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Armbian for Amlogic S912

chocho

By chocho
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ycomp

ycomp

Posted
Posted

I ran the script as suggested, everything seemed to go fine - no error messages that I noticed (although I wasn't watching it the whole time). 

 

Then I removed my sd card and rebotted and it went to the android recovery screen. I chose reboot now and it booted back into the android recovery screen. So I chose boot to bootloader, and then the H96 logo just comes on and stays there.

 

Anyone know what I should do now?

 

p.s. was it a mistake to run the install script from a 64GB microsd card (it's the ubuntu mate armbian image installed on there)? I was thinking that wouldn't matter. But I'm not very good with linux. (BOOT 128MB, ROOTFS 59GB)

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, ycomp said:

I ran the script as suggested, everything seemed to go fine - no error messages that I noticed (although I wasn't watching it the whole time). 

 

Then I removed my sd card and rebotted and it went to the android recovery screen. I chose reboot now and it booted back into the android recovery screen. So I chose boot to bootloader, and then the H96 logo just comes on and stays there.

 

Anyone know what I should do now?

 

p.s. was it a mistake to run the install script from a 64GB microsd card (it's the ubuntu mate armbian image installed on there)? I was thinking that wouldn't matter. But I'm not very good with linux. (BOOT 128MB, ROOTFS 59GB)

 

If the script is in android partition it would be overwritten, so sdcard is the right place to start it.

 

Do you have  working dtb.img and linux.img files at /BOOT?

IMAGE_KERNEL="/boot/linux.img"
  PART_ROOT="/dev/data"
  DIR_INSTALL="/ddbr/install"
  IMAGE_DTB="/boot/dtb.img"
 

Are destination paths correct in your device, like /dev/data and /dev/dtb. The bootloader stays in loop if there are files missing or the kernel does not boot. If you have the path to the emmc partition then you can run Debian commands with the chroot command to fix problems. This way chroot is used from a pc to a microsd card. I installed Debian testing Xfce amd64 version to it with sudo debootstrap testing /media/xfce/.

 

sudo mount -o exec /dev/sdb1 /media/xfce/

sudo chroot /media/xfce/ /bin/bash -c 'dpkg -i /tmp/firmware-amd-graphics_20161130-3_all.deb'

 

The update-initramfs command is useful to solve initrd boot problems.

 

ycomp

ycomp

Posted
Posted

I popped the sdcard back in (that has ubuntu w/mate), and it managed to boot up off that. Now I wonder if the script actually worked because lsblk doesn't seem to show any partitions for mmcblk0

 

I have working dtb.img and linux.img at /BOOT

 

What I meant about my question before about the 64GB sdcard was that emmc is 32, ROOTFS partition on the SD card is almost twice that - could that cause problems?

 

I re-ran the install script now, basically I have no error messages except for a bunch of var/lib/samba (sic) : socket ignored

 

When I reboot it now it goes to the android robot screen. Is that supposed to happen? (I removed the sd card)

 

2017-07-19_19-05-31-891.png

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, ycomp said:

I popped the sdcard back in (that has ubuntu w/mate), and it managed to boot up off that. Now I wonder if the script actually worked because lsblk doesn't seem to show any partitions for mmcblk0

 

I have working dtb.img and linux.img at /BOOT

 

What I meant about my question before about the 64GB sdcard was that emmc is 32, ROOTFS partition on the SD card is almost twice that - could that cause problems?

 

I re-ran the install script now, basically I have no error messages except for a bunch of var/lib/samba (sic) : socket ignored

 

When I reboot it now it goes to the android robot screen. Is that supposed to happen? (I removed the sd card)

 

2017-07-19_19-05-31-891.png

 You should change PART_ROOT="/dev/mmcblk0" . These I am not sure but I would try to  replace /dev/boot to /dev/mmcblk0boot0 and /dev/dtb to /dev/mmcblk0boot1. Try to mount them and inspect the content.   Or I am totally wrong, google and try yourself. I feel that it is a bad idea to use the emmc partition. Resale will be easier in a original condition and dual boot android/linux is a bonus. There is no accelerated Linux gpu driver for S912 but android does have.

 

The script copies folder by folder to the emmc, so a  64 GB sdcard is not a problem if the card works fine with ext4. Mine chinese 7 usd class 10 64 GB card does have reading errors and got money back from a ebay shop. I use my Samsung Evo 32GB class 10 card happily with Sunvell T95Z Plus.

