Allwinner H6

[jernej]

17 hours ago, awawa said:

I think we will wait until 5.17 and not use openvfd.

You don't need to wait so long, just pick mentioned DT lines.

[awawa]

Thanks @jernej I have a lot of problems with 5.17.rc-3 It's seems that tanix's dts is split now and there is new dtsi. BTW mmc-hs200-1_8v for mmc2 completely breaks that board. It was introduced earlier.

[jernej]

I know about the changes, I'm the one who made them. However, everything works for me . Note that there are some issues with 5.17-rc releases due to some sunxi pinctrl driver bugs, which were resolved recently. Last patch is not applied yet.

[awawa]

@jernej I've included needed changes to Tanix DTS (5.15.24). I tried to run your python script unfortunately without a success. Am I missing something? Logs attached.

logs.txt

[awawa]

Had better luck using OpenVfd. The watch is working. But currently really have no idea how to include it in the build scripts.

[danboid]

Great to see you got openvfd working awawa!

 

I have built and booted your 5.16 edge kernel on my T95 MAX. The good news is that ethernet and wifi are working but my HDMI reconnect problems are still present. Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting your HDMI cable when running X (eg XFCE) on your TX6?

 

What H6 device(s) have you got Jernej?

 

Please could you add MATE as a second desktop option to your images please awawa?

[awawa]

@danboid Haven't tried dis/reconnecting HDMI yet. MATE version will be uploaded.

New version for Tanix TX6 (Allwinner H6):
https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.17

 

Changelog:

• Add support for OpenVfd LED clock (service is disabled on default)
• upgrade current branch to: 5.15.24
• include 4k60 H6 fix from LibreElec
• update current(5.15) Armbian patches
• include drivers for RTL8822CS

 

To enable LED clock service execute these commands:

 

sudo systemctl enable openvfd
sudo systemctl start openvfd

 

[danboid]

Nice to see openvfd support get added! Now all we need is for someone to write a driver for the H6 audio to have everything supported.

 

I have tried the MATE version of v2022.02.17 on my T95 MAX. It installed  OK but when it boots it fails to load X because the Light Display Manager fails.

 

Running `systemctl status lightdm` tells me it failed to start the light display manager because the unit plymouth-quit.service is not found. Installing plymouth hasn't fixed it. One workaround is to install gdm3 and use gdm3 instead of lightdm but that downloads most of GNOME.

[danboid]

With v2022.02.17 MATE / gdm3, I can re-connect HDMI and have it work under X on my UHD monitor but HDMI re-connection doesn't work on my 4K display.

 

What spec is the display you are using with your TX6 awawa?

[awawa]

The MATE version works without any modification on my Tanix TX6. I wonder what the hardware difference of the T95 MAX could be. I am using a regular FHD monitor.

[danboid]

The only hardware prob I can think of that could cause that error maybe is if my uSD card is on its way out but I use balena and it verified the card as being OK. I'd expect the lightdm error is a Debian package problem and unlikely to be anything you've caused with your build scripts but it is strange you don't get it too as you should be getting the same error.

 

Thinking about it, I should've just uninstalled plymouth instead of installing gdm3. It was late!

[jernej]

7 hours ago, awawa said:

I wonder what the hardware difference of the T95 MAX could be

It's possible T95 MAX uses slightly different DRAM configuration. Ideally, you should extract DTB file from Android (/sys/firmware/fdt is actually DTB file used by kernel) and then we can compare settings.

[awawa]

I rushed to evaluate the MATE version. It works after first boot when new user and passwords are created. Then after reboot it tries to launch X at start up but lightdm fails to initialize and system fallback to the console. BUT it we log in using console with new user and manually startx then the MATE works again.

[danboid]

On 2/18/2022 at 5:26 PM, jernej said:

It's possible T95 MAX uses slightly different DRAM configuration. Ideally, you should extract DTB file from Android (/sys/firmware/fdt is actually DTB file used by kernel) and then we can compare settings.

This is the fdt for my T95 MAX.

 

I can reliably reconnect HDMI on my T95 when using a 4K display under Android.

