[SOLVED] Help booting armbian on Mini M8S II

[NightMean]

Hey I'm pretty new to this community.
I have Mini M8S II which is running libreelec just fine with the stock dtb. I want to turn it into a small server with armbian but it always fails to boot. The box apparently has S905X which should "translate" into this dtb gxl_p212_2g_kvim.dtb. Libreelec refuses to boot with it but when I used older built of Coreelec it booted with gxbb_p200_1G_1Gbit.dtb which should be S905 not S905X.
Armbian and libreelec refuses to boot with that dtb. I've tried most of the included dtb even putting them to main directory and renaming them as dtb.img (Yes I've read that I'm supposed to change the location in config file) At this point I think it must be something with the Armbian version. I'm trying the latest 5.90 but I've also tried 5.41, 5.84. None of them is able to boot.
I'd like to ask if there is someone who has it working and is able to help me. 

 

EDIT: I was able to boot it just fine. The issue was that I was using older dtb as I've had no idea those dtb were different in newer builds. Special thanks to Reddwarf who pointed me to the right direction

Edited July 8, 2019 by NightMean
Solved issue

[balbes150]

If you ran corelec, then you broke the universal multi-boot. Start the activation of the multi-boot again.

 

Use dtb only from within the Armbian image.

[NightMean]

if by multi-boot you mean holding the reset button so the box will boot from USB/SD Card then I was doing that as by default it boots to android. I've information about the aml_autoscript.zip but from my understanding it will do the same thing as when I'd hold the reset button won't it?

[lanefu]

45 minutes ago, NightMean said:

Hey I'm pretty new to this community.

 

....but you have a fantastic username

[Tomas Rollo]

On 7/6/2019 at 3:28 PM, NightMean said:

Hey I'm pretty new to this community.
I have Mini M8S II which is running libreelec just fine with the stock dtb. I want to turn it into a small server with armbian but it always fails to boot. The box apparently has S905X which should "translate" into this dtb gxl_p212_2g_kvim.dtb. Libreelec refuses to boot with it but when I used older built of Coreelec it booted with gxbb_p200_1G_1Gbit.dtb which should be S905 not S905X.
Armbian and libreelec refuses to boot with that dtb. I've tried most of the included dtb even putting them to main directory and renaming them as dtb.img (Yes I've read that I'm supposed to change the location in config file) At this point I think it must be something with the Armbian version. I'm trying the latest 5.90 but I've also tried 5.41, 5.84. None of them is able to boot.
I'd like to ask if there is someone who has it working and is able to help me. 

 

EDIT: I was able to boot it just fine. The issue was that I was using older dtb as I've had no idea those dtb were different in newer builds. Special thanks to Reddwarf who pointed me to the right direction

 

@NightMean, which image have you used? I'm trying the same (also Mini M8S II) with the image Armbian_19.11.3_Aml-g12_bionic_legacy_5.3.0_desktop_20191126.img.xz from here: https://yadi.sk/d/srrtn6kpnsKz2/Linux/ARMBIAN/19.11.3 but I can't find any dtb file under BOOT/dtb/amlogic that would boot (when copied to BOOT/dtb.img). Thx

[NightMean]

4 minutes ago, Tomas Rollo said:

@NightMean, which image have you used? I'm trying the same (also Mini M8S II) with the image Armbian_19.11.3_Aml-g12_bionic_legacy_5.3.0_desktop_20191126.img.xz from here: https://yadi.sk/d/srrtn6kpnsKz2/Linux/ARMBIAN/19.11.3 but I can't find any dtb file under BOOT/dtb/amlogic that would boot (when copied to BOOT/dtb.img). Thx

It depends which box you have, I have two same looking boxes however they both have different CPU, one is S905X and the other is S905
You need to open your box and look at it. For S905 I had luck with meson-gxbb-vega-s95-meta.dtb (Bluetooth doesn't seem to work on any dtb) and for S905X it was meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim.dtb or meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb. Both worked fine but the screen resolution wasn't FHD out of the box, desktop took forever to load, and Bluetooth wasn't working on any dtb as on S905. 

[Tomas Rollo]

13 hours ago, NightMean said:

It depends which box you have, I have two same looking boxes however they both have different CPU, one is S905X and the other is S905
You need to open your box and look at it. For S905 I had luck with meson-gxbb-vega-s95-meta.dtb (Bluetooth doesn't seem to work on any dtb) and for S905X it was meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim.dtb or meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb. Both worked fine but the screen resolution wasn't FHD out of the box, desktop took forever to load, and Bluetooth wasn't working on any dtb as on S905. 

 

Thanks! I have this one precisely: http://www.vontar.cn/Mini%20M8S+.htm and it should be S905x. I've already run OpenELEC on it but 2yrs ago so no longer remember which DTB I used back at that time (the file names are different these days anyway). Will try all of those (I don't really need BT at all). Thx!

[rawcrue]

Hi, i have been trying to install armbian  on my m8s ii since a couple of days.
I followed https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12162-single-armbian-image-for-rk-aml-aw-aarch64-armv8/ guide.

Downloaded 2 different versions of armbian and im always using the "toothpick method" but i still do not manage to boot on my tv box.

Things i did

1. edited the uEnv file as on the image https://i.imgur.com/UWvwEiB.png and did not add the dtb.img to the root folder

2.without editing uEnv, add dtb.img
3.edited uEnv and added dtb.im (related to the edition)

Files i used
1. meson-gxl-s905x-p212
2. meson-gxl-s905x-nexbox-a95x
3. meson-gxl-s905x-libretech-cc
4. meson-gxl-s905x-khadas-vim
5. meson-gxl-s905x-hwacom-amazetv

I tried using the SD card, and a usb drive.
Considered the option that the sd card or usb where failing, i used ColeELECT and booted instantly.

Information showed on android recovery

Anlogic/p212/p212

6.0.1/MHC19J/20170601

 

Can i please ask for a hand here as i do not know what else to do?