 

1
frahmed99

frahmed99

Posted
Posted

Hi

 

I have a H96 Pro+ and have been trying to boot ubuntu on it using the microsd card method. It failed. All I got was the H96 Pro+ boot screen and then it restarts. I have been trying to follow what pel.hu and balbes150 have been saying. I do not know where I lost them. Is there any chance someone can give me some instructions on how to go about it. Thanks in advance.

midi-sama

midi-sama

Posted
Posted
On 7/17/2017 at 2:43 PM, debianxfce said:

There is no gpu accelerated graphics for 912 in Linux drivers. Chromium uses all cpu cores for software rendering and that is why it works. Balbes 4.9 kernel does not have audio so it is unusable. Not worth to use or explain why it does not work. It must  take a long time with 160GB drive when the armbian expands the image at first boot. Many new boxes do have multiboot features, so toothpick is for some older boxes.

 

I got that, that's why I use chromium. But for 4.12 it doesnt load, also the dtb folder has less files than 3.14's. What I'm saying is that in 4.9 and 4.12, it doesnt get past the kernel loading (or what I guess it does, as I see it reading something for a long time, then stops and the screen goes black, I tried a 16GB usb disk and even my laptop's SSD, same result). Also the load times on the HDD is quite fast, the partition expansion takes only some seconds but it loads quite fast, compared to my 30MB/s (claimed) USB disk, I recorded the same boot time on my SSD (I guess usb 2.0 limitation? but it was quicker at loading apps and stuff). Also, how can I know which dtb armbian loaded after booting? 

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
On 21/07/2017 at 1:58 AM, midi-sama said:

 

I got that, that's why I use chromium. But for 4.12 it doesnt load, also the dtb folder has less files than 3.14's. What I'm saying is that in 4.9 and 4.12, it doesnt get past the kernel loading (or what I guess it does, as I see it reading something for a long time, then stops and the screen goes black, I tried a 16GB usb disk and even my laptop's SSD, same result). Also the load times on the HDD is quite fast, the partition expansion takes only some seconds but it loads quite fast, compared to my 30MB/s (claimed) USB disk, I recorded the same boot time on my SSD (I guess usb 2.0 limitation? but it was quicker at loading apps and stuff). Also, how can I know which dtb armbian loaded after booting? 

To test the mainline kernel 4.13, you can use my image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnYBvMQfjM

 

1
debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, frahmed99 said:

Hi

 

I have a H96 Pro+ and have been trying to boot ubuntu on it using the microsd card method. It failed. All I got was the H96 Pro+ boot screen and then it restarts. I have been trying to follow what pel.hu and balbes150 have been saying. I do not know where I lost them. Is there any chance someone can give me some instructions on how to go about it. Thanks in advance.

You can try my image, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsNzZn-luc0

1
debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, frahmed99 said:

Hi

 

Sorry about the delay. This seemed to work fine. Managed to get the OS to boot and setup users. Now I will have to set up plex, sonarr and others. Will give you feedback hopefully after the weekend.

 

Note that if plex or other software needs gpu accelerated graphics driver, there is no such thing for Linux and S912. Software rendering works with eight cores, like the chromium browser proves when playing youtube videos. Plex and sonarr are not even in Debian repositories so you really are your own.  The factory installed android operating system does have a plex like software. See also plex CPU requirements, S912 might be too weak for streaming to many users.

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-

midi-sama

midi-sama

Posted
Posted
On 7/21/2017 at 7:28 PM, debianxfce said:

To test the mainline kernel 4.13, you can use my image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnYBvMQfjM

 

lol, I just wanted to quote what you wrote before linking this video, so I tried making the kernel only, and it didnt work, copying the new dtb from xdarklight (that I used also for kernel building), didnt work. I wonder if there are some links to help me figure how to make images for my board like you did. Meanwhile, I'll be trying your image and give feedback. (FYI: I tried lib from balbes150 and armbian's main repo, the first one gives me errors and gave it up, but i'm still working my way on the second one, although I know it doesnt have any of the boards we are using)