 

Thanks Jernej

fdt

[jernej]

Few differences I see:

- different drive strength for wifi (lower than TX6) - not that important

- slightly different eMMC settings (lower frequency, etc) - might be important

- different IR key codes (nothing surprising)

- it seems that slightly different LED display driver is used (can't be sure unless I see detailed PCB photo)

- T95 max has slightly higher DRAM frequency (672 MHz) vs. TX6 (666 MHz)

- different DRAM config, but it's unclear how much they influence stability

[danboid]

My T95 MAX doesn't have an LED display so that shouldn't matter but you think the DRAM config could be causing my HDMI issues? I suppose we'll find out when I get a TX6 and try it with the same display.

[jernej]

1 hour ago, danboid said:

you think the DRAM config could be causing my HDMI issues?

No, not really, only general instability (app crashes, kernel lockups, etc.). Note that Android has completely different display stack, so you can't compare it to X11. If you really want to prove it's driver issue, you would need to create BSP based image and test it there. But I never done that for 64-bit Allwinner SoCs, so I have no idea how hard it would be.

 

1 hour ago, danboid said:

My T95 MAX doesn't have an LED display so that shouldn't matter

Strange, your DT blob has this:
 

awleds {
	device_type = "awleds";
	compatible = "allwinner,fd6513_dev";
	status = "okay";
	leds_clk = <0x87 0x07 0x05 0x01 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0x00>;
	leds_dat = <0x87 0x07 0x06 0x01 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0x00>;
	phandle = <0x1bd>;
};

which clearly indicates it should have FD6513 LED driver and thus display. Maybe it's one image for several box variants.

[MBB]

In case anyone is interested in building from mainline Armbian, here is a doc describing the steps I used.  The goal with this was to change as little as possible and document all changes so they could be reproduced.  Hopefully nothing missing/wrong, but I'll recheck everything tomorrow.  

 

 

 

Tanix TX6 with Armbian.odt

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by MBB
remove unneeded entry from kconfig

[Erario]

Thanks @awawa for this build!
I have an MX 10 Pro, also H6, I tried your version and the wifi is not seen, and of the four USB ports only one works.
At the time I also tried these patches and at least the USB ports all four worked, but not the wifi XR819:https://github.com/ktkd/linux-5.7-h6-mainline/tree/master/temporary
I am sure that the wifi chip is always XR819 because I have opened the tvbox and the chip is present.

I ask you if you would be kind enough to create a working wifi version for my tvbox too, integrating the patch for the usb ports into your build.
If I can help you in any way let me know, thank you very much for your job!
 

[    5.061618] hub 7-0:1.0: USB hub found
[    5.061650] hub 7-0:1.0: 1 port detected

[awawa]

Hi @Erario
The driver for XR819 is included but proper DT configuration for your board is needed for that device to be discovered by the Kernel.
As you can compare orange pi zero DT xr819 configuration (vdd_wifi, mmc and pwrseq_wifi section)  https://github.com/fifteenhex/xradio it's different from Tanix TX6: Wifi xr819 patch for Tanix TX6 And these sections also need to be tuned to your device, but I don't know their correct configuration.

[Erario]

1 hour ago, awawa said:

Hi @Erario
The driver for XR819 is included but proper DT configuration for your board is needed for that device to be discovered by the Kernel.
As you can compare orange pi zero DT xr819 configuration (vdd_wifi, mmc and pwrseq_wifi section)  https://github.com/fifteenhex/xradio it's different from Tanix TX6: Wifi xr819 patch for Tanix TX6 And these sections also need to be tuned to your device, but I don't know their correct configuration.

Thanks for the reply.
and how can I detect the correct vdd_wifi, mmc and pwrseq_wifi section for this box?
I obviously have a working Android.

[danboid]

I wasn't expecting my TX6 to arrive for at least another week but it arrived today. It is a Tanix TX6-H.

 

Booting awawa's latest image, the ethernet works but the wifi and BT do not. Both the wifi and bt work fine under Android. I had read on some forums that there is a TX6 using RTL8822CS but according to Android's /proc/net my TX6 is using the rtl88x2bs. I tried running `modprobe 88x2cs` anyway and the kernel module loaded but it didn't work so I hope it wasn't much effort for you to add 88x2cs support awawa? Maybe it will be useful to another user. I have yet to try rebuilding your repo to see if rtl88x2bs is easy to enable or if I'll have to find patches?

 

I can confirm that the openvfd driver works fine - very cool! Unfortunately my TX6 has the same HDMI issue as my T95 MAX does with my 4K display and it also runs a lot warmer than the T95 - ~70 degrees vs ~50 degrees on the T95, like you said awawa.

