Armbian for Amlogic S912

[debianxfce]

I2S is connected to the HDMI audio in the S9xx SOC. Other S9xx devices do have the hdmi audio support working but not meson-GXM devices officially:

https://github.com/superna9999/linux/tree/linux-4.13-le-amlogic-gx/arch/arm64/boot/dts/amlogic

[fossxplorer]

On 7/19/2017 at 1:46 AM, gnthibault said:

ycomp: when your are logged as root, just run the install script in /home/root as suggested by debianxfce.

My question is related to vnc, I always get grey window when connecting to the tightvnc server. I use the latest 3.14 Ubuntu Mate (16.04) desktop image, but I am not connecting my box to a display. Can someone give me an example of xstartup file that works ? What bothers me for the moment is that log does not show error, bu still nothing but a grey screen ...

Edit, here is the solution (yaaayyy!):

 

Setup password with

vncpasswd /etc/vnc/vncpasswd

 

Then add the following lines to /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf :

[VNCServer]
enabled=true
command=/usr/bin/Xvnc -rfbauth /etc/vnc/vncpasswd
port=5900
width=1280
height=1024
depth=24
 

 

I'm also testing tightvncserver and there are issues with LXDE. Mate-session works, but it can't automatically resize screen size. Also, when i used the box as a vncviewer, the resizing doesn't work, i get a black area at bottom for instance when i choose full screen.

I'd like to use one of the boxes as a vnc/spice client and another as a server

 

 

 

[balbes150]

11 hours ago, fossxplorer said:

I'm also testing tightvncserver and there are issues with LXDE. Mate-session works, but it can't automatically resize screen size. Also, when i used the box as a vncviewer, the resizing doesn't work, i get a black area at bottom for instance when i choose full screen.

What kernel is used ?

[fossxplorer]

4.13 20170907.

 

[balbes150]

Kernel 4.13 is under development, so many features have changed and the old soft yet will not work correctly.

[Jens Bauer]

On 4/5/2017 at 11:50 AM, kingul said:

@gnthibault I have 2GB of ram with 32GB rom. (Yoka TV KB2)
First time I tried with nand-sata-install, but it was a bad move, because bootloader was rewritten, I had to restore official image of my device.
After a little search I found /root/install.sh script and it worked perfectly.

I'm interested in an update (as I might want to purchase a Yoka KB2 with 3GB DDR4 RAM):

Did you solve the static IP problem completely, or do you need to use a dynamic IP still ?

How do the latest images work with the Yoka KB2 ?

 

[Jens Bauer]

On 9/4/2017 at 10:38 AM, fossxplorer said:

EDIT: have to admit i feel like a kid now after getting this to work! 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!

Quite nice indeed - and a very low power usage.

-How fast do the cores run ... 8 x 1 GHz or 4 x 2 GHz + 4 x 1 GHz ?

[fossxplorer]

Yep When all cores enabled, it's 4 x 1.512Ghz + 4 x 1Ggz according to lshw -c cpu.

 

root@amlogic:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
100000 250000 500000 667000 1000000 1200000 1512000
root@amlogic:~#

I've only seen big cores at 1512Mhz even when i disable the small 4 cores. How can we get 2Ghz?

 

 

[Jens Bauer]

17 hours ago, fossxplorer said:

Yep When all cores enabled, it's 4 x 1.512Ghz + 4 x 1Ggz according to lshw -c cpu.

This information is indeed very useful!

4 x 1.5 + 4 x 1.0 (10) ... against 4 x 2 GHz (8) .

Remembering there's a small loss of speed due to things that requires single-threading/tasking ... That's close to 4x2 against 8 x 1; but if compiling/building software, the speed gain will probably be more noticable.

-But I do believe that there *is* a performance gain; or perhaps a 'responsiveness gain'.

(Eg. the PC I'm using at the moment sometimes stalls while moving the windows, typing or when moving the mouse. After several seconds (up to a minute), the window wil move or the mouse arrow will move).

Having multiple cores can in those cases make the computer/device more responsive.