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, midi-sama said:

lol, I just wanted to quote what you wrote before linking this video, so I tried making the kernel only, and it didnt work, copying the new dtb from xdarklight (that I used also for kernel building), didnt work. I wonder if there are some links to help me figure how to make images for my board like you did. Meanwhile, I'll be trying your image and give feedback. (FYI: I tried lib from balbes150 and armbian's main repo, the first one gives me errors and gave it up, but i'm still working my way on the second one, although I know it doesnt have any of the boards we are using)

You need to create whole image when developing a kernel,  because of the separate FAT partition that does not support symbolic linking to your new kernel but when creating an image you can use symbolic linking. How to make an image, use the command

git clone -b some_branch some_armbian_repository

and study the image creation scripts in the lib directory. Armbian installer scripts do have some documentation too, but it is better to learn to edit the scripts for your liking.

After cloning balbes150 git, you can copy my edited lib files over the armbian lib files and create an image:

xfce@carrizo:~/Downloads/arm$ ./compile.sh BOARD=amlogic-s912 PROGRESS_DISPLAY=plain RELEASE=testing PROGRESS_LOG_TO_FILE=yes KERNEL_ONLY=no BUILD_DESKTOP=yes BRANCH=next CLEAN_LEVEL=debs NO_APT_CACHER=yes

 

1
fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted

Hi,

i've been using a whole day to get Linux working on my H96 Pro+ 3G/16G. It fails with rootfs not found when using USB stick. Currently, i got no SD card reader to test with SD card.

The image i'm using is Unbuntu server 4.13 https://yadi.sk/d/kZHc0uQE34z5jR.

I've been testing different version too, without luck. The DTB that works is meson-gxm-q200.dtb. Any help is highly appreciated!

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted

How do i check/change PART_ROOT for image on USB stick?

 

 

 

On 7/19/2017 at 11:14 AM, debianxfce said:
IMAGE_KERNEL="/boot/linux.img"
  PART_ROOT="/dev/data"
  DIR_INSTALL="/ddbr/install"
  IMAGE_DTB="/boot/dtb.img"
 

 

 

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted

Do you have 32G version of H96 Pro+? Mine is16G version and looks just a bit different. Did you boot from SDcard or USB to get it working?

 

 

 

On 7/3/2017 at 6:49 PM, gnthibault said:

By default (not copying the dtb file as dtb.img at the root of the BOOT partition) wifi does not work on H96 pro + (apparently fnlink 8223a-sr). Neither does sound, however bluetooth works well.

A weird thing is that cat /proc/cpuinfo allows to see all 8 cores, however gnome-system-monitor for ubuntu mates only shows 2 cores.

 

After multiple edit, nevermind, everything is up and running thanks to the wifi_dummy added to /etc/modules. However I did not checked if both 2.4 and 5GHz channels are working, but I see no reason for this to fail.

 

Thank you balbes150, this is truly awesome

 

20170703_195331.jpg

 

IMAG1393.jpg

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, fossxplorer said:

Hi,

i've been using a whole day to get Linux working on my H96 Pro+ 3G/16G. It fails with rootfs not found when using USB stick. Currently, i got no SD card reader to test with SD card.

The image i'm using is Unbuntu server 4.13 https://yadi.sk/d/kZHc0uQE34z5jR.

I've been testing different version too, without luck. The DTB that works is meson-gxm-q200.dtb. Any help is highly appreciated!

The dtb file must match with kernel you are using.  Use a high quality and fast usb memory or a class 10 microsd card.  Try with with different images and kernel 3.14 images. I have made Debian testing Xfce images for the armbian 3.14 kernel and for the 4.13 mainline kernel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnYBvMQfjM

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted

I've tried with 3 different USB sticks, 4, 8 and 64GB in sizes with the same issue: failing to find and mount the rootfs. Kernel 3.14 images don't boot at all, while 4.13 rc drops into Busybox emergency shell and keyboard doesn't react (tried with 3 different keyboards too).

I plan on sourcing an SD card reader to test booting from SD card.

 

balbes150

balbes150

Posted
Posted

To S912 in kernel 4.13 is no support for USB. Launch images kernel 4.13 is only possible from SD card. To control you need to use SSH.

