eselarm

@DantesWhen I still had the original 2017 U-boot on the eMMC (from the OpenWRT that came pre-installed), inserting an SD-card with some recent Armbian image booted always from the SD-card. So in serial/debug console I had full control of the eMMC (and also an NVME in the M.2 slot). So that is also how I recently wrote a new/latest 2024 U-boot from the current-branch Armbian to the eMMC with dd. But that 2024 U-boot is more flexible and I needed quite some time to and figure out what was what (after stop autoboot prompt): 1 - SD-card with a known good simple basic Armbian Bookworm 2 - eMMC where the custom kernel did not work 3 - NVME with an EFI boot partition with grub.efi and some variant of openSUSE and some Debian flavor After reading U-boot command docs like 'bootflow', I somehow booted from NMVE. Fine but I want also operation with no NVME in the M.2 slot inserted. So eMMC and SD-card can be selected in U-boot but was a bit guessing as I had to rely on some addresses, so 3rd try or so I started the good simple basic Armbian Bookworm from SD-card and from there I could put a working kernel Image/uInitrd/DTB on the eMMC again. But what will happen if the somehow the U-boot on eMMC is corrupt? That has not happened, but when it would, will it then always somehow re-init and try SD-card? That is my point, that is why I thought I should also get to know USB loading, like I know from Android smartphones with fastboot tool. But you state: "Boot from sdcard with maskrom", that I had not thought of. Does that skip eMMC always? And scp? You mean the ethernet port(s) is/are up and running then? Or something over serial cable downloading what is known from simple old processor boards?

On my NanoPi-R6C I have been doing several U-boot updates (writes with dd to areas in 1st 32k) and so far so good. But behavior has changed w.r.t. eMMC v.s. SD-card. I want to do some U-boot build config changes, so the risk it that something might go wrong and I would need USB MASKROM mode to do writes to eMMC I think. The NanoPi-R6C wiki is not very clear with 'connect USB', but it turn out that this should be a connection via type-A to type-A and it does not work in the USB2 port. I have a USB2-only type-A to type-A cable and used that. The NanoPi-R6C appears in the USB device list ('lsusb') and also the tool is seeing the device: /tmp/upgrade_tool_v2.30_for_linux/upgrade_tool LD Using /tmp/upgrade_tool_v2.30_for_linux/config.ini List of rockusb connected(1) DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x350b,LocationID=12 Mode=Maskrom SerialNo= However, as soon as I want to read blocks from eMMC for example or try any other commands, connection is lost. Now I think that maybe for actual data transfer, USB3 wires in the cable are needed, so the question is: Will it work when I buy/use an USB3 type-A to type-A cable?

qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt -cpu host -enable-kvm ... only works reliably when 1 CPU core ( -smp 1). When a VM has 2 cores, it randomly worked I experienced. If virt-manager pick 2 equal cores, VM UEFI/BIOS/kernel runs OK, but if a Cortex-A76 and Cortex-A55, all sorts of exceptions are shown or just lockup 2x or 1x 100% usage. In order to still be able to use KVM, start qemu-system-aarch64 as follows: taskset --cpu-list 4-7 qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt -cpu host -enable-kvm -smp 4 ... or taskset --cpu-list 0-3 qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt -cpu host -enable-kvm -smp 4 ... Mainline kernel 6.8.x or later does not have this problem. It can transparently use all 8 cores. Userspace is Debian Bookworm based.

This happens with 6.11.2-current-rockchip-rk3588 kernel for me as well. Actually with 3 OSses. There must be some corruption for this kernel, my first guess is somewhere in the onboard ethernet. There might be other download corruptions is well (haven't noticed), but I rebooted with new kernel to other OS/distro and then first thing I did was upgrade and that failed with hash differences like this. So after some trying/switching, doing the same with my last-known-good kernel 6.10.10-current-rockchip-rk3588 worked fine. I haven't looked into it further, maybe when using the the 2.5Gbps port it works (just a guess now). Another try/issue is maybe that I still have a bit older U-boot written to the boot area of the eMMC, so not the old 2017 one but beta 24.10. I'll have to check current version(s) I think.

