New prize: $500 for anyone who can update my DTB file!

[Roy Hoejgaard]

Dear all,

 

Ok ok, I realize my previous post with $100 for this task is a bit low. Please do keep in mind, that this is only my personal hobby project.

 

With that in mind, I hereby offer $500 to anyone, who can update the DTB file to work with the current version of Armbian.

 

BTW, I have a freelancer.com account with a 5.0 rating as employer (as well as freelancer): https://www.freelancer.com/u/LeHawkDeLaNight - I can start a new project for you there, so there is no doubts about getting payed the $500.

 

Thanks again,

Roy

 

Original post:

 

Dear all,

 

I have an Android TV-Box which is not a common type (but brand new). No existing DTB file that I tried works properly with Armbian (Ex. WiFi & Bluetooth missing).

 

I have managed to extract the original DTB file from the built in Android (Pie, I believe), but as I read somewhere else, these DTB files are for older Linux kernels, and Armbian refuses to boot with it.

 

My question: would anybody here like to attempt to update the DTB file, so that it adheres to the current Linux kernels standards for DTB files? I will offer $100 to anyone who can make it work.

 

Technical specs of TV-Box:

 

Amlogic S905X3 CPU

4GB RAM

64GB eMMC

2 X USB 2.0 & 1 X USB 3.0

Micro SD Card slot

HDMI 2.1

AV out

SPDIF/Optical

WiFi 2.4G/5G

100M Ethernet

Bluetooth 4.1

 

P.S. Please download the DTB/DTS files from here: 

 

 

Regards,

Roy

[balbes150]

12 часов назад, Roy Hoejgaard сказал:

current version of Armbian

What does "current Armbian version" mean? There is no such thing for TV boxes. It follows from this that the hidden context of the task is to create for you a full-fledged system with a working core in which all the equipment for your device works. Yes, I can create such a DTB, but who will support all devices in the kernel itself, in the system.

[Roy Hoejgaard]

Hello Balbes150,

 

Nice to meet you. I have read many of your posts here, as well as on other forums (LibreELEC, I think). I have also tried some of your IMG's at https://users.armbian.com/balbes150/arm-64/ - it booted just fine with my TV-Box, except Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and AV did not work.

 

It would be an honor for me to work with you on this project.

 

- What does "current Armbian version" mean?

 

Well, I would like to be able to run Debian 11 (Bullseye) with XFCE. So I assume we are talking about compatibility with Linux kernel 5.10

 

If not possible for the newest versions, then it can also be for Buster or Stretch. 

 

- There is no such thing for TV boxes. It follows from this that the hidden context of the task is to create for you a full-fledged system with a working core in which all the equipment for your device works.

 

Mmm, ok. I was assuming that using the correct DTB with the partially working IMG's would fix the problems. But I am new to this, so I might be wrong.

 

- Yes, I can create such a DTB, but who will support all devices in the kernel itself, in the system.

 

Wonderful! How would you prefer to proceed? Like I said, I can create a task on freelancer.com and commit the $500 for the project there. Or any other way you prefer...

[Igor]

3 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

Wonderful! How would you prefer to proceed?

Start with supporting things that works well and use private communication.
https://forum.armbian.com/clients/donations/

 

3 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

but who will support all devices in the kernel itself, in the system.

 

3 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

I can create a task on freelancer.com

You must have noticed that people provide services for 500 USD per hour for what you are asking.

[balbes150]

7 часов назад, Roy Hoejgaard сказал:

Wonderful! How would you prefer to proceed? Like I said, I can create a task on freelancer.com and commit the $500 for the project there. Or any other way you prefer...

Pay attention to the information from Igor. He understood correctly what I am trying to explain to you. Even if  create a DTB, it absolutely does not mean that your equipment will work. To do this, you need another "little thing" - the availability of support (drivers) for your hardware in the kernel itself (and firmware \ settings and other things in the system). And this is a completely different cost many, many, many times more than your budget. Therefore, I advise you to listen carefully to the advice - choose SUPPORTED equipment and throw this trash in the trash.

[lanefu]

10 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

Wonderful! How would you prefer to proceed? Like I said, I can create a task on freelancer.com and commit the $500 for the project there. Or any other way you prefer...

 

Hey Roy

 

Another community member wanting to learn more about device tree might bite.

 

One of the points Igor and Balbes were trying to make is that cheap TVBoxes are notorious for having inconsistent hardware within the same model.     2 physically identical ones can have grossly different internals.    

 

Common variables, storage chips (emmc or nvram).  Network chips.

 

Pathing could be totally different there for needing to tune delays and other things I don't understand.   

 

TVBox vendors have no incentive to communicate differences or to even aspire for consistency across production runs.