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted

Thanks a lot. Bought a cheap SD card reader and was able to put 4.13 server image inside an SD card and finally:

[root@thinkpadx230 susinths]# ssh 192.168.1.27

root@192.168.1.27's password:
You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
 ____  ___                   
/ ___|/ _ \__  ____  ____  __
\___ \ (_) \ \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ /
 ___) \__, |>  <  >  <  >  <
|____/  /_//_/\_\/_/\_\/_/\_\
                             

Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.32 user-built Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x   
System load:   1.01 0.41 0.15      Up time:       2 min        
Memory usage:  3 % of 2860MB     IP:            192.168.1.27
Usage of /:    3% of 58G        

Last login: Fri Sep  1 17:29:29 2017 from 192.168.1.73
Changing password for root.
(current) UNIX password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:


Thank you for choosing Armbian! Support: www.armbian.com

 

@balbes150, thanks a lot! Will be have USB support when 4.13 is stable? I'd like to use an old SSD drive with this device.

Also, it seems H96 Pro+ has 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 hidden inside.

 

EDIT: have to admit i feel like a kid now after getting this to work!:beer: Love the 3G RAM on this box+ 1GbE.

It's using 6-7W when i run stress-ng --cpu 8 --io 2 --vm 1 --vm-bytes 1G --timeout 300s. Really nice!

 

 

 

 

S912_H96pro_Armbian.png

balbes150

balbes150

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, debianxfce said:

My Debian testing Xfce with mainline kernel 4.13-rc1 image supports usb and audio (spdif).

You have patches for the kernel ?

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, debianxfce said:

My Debian testing Xfce with mainline kernel 4.13-rc1 image supports usb and audio (spdif).

Is this SW accelerated X? Do you have a link so that i can give it a try as well?

 

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, fossxplorer said:

i have 2 of these boxes and my ultimate goal is to use one as a thin client to connect to a Spice server and another as a headless server. but i've read there is no Mali driver avail.

i could NOT boot with

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnYBvMQfjM

 

 

 

 

 

 

I downloaded my image, I extracted it with Xarchiver, copied to sdcard with: sudo cp Debian_testing_4.13.0_xfce.img /dev/sdb. and copied plus renamed the dtb file.My image works fine with Sunvell T95Z Plus and LG 26LG3000.

fossxplorer

fossxplorer

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, debianxfce said:

copied to sdcard with: sudo cp Debian_testing_4.13.0_xfce.img /dev/sdb. and copied plus renamed the dtb file.

Copy to SD card? You mean extracting the image onto an SD card i.e using e.g dd?

Here is what i did:

1. I downloaded your image from that YT video link

2. xz -d <imagename>.img.xz

3. dd if=<imagename>.img of=/dev/sdc bs=16M oflag=direct

5. Copied the correct dtb.img to the root of /BOOT

4. Took the SD card out of my USB adapter and inserted into H96 Pro+

5. Booted up to see the H96 initial image, then to loose the output on HDMI/TV.

 

 

debianxfce

debianxfce

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, fossxplorer said:

Copy to SD card? You mean extracting the image onto an SD card i.e using e.g dd?

Here is what i did:

1. I downloaded your image from that YT video link

2. xz -d <imagename>.img.xz

3. dd if=<imagename>.img of=/dev/sdc bs=16M oflag=direct

5. Copied the correct dtb.img to the root of /BOOT

4. Took the SD card out of my USB adapter and inserted into H96 Pro+

5. Booted up to see the H96 initial image, then to loose the output on HDMI/TV.

 

 

I mean what I wrote, use: sudo cp Debian_testing_4.13.0_xfce.img /dev/sdX. Reference:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en

 

  

# cp debian.iso /dev/sdX
# sync

 

If you still have problems, test if you can login via ssh and ethernet LAN. Maybe your hardware differs too much from gxm-q200. You did wrote that you bought a cheap sdcard, I hope it is class 10. A slow sdcard can time out things.

Shimon

Shimon

Posted
Posted
On 9/3/2017 at 10:41 PM, fossxplorer said:

Do you have 32G version of H96 Pro+? Mine is16G version and looks just a bit different. Did you boot from SDcard or USB to get it working?

Start with a 3.14 image and the dtb file that I'd linked to earlier in the thread.

Shimon

Shimon

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, debianxfce said:

I mean what I wrote, use: sudo cp Debian_testing_4.13.0_xfce.img /dev/sdX. Reference:

 

Nah, why waste so much space? The most efficient way to do it looks like that:

 

$ zcat Whatever_image_img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M && sync

 

For xz compressed images use xzcat obviously.

 

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