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Since Tanix TX6 can boot from the SD card

xaduha

By xaduha
in Allwinner CPU Boxes

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balbes150

balbes150

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Posted

You have u-boot already doing the minimum necessary work-loading the kernel and running it. Will try different DTB that are available for H6. Perhaps some of them will have the minimum necessary configuration for starting the kernel.

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balbes150

balbes150

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By the way, I published new images 20200117 19.11.5, there are several different DTB there. You can take this image, add your u-boot to it, and play with the different DTB that are there (you can try other ready-made DTB for kernel 5 from other sources). Setting up the DTB used there is very simple - change the name in the file " uEnv.txt".  

 

 

For all. These images added a test version of the system installation in eMMC for H6.  :)

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zero

zero

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

By the way, I published new images 20200117 19.11.5, there are several different DTB there. You can take this image, add your u-boot to it, and play with the different DTB that are there (you can try other ready-made DTB for kernel 5 from other sources). Setting up the DTB used there is very simple - change the name in the file " uEnv.txt".  

 

 

For all. These images added a test version of the system installation in eMMC for H6.  :)

great,,, and where i can download and try this "20200117 19.11.5" things?:D

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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6 hours ago, balbes150 said:

See the topic in the section TV boxes RK+AML+AW

I sometimes think that there should be some ... more obvious centralized ressource pointing to the various architectures, platforms and such.

Like a directory "images", and each architecture gets its own subthread ( allwinner A33 ; s905W ) there, and whenever an new installation directory is created ( like somebody swapping from yadisk to google drive, or somebody posting a new image on baidu ) a new posting is made. 

 

I admit I suck at using the search, for when I look for "s905w  .img" I get dozens of results, just none pointing to images for the s905w chipset.

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jernej

jernej

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@balbes150 I don't know much about RK and AML, but on AW most, if not all, SoCs have 3 mmc ports. SD card is always connected on first one, wifi SDIO module on second and eMMC on third. I guess that U-Boot enumerates devices in port order, so that would mean that SD card is always first device. However, another explanation would be that first device is one which you booted from - did you check that?

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balbes150

balbes150

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19 hours ago, jernej said:

However, another explanation would be that first device is one which you booted from - did you check that?

Tnx. I will check this, although the first explanation looks like the real situation.

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balbes150

balbes150

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Now I checked the launch of my image on Orangepi PC2 and found that u-boot for this model supports a number of interesting features, including starting from USB. I wonder if it is possible to take work items from u-boot OPI PC2 for USB And add them to u-boot for H6 ?

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balbes150

balbes150

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10 minutes ago, jernej said:

AFAIK H6 USB3 is not supported yet in U-Boot, I have no idea about USB2 though. Also ethernet driver is not yet supported, although patch for boards with external PHY exist.

For now, it would be enough to start with USB 2.0 (support in u-boot USB 2.0). Then the kernel starts working with its support for the rest of the hardware. :)

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balbes150

balbes150

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@jernej  I found a strange bug. I added patches for enabling USB startup to the LE source code a long time ago, but when using them on H6, when initializing USB in u-boot, I see a controller error. But when I used the same patches with the same version of u-boot in Armbian, everything worked well on H6 (I checked running with USB Armbian and LE, everything works without problems). It is not clear why the patches do not work correctly in LE.  :(

 

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jernej

jernej

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2 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

USB makes life very easy for users, and 5 seconds is not worth the convenience.

Well, there is another issue. U-Boot detected spurious key press on some keyboards, which were plugged in during boot. This caused abort of boot and clueless user thought that something is broken (there was nothing on screen). Such reports happened several times already.

 

Besides you, nobody complained that USB support in U-Boot is missing. I think most users don't care about U-Boot, they just want that LE is booted either from SD or eMMC.

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balbes150

balbes150

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15 minutes ago, jernej said:

 

Besides you, nobody complained that USB support in U-Boot is missing. I think most users don't care about U-Boot, they just want that LE is booted either from SD or eMMC.

Users are not aware of this feature. It does not appear immediately (in regular Android firmware it is not). Need to inform users how  can use  it. :)

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jernej

jernej

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Allwinner SoCs can't boot from USB natively. So you must have SD card or eMMC to boot from anyway. But then it doesn't really matter if you load kernel and base filesystem from SD, eMMC or USB, does it? Once you booted Linux, you can use USB sticks as additional storage device.

