u-boot- files location.

[Mr Finch]

I've been trying to do this for about a month already, just subscribed because instructions were so messy (and found a lot of closed+deprecated threads that simply could'nt follow up)
I can't find these files:
 

Quote

All Amlogic models now need the "u-boot.ext" file.

Before launching on Amlogic, you must copy or rename one of the existing files "u-boot-*" to "u-boot.ext".

 

For s905 (not X) - used u-boot-s905

For s905x and s912 - used u-boot-s905x-s912

For s905x2 and s922 - used u-boot-s905x2-s922

They are nowhere.
Followed instructions from almos every thread/tutorial, even the closed ones that point to a newer one to no avail.
¿What am I missing?

[pomelo]

On 12/5/2020 at 11:00 PM, Mr Finch said:

I've been trying to do this for about a month already, just subscribed because instructions were so messy (and found a lot of closed+deprecated threads that simply could'nt follow up)
I can't find these files:
 

They are nowhere.
Followed instructions from almos every thread/tutorial, even the closed ones that point to a newer one to no avail.
¿What am I missing?

 

I am having the exact same problem. I am having a hard time figuring out where to look for the "u-boot-s905x-s912.img" file. 

[TRS-80]

On 12/5/2020 at 5:00 PM, Mr Finch said:

I've been trying to do this for about a month already

 

I am posting because I can empathize with your frustration, so please take this in the way it is intended (a constructive hint, even if not directly related to the issue you are trying to solve).

 

So now perhaps you guys start to understand why TV Boxes are not officially supported.  Because getting them to work can be "an adventure" to say the least.

 

I wish you both the best of luck, sorry I don't know any more specifics which might be directly relevant.

[SteeMan]

5 hours ago, pomelo said:

I am having the exact same problem. I am having a hard time figuring out where to look for the "u-boot-s905x-s912.img" file. 

This is only needed for amlogic based boxes.  Balbes150 dropped support for amlogic boxes on October 14, 2020.  So any build after that will not have these files.  If you really want to work with something that a) isn't supported by the Armbian project (TV boxes are not supported devices) and b) is no longer supported by the lone developer that was working on this fork of armbian for TV boxes, then look for the 5.9.0 kernel builds from October 14th and you will find these files. https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014

[pomelo]

20 hours ago, SteeMan said:

This is only needed for amlogic based boxes.  Balbes150 dropped support for amlogic boxes on October 14, 2020.  So any build after that will not have these files.  If you really want to work with something that a) isn't supported by the Armbian project (TV boxes are not supported devices) and b) is no longer supported by the lone developer that was working on this fork of armbian for TV boxes, then look for the 5.9.0 kernel builds from October 14th and you will find these files. https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014

I am very grateful that you replied to this topic.

I had to wait 24 hours to reply to this post because I am a new user and I can only post 1 post per day. I am using a MXQPRO_II which is the name I see when I boot into recovery. It has 1GB Ram and has S905X Chip. I managed to boot into CoreELEC and LibreELEC.

After going to the link you shared and using dd to write "Armbian_20.11_Arm-64_buster_current_5.9.8" I edited the extlinux.conf and selected the gxl212 dtb because in LibreELEC it worked.

So flashed the image in the SD card and edited extlinux.conf and tried to boot by typing "recovery update" on a terminal emulator on the box. It didn't work. I could enter recovery but that's it. If I select either "Reboot to System" or "Reboot to bootloader", I boot into the default Android OS. 

 

Can you suggest what I should do to get linux up and running on the MXQPro_II box(S905x, 1GB RAM)? I am planning on installing SNORT and using it as an intrusion detection system if I managed to run linux on it. 

P.S. I probably won't be able to reply before 24 hours because I am a new user.

Edited December 8, 2020 by pomelo

[SteeMan]

2 minutes ago, pomelo said:

I managed to boot into CoreELEC and LibreELEC.

As is mentioned elsewhere, the CoreELEC boot system is incompatible with the armbiantv boot system.  If you have run CoreELEC you will need to reinstall an original android firmware to restore the boot system to the expected state that armbiantv expects/needs.  What you describe above is showing that you are entering into the android recovery mode, which isn't what you want/need to install armbiantv.

[Mr Finch]

On 12/7/2020 at 1:08 PM, TRS-80 said:

 

start to understand why TV Boxes are not officially supported.  Because getting them to work can be "an adventure" to say the least.

 

¿and... so?

I'm not complaining about the work needed to be done, nor i'm complaining about the lack of support.... neither about people dropping projects...

I'm saying that something that's supposed to be somewhere, as someone said, is just not there. I don't care about everything else, i'm saying that there's a tutorial talking about stuff that does not exists.

[Mr Finch]

20 hours ago, SteeMan said:

This is only needed for amlogic based boxes.  Balbes150 dropped support for amlogic boxes on October 14, 2020.  So any build after that will not have these files.  If you really want to work with something that a) isn't supported by the Armbian project (TV boxes are not supported devices) and b) is no longer supported by the lone developer that was working on this fork of armbian for TV boxes, then look for the 5.9.0 kernel builds from October 14th and you will find these files. https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014

I have an IQ a bit over 60, so I downloaded the older packages too, and still there's no such files.