 

You'll notice that with chip shortages that s lot of SBC vendors had to introduce new models because of changes they had to make.   Ex: Orange Pi 3 LTS

 

A $500 dtb investment and Buying 500 TVboxes vs 500 SBCs from a trusted vendor will likely yield a failed project rather than a project with fantastic cost savings.

[Roy Hoejgaard]

On 1/12/2022 at 1:51 PM, Igor said:

Start with supporting things that works well and use private communication.

Hello Igor, nice to meet you. Yes, I have already considered making a donation. However, my budget is not very big, and I understand that donations (that include support from you) start at $1.000. We'll see, maybe...

 

Anyway, thank you so much for Armbian and for making it opensource. It is an incredibly interesting project, that I will be following very closely in the future.

 

On 1/12/2022 at 5:45 PM, balbes150 said:

Pay attention to the information from Igor.

 

Noted. I will have you know, however, that this particular TV-Box was very carefully chosen. Months of research. It costs $40+ per unit and has an excellent build quality. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are both based on Broadcom ICs, so I don't think finding a Linux driver is impossible.

 

I also tried booting CoreELEC on it. Everything - including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & AV - works out of the box.

 

So thanks for the advice, but I will stick to this TV-Box - at least until every last stone has been turned.

 

On 1/12/2022 at 9:06 PM, lanefu said:

One of the points Igor and Balbes were trying to make is that cheap TVBoxes are notorious for having inconsistent hardware within the same model.     2 physically identical ones can have grossly different internals.

 

Hello Lanefu. Thank you for the pointers. I was not aware that there might be inconsistencies between the boxes in that manner. That is definitely something that I will address with my supplier.

 

On 1/12/2022 at 9:06 PM, lanefu said:

A $500 dtb investment and Buying 500 TVboxes vs 500 SBCs from a trusted vendor will likely yield a failed project rather than a project with fantastic cost savings.

 

Yes, but that approach has two drawbacks:

 

1. The SBCs do not have a good selection of proper enclosures/cases available (Orange Pi, Banana Pi...) and the Raspberry Pi is rather pricey.

2. Doing a project with any of those SBCs means that anybody else can easily replicate it. Using an unknown but high quality TV-Box will help protect the intellectual property.

 

But I will consider all your good pointers. Thanks again.

[Igor]

2 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

my budget is not very big

Our budget to support you and work with you - is 0 EUR per year. Not just your business, but everyone business in this community. Not all people are dealing with this to make money, but they also represent an expense. To us. They ask question. They want that things works well. Just like you.
 

2 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

The SBCs do not have a good selection of proper enclosures/cases available

End users (with your potential donation) cover around 0.5% of the expenses we have with their ideas. When we are talking about SBCs. With TV boxes, this is just way worse. Which is why core team don't want to hear about. Its down to community if anyone wants to deal with ...

 

2 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

will help protect the intellectual property.

 

Don't talk about protecting your IP while running business on our time and experiences. To save money.

[balbes150]

5 часов назад, Roy Hoejgaard сказал:

2. Doing a project with any of those SBCs means that anybody else can easily replicate it. Using an unknown but high quality TV-Box will help protect the intellectual property.

Without false modesty, I think there are few specialists who know Amlogic TV boxes + Linux (Armbian) better than me. Therefore, I know well what I am writing about. I have to upset you a lot, just the opposite, you will get the opposite result. Your system can be very easily stolen and used without spending a cent on updating the program and kernel and using the shittiest AML TV boxes. It's enough to take the shittiest and cheapest AML TV box and make a stupid copy of your system (buy one of your devices anonymously, run a full copy of eMMC on it with a banal DD command and then deploy it all to cheap shit TV boxes). If Wi-Fi \BT AV does not work, the simplest USB WiFi \ BT USB sound card with AV is bought for $ 1-2 and the issue is resolved. With SbS (especially with Rockchip or Aw), everything is not so simple - the system from them will not work on AML TV boxes, and TV boxes for RK and AW, on which it can work, will cost no less than SbS. Therefore, pirates will not benefit from theft.

 

p.s. I don't want to waste time on empty conversations, it's your money and you decide where to spend

 

[Werner]

6 hours ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

I also tried booting CoreELEC on it. Everything - including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & AV - works out of the box.

This is kind of important information since this means somebody else already went through the pain of sorting things out once earlier.

So somebody who is up for a bounty might use this and get the necessary stuff from CoreELEC and port it over without need to dig very deep into stuff.

[Roy Hoejgaard]

On 1/14/2022 at 3:01 PM, Igor said:

Our budget to support you and work with you - is 0 EUR per year. Not just your business, but everyone business in this community. Not all people are dealing with this to make money, but they also represent an expense. To us. They ask question. They want that things works well. Just like you.