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balbes150

balbes150

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53 minutes ago, jernej said:

Allwinner SoCs can't boot from USB natively. So you must have SD card or eMMC to boot from anyway. But then it doesn't really matter if you load kernel and base filesystem from SD, eMMC or USB, does it? Once you booted Linux, you can use USB sticks as additional storage device.

 

If eMMC has a system with a u-boot that supports starting from USB, I can easily start any additional systems without any additional configuration, just plug in the USB and turn on the power. For example, I have Armbian installed in eMMC for main use, but I can connect USB with LE to start it immediately (I don't change anything in the existing system in eMMC). Same with the SD card. I don't need anything to pull out and change, just plug in the USB and immediately get a fully working USB system (including the kernel and everything else). It is much easier to use USB, I can write it on absolutely any PC, all of them have USB. Card reader-rarely available on a PC. The same goes for USB distribution, it's much easier to buy and use anywhere than an SD card. By the way, USB 3.0 speeds are now much higher than any SD card. Yes, initially I may need an SD card, for a one-time write to eMMC of a new system with u-boot with support for starting from USB. Or if there is Android in eMMC, I can replace u-boot without an SD card, using only USB.  :)

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martinayotte

martinayotte

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2 hours ago, jernej said:

Allwinner SoCs can't boot from USB natively.

Not natively, but with the help of some SPI-NOR, such as OrangePiPC2 or OrangePiWin. I've even added a custom patch to my Armbian build tree to add a SPI-NOR to the header of my Pine64, I could then boot from USB.

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jernej

jernej

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6 minutes ago, martinayotte said:

Not natively, but with the help of some SPI-NOR, such as OrangePiPC2 or OrangePiWin. I've even added a custom patch to my Armbian build tree to add a SPI-NOR to the header of my Pine64, I could then boot from USB.

I know, but now and then there are U-Boot changes which influence Linux. For example, I figured out that enabled display driver in U-Boot occasionally prevents Linux driver to read EDID. I could as well add unconditional HDMI reset in kernel, but then display would blink. Eventually, we will also add support for DT overlays in extlinux.conf which needs patched U-Boot, at least at first, until changes get merged upstream. Because of such things I like to keep U-Boot under control in official LE images. I have nothing against community builds which change this behaviour and enable multi-boot systems, but this is can of worms if not done correctly. I don't want to support that as official LE feature at this point.

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zero

zero

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Got this msg from the very beginning of the boat log...

is this really tell that the board is broken/hardware fault?

 

boot emmc 

[168]HELLO! BOOT0 is starting!
[171]boot0 commit : 8
[185]set pll start
[188]set pll end
[190]rtc[0] value = 0x00000000
[193]rtc[1] value = 0x00000000
[196]rtc[2] value = 0x00000000
[199]rtc[3] value = 0x00000000
[202]rtc[4] value = 0x00000000
[205]rtc[5] value = 0x00000000
[208]DRAM VERSION IS V2_78
[211]the chip id is 0x00000003
[214]the chip id is 0x00000003
[217]the chip id is 0x00000003
[220]the chip id is 0x00000003
[223]the chip id is 0x00000003
[226]chip id check OK
[229]DRAM CLK =648 MHZ
[231]DRAM Type =3 (3:DDR3,4:DDR4,6:LPDDR2,7:LPDDR3)
[236]DRAM zq value: 003b3bfb
[540]MP_PGSR0 IS = 0100017d
[543]BYTE0 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[546]BYTE1 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[550]BYTE2 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[553]BYTE3 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[556]IPRD=00710070--PGCR0=0100017d--PLL=b0003500
[561]DRAM initial error : 1 !
[564]initializing SDRAM Fail.

 

boot sdcard (tx6 image) 

[177]HELLO! BOOT0 is starting!
[181]boot0 commit : 92fbece68a08eb88ae0862889a59ae15d6963156

[199]set pll start
[202]set pll end
[204]DRAM VERSION IS V2_761
[508]MP_PGSR0 IS = 0040005d
[511]BYTE0 GATE ERRO IS = 00000002
[514]BYTE1 GATE ERRO IS = 00000002
[518]BYTE2 GATE ERRO IS = 00000002
[521]BYTE3 GATE ERRO IS = 00000002
[826]MP_PGSR0 IS = 0100017d
[829]BYTE0 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[832]BYTE1 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[835]BYTE2 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[839]BYTE3 GATE ERRO IS = 00000000
[842]scan dram size fail !
[845]initializing SDRAM Fail.

is there anything i can do to resolve this issue?

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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Finally - FINALLY! My Tanix TX6 has arrived and its nice and smooth and shiny.