 

It would seem that the lightdm issue still isn't fixed. I tried installing plymouth but that didn't fix lightdm. I previously suggested installing gdm3 but a much better, more lightweight alternative that does work fine under Bullseye is lxdm. Unlike gdm3 it doesn't install most of GNOME3.

[awawa]

For rtl88x2bs you can try this solution but that external driver seems a bit unstable https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12162-single-armbian-image-for-rk-aml-aw-aarch64-armv8/?do=findComment&comment=97194 Probable safer choice is purchasing TX6 without a Bluetooth as support for rtl88x2bs if it happens, is currently really in bad shape (SDIO version).

 

[danboid]

Thanks awawa!

 

This seems to be the repo I need to test:

 

https://github.com/ChalesYu/rtl8822bs-aml/tree/test-5.13.1-20-211113

 

I bought this box aware that it was likely to have a different wifi because it also has BT so I'm prepared to try building this driver. If I get it to work then I'll submit a PR for your repo.

 

I'm probably going to buy the original TX6 too whilst I still can so I've got the full set.

[awawa]

@danboid If that driver works then probably can be integrated in build script. My repo will be offline for few days: I want to switch fork to mainline Armbian and apply my changes to it. I will be much easier in future to track all the changes in official Armbian releases.

[MBB]

@awawa Great news you are switching to mainline.  It will be fantastic to have someone maintain a Tanix H6 build again!  THANK YOU FOR SHARING ALL YOUR WORK ON THIS!

 

On a somewhat related topic, I am working with a manufacturer in China to (hopefully) sell the Tanix-compatible T95 Mini under a new name to avoid confusion, with EMMC, preflashed with Armbian so ready-to-use out of the box.  If anyone is interested in such a product, please let me know.  @awawa's repo works flawlessly.

 

For anyone considering a Tanix-compatible box, I highly  recommend the T95 Mini (with EMMC - often these get shipped with NAND unless you check and they understand what you are even asking ).  The reason why we like the T95 Mini is it seems to run cooler than any other compatible model.  It is also really small and inexpensive.

 

Thanks again @awawa!

[awawa]

My repo is back. With new release of course Bump Kernel to new 5.15.25 and include all valid for us LibreElec patches after their review. https://github.com/awawa-dev/build/releases/tag/v2022.02.24
The fork is now linked to armbian:master and it is ahead by 1 commit that contains all my changes. It will be easy to refresh origin with future Armbian upstream changes.
Unfortunately for us tvboxes have a low priority for mainline development: few patches that are included in Armbian probably for other SCBs, prevent Tanix TX6 from booting or they are causing unstable behavior so I needed to exclude them. So that board needs to have its own patch repository (99% armbian patches included and most of LibreElec).

[danboid]

On 2/23/2022 at 2:10 AM, MBB said:

@awawa Great news you are switching to mainline.  It will be fantastic to have someone maintain a Tanix H6 build again!  THANK YOU FOR SHARING ALL YOUR WORK ON THIS!

 

On a somewhat related topic, I am working with a manufacturer in China to (hopefully) sell the Tanix-compatible T95 Mini under a new name to avoid confusion, with EMMC, preflashed with Armbian so ready-to-use out of the box.  If anyone is interested in such a product, please let me know.  @awawa's repo works flawlessly.

 

For anyone considering a Tanix-compatible box, I highly  recommend the T95 Mini (with EMMC - often these get shipped with NAND unless you check and they understand what you are even asking ).  The reason why we like the T95 Mini is it seems to run cooler than any other compatible model.  It is also really small and inexpensive.

 

Thanks again @awawa!

 

The T95 MAX runs awawas build well and it also runs significantly cooler than the Tx6 plus it has an extra USB port and SPDIF. The SPDIF and analogue audio output only work under Android but the extra USB port is handy for sure.

[jernej]

2 hours ago, danboid said:

The SPDIF and analogue audio output only work under Android but the extra USB port is handy for sure.

SPDIF is already included in base H6 DTSI file (any board can easily enable it, if present) and it will be enabled for Tanix TX6 by default in 5.17

[awawa]

In latest 5.15.25 build I imported your SPDIF patch from LibreElec link . Is it active already or sound-spdif /spdif_out need to be "okey"?