An update to this topic: All newer mainline kernels (latest I have tested 6.10.0-rc3-edge-rockchip-rk3588) have the same problem as the 6.8.4 one. Change is that KVM now works with vendor kernel 6.1.75-vendor-rk35xx and default libvirt that comes with Debian12; it fails with newer libvirt.

I do not use quotas, so the fix for this issue is: https://github.com/openSUSE/snapper/issues/894#issuecomment-2054220427

When I reboot with kernel 6.8.4 (edge) installed by apt upgrade, I noticed my scripts that uses snapper for remove differential backups. It turns out that, if no cleanup algorithm option is used, snapshot is created. Before the reboot, with kernel 6.8.1 version, there was no issue. I on Armbian Bookworm, but also with other Debian Bookworm based OS running those same kernel binaries. Same failure with 6.8.5 Currently I don't know any more, I could run this faulty kernel in a VM as the .config is such that it also boots on virt hardware (virt-7.2 as Bookworm uses). EDIT: Also in a VM, the problem is there: root@armbian64:/tmp# snapper create -d cleantest --cleanup-algorithm number Creating snapshot failed. root@armbian64:/tmp# snapper create -d cleantest root@armbian64:/tmp# uname -a Linux armbian64 6.8.4-edge-rockchip-rk3588 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 4 18:25:06 UTC 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux

I upgraded from my own-compiled Armbian kernel 6.8.0-rc5 to 6.8.4 and there are now very annoying stall when for example I drag a KDE Konsole window. Also when I play a 1080p50 HEVC video, as son as a move the mouse, the whole video stalls. Besides 6.8.0-rc5, the normal apt provide 6.8.1-edge-rockchip-rk3588 also works OK. 6.8.5 has the same issue as 6.8.4. As indicated, I use KDE, X11, compositor disabled. Enabled makes no difference. OS base is Armbian Bookworm, but I have also used kernels 6.8.1 and 6.8.4 with a rootfs copied from an RaspberryPiOS and Opensuse-Tumbleweed. RPiOs is also Debian Bookworm, Tumbleweed is latest, KDE6. So it is not KDE6. KDE Wayland leaves black screen still (doesn't work), but that is not a showstopper. Is anyone else experiencing the same? PS: I run mainline as the vendor kernel 6.1.43 fails on running KVM (some tag of the Cortex-A55 is unknown) so qemu-KVM don't work/start and running VMs is a key use-case I bought the NanoPi-R6C for.

I have another subtype (and likely older) E3372 device, and remember that after updating it firmware, it acted upon the defaults w.r.t. usb_modeswitch. But it needed newer usb_modeswitch. It was on RPi Debian Buster alike, but usb_modeswitch needed to be newer. Please report your versions.

Maybe this helps:

'Armbian_23.5.2_Nanopineo_bookworm_current_6.1.30_minimal.img' now works as expected. However, going to nightly again on my existing installation still the same hang with a kernel file named '6.1.30-sunxi' as well. So I did a brute-force overwrite of the relevant kernel files from the Armbian_23.5.2_Nanopineo_bookworm_current_6.1.30_minimal.img on the existing installation, then the boot succeeds with: [ 0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0 [ 0.000000] Linux version 6.1.30-sunxi (armbian@next) (arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc (Ubuntu 11.3.0-1ubuntu1~22.04) 11.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.38) #1 SMP Wed May 24 16:32:53 UTC 2023 and I have Bookworm with 6.1.x kernel on NanoPiNEO. That was the goal as I can use some new Btrfs features now and prepare for upgrade of a few other NanoPiNEOs. I will keep this one as is as an intermediate step. Once Debian Bookworm is released and some kernel >= 6.1.30 appears, I will go back to stable I think. The other NanoPiNEOs should not run beta at least. Although the build-date is before my report, I assume it lacks or fixes the issue with net-phy-Support-yt8531c.patch.