 

17 hours ago, fossxplorer said:

root@amlogic:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
100000 250000 500000 667000 1000000 1200000 1512000
root@amlogic:~#

I've only seen big cores at 1512Mhz even when i disable the small 4 cores. How can we get 2Ghz?

That I don't know, but I remember reading a while back, that it was only possible to run at 4x2 GHz or 8 x 1 GHz.

This means that someone must have done something to improve it.

 

I've been battling with myself about whether I should purchase a bunch of MiQi devices for a build-farm or a bunch of Yoka-boxes (I will be purchasing a MacchiatoBIN as build-master either way).

[tkaiser]

On 13.9.2017 at 1:05 AM, fossxplorer said:

I've only seen big cores at 1512Mhz even when i disable the small 4 cores. How can we get 2Ghz?

 

Why do you trust even in these 1512MHz? Care to remember what Willy Tarreau discovered when trying to use Amlogic SoCs for his build farms: http://wiki.ant-computing.com/Choosing_a_processor_for_a_build_farm#Very_interesting_discoveries_about_cheating_vendors_-_2016.2F07.2F09

 

Your consumption numbers also look suspicious but the tool you used is pretty lightweight. When I tested with a NanoPi M3 last year (octa-core A53 with up to 1.4 GHz) I would've to search for another PSU to power the board when allowing the 1400 MHz since consumption was too high for my 5V/2.5A 5V/2A PSU (IIRC with cpuburn-a53 1300 MHz was the maximum).

 

You could try this NEON optimized Linpack here: https://github.com/ehoutsma/StabilityTester to get a clue. Maybe stabilitytester.sh already runs out of the box (trying to walk through available cpufreq/dvfs OPP) but at least you can check for dependencies and how to call xhpl64. Testing individually by sending CPU cores 0-3 or 4-7 offline is an option too 

 

Edit: NanoPi M3 tests back then (it was even worse and with the Linpack not even running at 1GHz on all 8 cores was possible): https://forum.armbian.com/index.php?/topic/1285-nanopi-m3-cheap-8-core-35/&do=findComment&comment=14697

 

[fossxplorer]

@Jens Bauer

Sure, i'd have loved to put a bigger heatsink and a small fan, if that helps to achieve higher speeds.

But now as @tkaiser mentions it, i can recall the Amlogic cheating revelations i read at CNX-soft thoug!

 

Here is what i got from StabilityTester:

 

Done testing stability by using both ondemand and performance scaling governors:
Frequency: 667000    Voltage: 3300000    Success: 1    Result:        0.0048034
Frequency: 1000000    Voltage: 3300000    Success: 1    Result:        0.0048034
Frequency: 1200000    Voltage: 3300000    Success: 1    Result:        0.0048034

 

Although the thermal readings doesn't work on this box:

Testing frequency 1200000
Soc temp:cat: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp: No such file or directory
Soc temp:      CPU Freq: 1200000     CPU Core: 3300000     cat: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp: No such file or directory
Soc temp:      CPU Freq: 1200000     CPU Core: 3300000     cat: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp: No such file or directory

 

 

Anyway, i guess i'm also subject to their cheating since i can get max 1.2Ghz even with all small cores disabled.

 

 

 

[fossxplorer]

After a reboot of the box:

root@amlogic:~# for i in {0..7};do cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$i/cpufreq/scaling_governor;done
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu4/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu6/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_governor: No such file or directory

 

I can't see cpufreq module to load, hmm.

 

EDIT:

root@amlogic:~# ll  /lib/modules/4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x/kernel/drivers/cpufreq/cppc_cpufreq.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7840 Sep  1 17:26 /lib/modules/4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x/kernel/drivers/cpufreq/cppc_cpufreq.ko
root@amlogic:~# modprobe cppc_cpufreq
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'cppc_cpufreq': No such device

 

EDIT2:

