4.14.y/arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapi.dts Add (after &pio section) : Let the compiler finish u-boot. You will find build/output/debs/linux-u-boot-next-bananapipro_5.37_armhf.deb install it on your pi using sudo dpkg -i linux-u-boot-next-bananapipro_5.37_armhf.deb Step 1 completed. ad 2) To create a device specific file fitting to your Kernel and Board, you can recompile your kernel version directly on the PI. I used the guide supplied by @zador.blood.stained mkdir kernel cd kernel git init . git remote add origin "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git" git fetch --depth 1 origin tags/v4.13.16 sudo git checkout -f FETCH_HEAD Then edit arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapi.dts and arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapro.dts to include changes from above (add the &pwm section) Run in the top directory of kernel source tree sudo cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config sudo make ARCH=arm dtbs After the process is finished, you should get compiled DT files arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapi.dtb arch/arm/boot/dts/sun7i-a20-bananapro.dtb Copy them to /boot/dtb, reboot and pray. End of Step 2 DISCLAIMER: It worked for me - however you may end up with a non-bootable SD Card so be careful and have a backup :-)