Another try: 'Armbian_23.5.0-trunk.275_Nanopineo_bookworm_edge_6.2.16_minimal.img' works! So filesystem resize, account creation, reboot, power cycle. U-Boot reports: 2022.04-armbian (May 25 2023 - 19:26:34 +0000) Allwinner Technology

Also with verbosity=7 no extra output. Also 'Armbian_23.5.1_Nanopineo_jammy_current_6.1.30.img' same behavior; makes me think that the generated kernel file is maybe wrong/corrupt (I haven't checked if it is the same for Jammy and Bookworm). Or the U-boot firmware doesn't work together with the 6.1.30 binary. A 6.x kernel itself should not be a problem I think. Earlier this year I booted from an openSUSE Tumbleweed image, that went OK. AFAIR it was also 6.x kernel but very different U-boot at least; It had Btrfs build-in and resized to small GPT based layout in order to allow the Allwinner H3 to load from the hardcoded sector offset. I don't know how to continue, maybe wait for updates of the repo to final Bookworm after Debian release on the 10th of june.

The problem seems to be kernel version 6.1.30; Just writing image file 'Armbian_23.5.1_Nanopineo_bookworm_current_6.1.30_minimal.img' to SD-card gives the following output via serial console: U-Boot SPL 2022.04-armbian (May 27 2023 - 19:27:28 +0000) DRAM: 512 MiB Trying to boot from MMC1 U-Boot 2022.04-armbian (May 27 2023 - 19:27:28 +0000) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner H3 (SUN8I 1680) Model: FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO DRAM: 512 MiB Core: 33 devices, 12 uclasses, devicetree: separate WDT: Not starting watchdog@1c20ca0 MMC: mmc@1c0f000: 0, mmc@1c11000: 1 Loading Environment from FAT... Unable to use mmc 0:1... In: serial Out: serial Err: serial Net: phy interface0 Error: ethernet@1c30000 address not set. No ethernet found. starting USB... Bus usb@1c1a000: USB EHCI 1.00 Bus usb@1c1a400: USB OHCI 1.0 Bus usb@1c1d000: USB EHCI 1.00 Bus usb@1c1d400: USB OHCI 1.0 scanning bus usb@1c1a000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus usb@1c1a400 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus usb@1c1d000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus usb@1c1d400 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found Autoboot in 1 seconds, press <Space> to stop switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 4121 bytes read in 3 ms (1.3 MiB/s) ## Executing script at 43100000 U-boot loaded from SD Boot script loaded from mmc 182 bytes read in 2 ms (88.9 KiB/s) 10963883 bytes read in 456 ms (22.9 MiB/s) 8477464 bytes read in 354 ms (22.8 MiB/s) Found mainline kernel configuration 35417 bytes read in 7 ms (4.8 MiB/s) 504 bytes read in 5 ms (97.7 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT overlay sun8i-h3-usbhost1.dtbo 504 bytes read in 6 ms (82 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT overlay sun8i-h3-usbhost2.dtbo 4185 bytes read in 5 ms (817.4 KiB/s) Applying kernel provided DT fixup script (sun8i-h3-fixup.scr) ## Executing script at 45000000 Kernel image @ 0x42000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x815b18 ] ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 43400000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Image Type: ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 10963819 Bytes = 10.5 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ## Flattened Device Tree blob at 43000000 Booting using the fdt blob at 0x43000000 EHCI failed to shut down host controller. Loading Ramdisk to 4958b000, end 49fffb6b ... OK Loading Device Tree to 4951a000, end 4958afff ... OK Starting kernel ... From here on it hangs. The board runs fine with kernel 5.15.93 and Bookworm userspace from its usual SD-card that I manually upgraded to Bookworm (edit sources lists and added armbian.gpg key). That dist-upgrade did not upgrade the kernel, still kept at 5.15.93. Also I saw no change in U-boot. As a trial, switched to nightly in armbian-config, that installed kernel 6.1.30, but also same hang as the official image. So I rolled-back that trial, and now the question is, why does this kernel 6.1.30 hang?