Armbian works so far, using the https://yadi.sk/d/GJbDt3-FjQ-dQA/H6/Linux/20.05/20200311

Debian Desktop image.

 

I'm very happy - but the WLAN doesnt work.

Do I manually have to load the modul?

What is the TX6 es wlan module?

Bluetooth I haven't seen either, but assume both are on the same chip.

 

How can I actually identify a wlan chipset - just by simply trying to load modules?

 

For the moment I use a wlan USB dongle.

 

4GB Ram works and the 64GB of flash, too.

 

 

Next test will be 3D capabilites.

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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On 7/11/2019 at 7:28 PM, hexdump said:

@jernej - i did give it a try today, but it did not work - most probably there is still some patch missing or some config option. i'm using the above mentioned megous tree as base, as it already contains a lot of orangepi-3 stuff, h6 themal sensors, devfs etc. - i was able to add your patch and adjust my .config accordingly but maybe i'll retry it the next days with a bit more time. or maybe you can push your working kernel tree somewhere on github and i'll build from that. or i'll just wait a few more days until things are cleaned up a bit more.

 

once more a lof of thanks for your efforts and best wishes - hexdump

  

Well, it was sold as a 4GB version, but inside Armbian using "free" I only see Mem: 2993392

which is a really odd number.


As I understand it from going through all pages of this thread, I can skip on WLAN - but would the Bluetooth work?

hcitool dev does not yield a result, so I guess its the same as with the WLAN Module.

 

Soothing is that I can see the mmcblk1px partitions of the in-system NAND flash.

Whilst I do not plan on using that, liking the option to swap between Android and Debian, It's good to know for long term usability of the device.

 

Overall this is an awesome build for a lovely device. Whilst running hot, it is splendid to see Youtube videos running buttersmooth and even Tinkercad running fluently inside Chrome and Firefox.

 

It would have been lovely to be able to use the 2-antenna setup inside Linux, too. But as it is it'll be my small hardwarelab pc.

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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On 6/28/2020 at 8:54 AM, hexdump said:

@Ruediger - do you really see 4gb ram? i'm asking as the allwinner h6 can only properly address up to 3gb, so usally all 4gb h6 boxes only have 3gb useable in reality ... regarding wlan i cannot say much, but there seem to be different versions of the tx6 out with different wlan chips - https://linux-sunxi.org/Tanix_TX6

Well, the device is labelled as TX6-H ;

4GiB RAM / 64GiB eMMC - Wifi: RTL8822 (47822BS-10)

Thats my configuration.
The RTL Chip is supported by Linux, but I guess its hooked up to SPI interface where there is no autoconfig.

*goes into the DTB folder to take a look*

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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17 hours ago, Zoom said:

Ruediger, could you please identify your exact model according to https://linux-sunxi.org/Tanix_TX6?

Do you have any problems with the sound through HDMI? What's the resolution of the display you use it with and does TX6 identify it correctly?

Thanks.

Sound through HDMI seems perfectly okay. I tested with a cheap HDMI Beamer and a HDMI2VGA adapter, which includes a headphone jack.

The device is a TX6-H, given labelling, thus RealTek WiFi.

As for display I have a Full HD display and a 1024x768 display. Both are properly recognized - if connected at boot.

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Ruediger

Ruediger

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On another note:

Are 1LED1 and 1LED2 connected anywhere? 

Similarly JP1: Does this connector have any defined function?

 

Because, ideally, I'd love to give my TX6 some powerbutton to start it again after having shut it down or sent it to suspend.

 

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NicoD

NicoD

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Hi @balbes150. My TX6 arrived.
I'm seeing it is showing higher than expected temperatures. I remember the Pine H64/OPi3 having the same issue some of the time.
Here idle is about 70°C, with a full load it throttles to 700Mhz or less. While only clocked at 1.7Ghz.
Could it be this issue?

It's got an ok heatsink, and also big plate with thermal pad in between. With box closed and Box open, both almost unusable.
With a fan it shows lower temps. But I still think it's about 20°C too high. Heatsink not too hot to touch. In my experience that's never +70°C.
Still need to read up a lot on the forum about it.

Naamloos.png.07d3a91474bbf531fe8c674a6dd9bd76.png
Here TK's SBC-Bench. http://ix.io/2y0z
Armbian monitor : http://ix.io/2y19
Except for on-board wifi and the thermal throttling all seems working. My 5Ghz dongles work.
To be useable it does need lower temps. S905x3 was way better here.
Using Armbian_20.09_Arm-64_focal_current_5.8.7_desktop
Cheers, good job.

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