 

If I ever have any success with my project, I will make sure to give a generous donation to Armbian. You have my word.

[Igor]

16 minutes ago, Roy Hoejgaard said:

If I ever have any success with my project, I will make sure to give a generous donation to Armbian. You have my word.

 

I am sorry, but that is a terrible and damaging business proposition which I have to turn down. 

There are thousands of people in the same line where you are standing. I give you my word that I will do everything to prevent you making us more expenses. They are usually in a range of 1000 x bigger than your generous donation.

Until then, proceed as your support contract says: ... If you can't find answer there and/or with help of general project search engine and documentation, consider hiring an expert. (link to 3rd party resources which are having enough time to deal with and might accept your generous offer)

 

[Roy Hoejgaard]

22 hours ago, Igor said:

I am sorry, but that is a terrible and damaging business proposition which I have to turn down. 

 

Listen. With all due respect, you totally misunderstand me. I never expected that you would work on this, as you are already outside of my budget and are no doubt super busy.

 

That is why I posted in the P2P room. To see if I could find someone (a peer) with more experience than me with U-Boot, who was willing to do it for $500.

 

So when I said I would donate, it was not to try to persuade you to help. I said it simply because I believe in your project and I want to support it. So if I ever have a success, it is only fair that I pass some of my profits to Armbian.

 

Also, I never asked to get a fully fledged working system (as Balbes asserted). I only asked for an updated version of my DTB file. It's right there in the title of the thread. The drivers and other stuff I can figure out by myself.

 

Thanks for the pointer to the Debian experts. I didn't know that was an option. Will check it out.

 

Regards,

Roy

[balbes150]

14.01.2022 в 13:54, Werner сказал:

So somebody who is up for a bounty might use this and get the necessary stuff from CoreELEC and port it over without need to dig very deep into stuff.

The fact that it works in their shit does not mean at all that if you add only DTB, then it will be able to work on the main core.

 

@WernerThe piquancy of the situation is that the "customer" did not even specify the exact version of the kernel for which DTB is needed, and this is a key parameter that can dramatically change the price and amount of work. DTB and core are tightly linked. I have an opinion that the "customer" does not sufficiently understand the essence of the task that he wants to solve, he requests the creation of a DTB for the kernel and then writes about u-boot.

[cuker]

54 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

The fact that it works in their shit

What do you call shit? At least everything works there.

 

And shit here is only your attitude which haven changed from the past and probably never be. But we are all get used to it You really fits this crowd here perfectly.

[balbes150]

1 час назад, cuker сказал:

What do you call shit? At least everything works there.

 

And shit here is only your attitude which haven changed from the past and probably never be. But we are all get used to it You really fits this crowd here perfectly.

Why on earth should I change my attitude towards those who are engaged in theft, piracy, spreading lies, impersonating others in order to compromise those they don't like. I will specifically emphasize that not everyone in their community is like that, most are normal and sane people, whom I treat with respect and we cooperate with some (not publicly).

Especially for you, the AML BSP core is full of shit.

[kprasadvnsi]

$500 is better then $100 but nothing screw up like a confused customer.

 

On 1/14/2022 at 10:00 AM, Roy Hoejgaard said:

will help protect the intellectual property.

 

I don't think its about protecting IP. You are looking for some cheap labor in a field where $500 bounty is considered a joke if i put it politely.

[cuker]

6 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

Why on earth should I change my attitude towards those who are engaged in theft, piracy, spreading lies, impersonating others in order to compromise those they don't like. I will specifically emphasize that not everyone in their community is like that, most are normal and sane people, whom I treat with respect and we cooperate with some (not publicly).

Especially for you, the AML BSP core is full of shit.

I think you just describe yourself isn't it?

 

Probably true about BSP, but again things works there. Does it works on mainline linux? No.

[balbes150]

13 минут назад, cuker сказал:

I think you just describe yourself isn't it?

 

Probably true about BSP, but again things works there. Does it works on mainline linux? No.

This is a description of you, you're afraid to indicate your real nickname, under which you hang out in their community. 

 

I don't see any point in continuing to communicate with you, you're a banal troll.

[Vasco]

24 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

Why on earth should I change my attitude towards those who are engaged in theft, piracy, spreading lies, impersonating others in order to compromise those they don't like. I will specifically emphasize that not everyone in their community is like that, most are normal and sane people, whom I treat with respect and we cooperate with some (not publicly).

Especially for you, the AML BSP core is full of shit.

Just passed by to say that you should seek professional help. You are not well.

[cuker]

10 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

you're afraid to indicate your real nickname

This is my real nickname. Should I made another one?

You are so funny guy. Pleased to talk to you...

[Igor]

This is getting nowhere. Locking.