Seems some of the files are messed up by apt-get update or install of other files;

root@amlogic:~# ll -th /boot/
total 47M
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 5.0M Sep 12 21:33 initrd.img-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 5.0M Sep 12 21:33 uInitrd*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  25K Sep  7 10:10 dtb.img*
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4.0K Sep  6 13:06 ../
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.6K Sep  1 17:30 armbian_first_run.txt*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  718 Sep  1 17:30 aml_autoscript*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  651 Sep  1 17:30 aml_autoscript.zip*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.6K Sep  1 17:30 s905_autoscript*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.5K Sep  1 17:30 s905_autoscript.cmd*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  38K Sep  1 17:30 boot.bmp*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 4.8K Sep  1 17:30 boot-desktop.png*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.1K Sep  1 17:30 hdmi.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Sep  1 17:29 dtb/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Sep  1 17:29 dtb-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  23K Sep  1 17:26 old_dtb.img*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 143K Sep  1 17:26 config-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 3.5M Sep  1 17:26 System.map-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  17M Sep  1 17:26 vmlinuz-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  17M Sep  1 17:26 zImage*
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root  16K Jan  1  1970 ./
 

EDIT3: i replaced the whole /boot with latest release + copied back dtb.img. Problem solved. I think one of the package dependency messed up with uInitrd and initrd.img-4.13.0-rc7-next-20170901-amlogics905x. 

 

 

[Jens Bauer]

On 9/14/2017 at 3:10 PM, fossxplorer said:

Anyway, i guess i'm also subject to their cheating since i can get max 1.2Ghz even with all small cores disabled.

That is so annoying.

-But please make sure that it actually is the CPU that needs to be blamed and not the RAM-speed.

I'd like to see a comparison of a TV-box having DDR4 RAM installed against one that has DDR3 RAM installed - I wonder if it makes any difference at all.

(Since this is a S912 thread I've restricted myself from comparing to other CPU vendors, but it seems that Amlogic is not the most interesting vendor anymore).

 

[tkaiser]

9 hours ago, Jens Bauer said:

I'd like to see a comparison of a TV-box having DDR4 RAM installed against one that has DDR3 RAM installed - I wonder if it makes any difference at all.

 

Well, I'm surprised why people expect $anything from TV boxes. These things aren't for Linux enthusiasts but for clueless people that only buy numbers (8 CPU cores vs. 4 cores --> 8! 2 GB DRAM vs. 3 GB DRAM --> 3! $30 vs. $28 --> 28!). They have to look performant by specs while they have to be as cheap as possible for their target audience to buy them. Why does someone think both can work at the same time?

 

This means manufacturers don't have to take care about performance but only about cluelessness (use 8 cores even if it's totally useless since the competitors also use 8 cores now so you are not able to sell faster boxes with less CPU cores anymore in the markets where they make money, put recycled DRAM on the PCB and combine it with an u-boot that dynamically tunes DRAM clockspeed down until the box doesn't immediately crash so you as manufaturer can afford putting 3 GB crappy/slow DRAM on board since customers would never buy your box with 2 GB faster DRAM)

 

And then this kind of 'cheating' also happens everywhere. Don't know exactly how it works with Amlogic (since I consider all their SoCs not worth a look, might change if a dev board relying on Amlogic A113D appears) but I know how it's done with Allwinner and there it's easy: the 'board support packages' (BSP) TV box vendors get contains a kernel with a list of cpufreq operation points (that's the entire 'up to x.x GHz' thing) that does not need to have any relationship with reality (Allwinner sets 1536 MHz here for A64 as an example). Then there are other settings defining how voltage and clockspeed relates (DVFS) and then there's another settings defining thermal behaviour. The result is that the TV box will be marketed as 'up to 1.5GHz', the real settings already prevent everything above 1152 MHz and due to shitty thermal design of most boxes the SoC won't even see those 1.1GHz when running under constant load since already throttled down to less than 1 GHz. And their target audience is happy since in Android's CPU-Z and stupid benchmarks like Geekbench '4 cores @ 1536 MHz' is listed and that's all they care about,

 

IMO interesting read: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/12/factory-price-of-some-tv-boxes-and-accessories/#comments

[balbes150]

1 hour ago, tkaiser said:

and due to shitty thermal design of most boxes the SoC

You are right, there can be no a high performance in a small sealed plastic enclosure. It is an axiom that high performance = high heat dissipation. But people are naive and believe in fairy tales that can buy the same equipment for$ 10, how serious is selling firm for$100.