[SteeMan]

So I just downloaded Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_focal_current_5.9.0.img.xz from https://yadi.sk/d/_rQgn_FosYuW0g/20.10/20201014 and mounted it and this is the contents from the boot partition:

BOOT % ls
System.map-5.9.0-arm-64         extlinux
aml_autoscript                  initrd.img-5.9.0-arm-64
aml_autoscript.zip              s905_autoscript
armbian_first_run.txt.template  u-boot-s905
boot.bmp                        u-boot-s905x-s912
boot.ini                        u-boot-s905x2-s922
config-5.9.0-arm-64             uInitrd
dtb                             zImage
emmc_autoscript
 

So yes the files do exist where I said they would.

[Mr Finch]

That's odd...

I'm re-downloading all packages since I deleted everything to save some space.

[TRS-80]

1 hour ago, Mr Finch said:

I'm saying that something that's supposed to be somewhere, as someone said, is just not there. I don't care about everything else, i'm saying that there's a tutorial talking about stuff that does not exists.

 

Well, I guess I would consider maintaining download links, documentation, etc. and other things you mention as a part of "support."

 

I think you are very lucky to have @SteeMan helping you.  Which I would also consider "support", by the way...  And also why I don't understand the slightly snide / passive aggressive comments like

 

1 hour ago, Mr Finch said:

I have an IQ a bit over 60

 

directed toward people who are trying to help you.

 

As I said in my first post to you, I can empathize with your frustration, we have all been there.  Please, really stop and consider that for a moment.

 

Because speaking to other members of the community (especially those rare and valuable people like SteeMan who so selflessly contribute their time and efforts to help others) is not going to be tolerated.  Consider this an official warning from a Moderator.  So maybe take a break or whatever, go for a walk, or at minimum think about how you are talking to people, especially those who are trying to help you, before making your next reply.

 

Cheers.

Edited December 8, 2020 by TRS-80
clarity

[Mr Finch]

On 12/8/2020 at 2:46 PM, TRS-80 said:

 

I think you are very lucky to have @SteeMan helping you.  Which I would also consider "support", by the way...  And also why I don't understand the slightly snide / passive aggressive comments like

 

directed toward people who are trying to help you.

I'm sorry if my comment offended someone, but it seemed like if someone were trying to make fun of me in the first place.
Obviously he doesn't need to guess, or even realize that I may be someone at least a bit intelligent but I spent so much time fighting with this thing that my mind was in the wrong place. Also, having to read, think and answer to several people makes me get confused and translate some feelings from one chat to another to make things worse.

[Mr Finch]

On 12/8/2020 at 2:46 PM, TRS-80 said:

 

Well, I guess I would consider maintaining download links, documentation, etc. and other things you mention as a part of "support."

If info. is there and noone supports it nor delete it, info. is still there... and there's no support. But info. was wrong in the fist place.... That's the thing. (even tho it was not wrong but scrambled and confuse)

 

[Mr Finch]

Finally got it, @SteeMan was right, packages have the files inside.
I may have got stuff scrambled (in my head and hard drive) after reading and following links and instructions from several threads from the same author.

[pomelo]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:50 PM, SteeMan said:

As is mentioned elsewhere, the CoreELEC boot system is incompatible with the armbiantv boot system.  If you have run CoreELEC you will need to reinstall an original android firmware to restore the boot system to the expected state that armbiantv expects/needs.  What you describe above is showing that you are entering into the android recovery mode, which isn't what you want/need to install armbiantv.

I only booted to CoreELEC and LibreELEC from the external SD card. Never installed to the eMMc. I have been using the latest images and that is probably why I didn't find the "u-boot-s905x-s912" file in them.

 

Thanks to you, I managed to boot using the  Armbian_20.10_Arm-64_focal_current_5.9.0.img.xz image. Ethernet is working, but there is no wlan0. dmesg shows the wifi device as "TLL901X".

Can you suggest any other distro where wifi is functioning, it doesn't have to be armbian or latest?

Sorry for the late reply. I am still stuck with 1 post a day.

[TRS-80]

1 hour ago, pomelo said:

Ethernet is working, but there is no wlan0

 

Please see this sticky (the whole thing) although number 7 addresses this directly.

 

I don't expect for you to have read it before, as I just created it. 

[Mr Finch]

I have it finally working as a media/download center/server (torrent)
It seems to work even better than the old Atom netbook I had on until yesterday.

I wan to apologise to @SteeMan and @TRS-80 since I went bananas on them but it was all a confusion from my part.
I'm sorry.
I'm tired to get into projects that promise a lot but once in you find nothing is as supposed (that's been almost all open stuff for the last 10 years almost) and this seeemed the case, while it was'nt, anyway I have to blame the forum (software) because is not completely clear on how it manages sections and threads. (or maybe I'm too used to old/vintage forum's ways) but I'm not even being able to easily find my own threads and messages. And that's for the same reason I confused all threads about my s912 (@balbes150) in the first place, they all seemed the same but were not. (language helped a lot because I'm not english speaker)

Thanks to everyone.

[TRS-80]

On 12/20/2020 at 5:11 PM, Mr Finch said:

I'm sorry.

 

Cheers, mate.

 

As I said, pretty sure we've all been there.

 

On 12/20/2020 at 5:11 PM, Mr Finch said:

is not completely clear on how it manages sections and threads.

 

Even I thought at first that Armbian forums have a bit "weird" structure until I realized it's all about what boards are "Supported" and which are not, etc.  Once you get your head around that it starts to make sense.  Also see the "Where to post?" link in my signature.

 

The TV Boxes area specifically has been somewhat problematic, which is part of what led to writing that sticky, and further forum re-arrangement has also been discussed.