[balbes150]

The result of the first tests work Armbian on Khadas VIM2 (S912).

 

http://forum.khadas.com/t/armbian-kodi-ubuntu-debian-for-sd-usb-emmc/825/37?u=balbes150

[immS]

Hi everyone, I'm sorry if my request has already been made. 

I read all the pages and I didn't understand much. 

I have the intention to buy the Beelink GT1 Ultimate 3GB DDR4 + 32GB or the Alfawise H96 Pro+ TV Box 3GB RAM + 64GB ROM to replace my desktop pc with a failing hard drive. I thought "well, maybe I can make a personal computer out of a cheap tv box" but reading the topic, well...it isn't as easy as I thought.

I didn't understand a thing actually, so I thought that maybe someone would be so kind to write a step-by-step, n00b-friendly guide to install ubuntu on one of these tv boxes, because since I have limited money I don't want to make mistakes and make the box unusable. 

My knowledge of linux is very, very limited and I currently have a laptop with Windows 10 installed so I wonder if there is a simple way of installing ubuntu on the box's memory and with working wi-fi and softwares (I don't really need the box to stream, I'd just like to use some office and image editing programs like GIMP and run a couple of Windows programs under WINE).

Can you help me? I'm sorry again if my request is really dumb.

[pro777]

I have KM8P S912. I succeeded to install the LibreEleс 8.2 from kszaq on the SD card. Here the Mali fbdev driver is used by means of the libhybris! I wonder if it's possible to add a Mali driver to the balbes150 firmware similarly? 

[balbes150]

12 hours ago, immS said:

"well, maybe I can make a personal computer out of a cheap tv box" but reading the topic, well...it isn't as easy as I thought.

What programs you want to run under "WINE" ? Run Linux on TV boxes now quite simple. To accurately follow a few simple steps. The main thing to choose a model that is well supported in the Armbian. If you write, what specific hardware you need (support WiFi support BT support wire-speed, network, etc.), users of the forum can recommend a specific model.

 

12 hours ago, pro777 said:

I wonder if it's possible to add a Mali driver to the balbes150 firmware similarly? 

Possible. You need to collect a new image using 32-bit kernel configuration.

[debianxfce]

On 17/09/2017 at 9:25 PM, immS said:

Hi everyone, I'm sorry if my request has already been made. 

I read all the pages and I didn't understand much. 

I have the intention to buy the Beelink GT1 Ultimate 3GB DDR4 + 32GB or the Alfawise H96 Pro+ TV Box 3GB RAM + 64GB ROM to replace my desktop pc with a failing hard drive. I thought "well, maybe I can make a personal computer out of a cheap tv box" but reading the topic, well...it isn't as easy as I thought.

I didn't understand a thing actually, so I thought that maybe someone would be so kind to write a step-by-step, n00b-friendly guide to install ubuntu on one of these tv boxes, because since I have limited money I don't want to make mistakes and make the box unusable. 

My knowledge of linux is very, very limited and I currently have a laptop with Windows 10 installed so I wonder if there is a simple way of installing ubuntu on the box's memory and with working wi-fi and softwares (I don't really need the box to stream, I'd just like to use some office and image editing programs like GIMP and run a couple of Windows programs under WINE).

Can you help me? I'm sorry again if my request is really dumb.

Debian testing Xfce is better than ubuntu, Xfce is lighter and Debian testing is a rolling release os. Sunvel T95Z Plus is cheaper and when you use class 10 microsd card, you have dual booting system and original android is safe.Take a look of my video descriptions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsNzZn-luc0

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

[Jens Bauer]

On 9/17/2017 at 8:25 PM, immS said:

I have the intention to buy the Beelink GT1 Ultimate 3GB DDR4 + 32GB or the Alfawise H96 Pro+ TV Box 3GB RAM + 64GB ROM to replace my desktop pc with a failing hard drive. I thought "well, maybe I can make a personal computer out of a cheap tv box"

I've been there, but I'm not sure a TV-box is such a good idea; especially not the cheap ones.

 

Quote

Can you help me? I'm sorry again if my request is really dumb.

This is off-topic (this thread is specifically for Armbian on the S912); it would be better to ask the question in a new topic under "TV-Boxes".

Instead of replying, I'd like to point you to another thread: Can I use a TV Box as a mini computer?.

[ArijitB]

Is it possible to enable Wi-Fi Option for Beelink GT1 (2/16GB version) which is running 'Armbian_5.32_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170907.img' ?

Can't find Wi-Fi option under Network.

[buvaluy]

Did anybody manage to run linux-4.*  kernel on beelink gt1 ?

I tried Armbian_5.32_S905X_S912_Debian_jessie_4.9.26_server_20170823.img and Armbian_5.32_S905X_S912_Ubuntu_xenial_4.9.26_server_20170823.img

Neither of them work for me. I didn't put any dtb just run as it was. No monitor image. No ssh.

[balbes150]

1 hour ago, buvaluy said:

Did anybody manage to run linux-4.*  kernel on beelink gt1 ?

I tried Armbian_5.32_S905X_S912_Debian_jessie_4.9.26_server_20170823.img and Armbian_5.32_S905X_S912_Ubuntu_xenial_4.9.26_server_20170823.img

Neither of them work for me. I didn't put any dtb just run as it was. No monitor image. No ssh.

Kernel 4.x will not work without manually copying the dtb.

[buvaluy]

Thanks. Where I can get dtb for beelink gt1?

dbt file names on sdcard look strange...

I tried gxm_q200_2g and gxl..-2gb, system booted but eth0 didn't get address and fiwi interface didn't present

Looks like eht0 didn't work with this 2 dtbs.

[eyalrt]

On 5.9.2017 at 4:52 PM, Shimon said:

Hi,
I use Armbian-5.32-4.14-rc2 ubuntu mate canonical desktop, with Alfawise h96 pro plus 32gb 3gb ram S912 Mali-t820 tv box loaded with external sd card.
I had hdmi sound on the default installation resolution of 480x720, and then I have changed resolution to a higher one (1280x720x60hz) and my hdmi sound output just stopped.
Changing to (1280x720x50hz) brought back my hdmi sound to life, but the display now is out of the monitor limit (I can see the lower half of the top menu line and higher part of the bottom task bar.
This is repeatable (I can change back and forth from 50 to 60 hz, loose my hdmi output, and vice versa).
I have reported a bug to the linux kernel development git, but they closed it because development kernel are not supported, and they poined me to this forum.

Does anyone have a solution?

 

Thank you,
Eyal.

[balbes150]

On 04.10.2017 at 7:32 PM, buvaluy said:

Where I can get dtb for beelink gt1?

try vega-s96

wifi not support kernel 4.x

 

 

 

[buvaluy]

There are only 4 dtb's 

gxl_p212_1g

gxl_p212_2g

gxm_q200_2g

kvim

I also found vega-95 at yandex disk.

 

Where I can get vega-s96?

[kingul]

On 13.09.2017 at 1:34 AM, Jens Bauer said:

I'm interested in an update (as I might want to purchase a Yoka KB2 with 3GB DDR4 RAM):

Did you solve the static IP problem completely, or do you need to use a dynamic IP still ?

How do the latest images work with the Yoka KB2 ?

 

Yes, static ip is working, all is ok.
I'm still using my Yoka KB2 as a server, non stop working, with ARMBIAN 5.27 stable Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 3.14.29, not a single problem what so ever.
Only one thing I'm not sure: how can I update armbian, when new version is out? If I reflash with the new image, all my settings are gone(and they are a lot, everywhere).

[midi-sama]

3 hours ago, kingul said:

Yes, static ip is working, all is ok.
I'm still using my Yoka KB2 as a server, non stop working, with ARMBIAN 5.27 stable Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 3.14.29, not a single problem what so ever.
Only one thing I'm not sure: how can I update armbian, when new version is out? If I reflash with the new image, all my settings are gone(and they are a lot, everywhere).

You can use Aptik and save apps and settings (also files) and restore them after a flash. I didnt try it but i use it everytime on ubuntu.