ARMBIAN for Amlogic S905 and S905X (ver 5.44 =<)

[Ian Pat]

few questions regarding A95X on my quest to a Linux from scratch

Is it possible to modify the partitions layout? I would like to keep a minimum number of them, what are the mandatory ones? I see cache and others i would like to get rid off and get the space.

I decompiled the dtb for my device and found the list, if i modify that is it enough or is the partition layout stored someplace else (U-Boot for eg.)?

How safe is to play around with the eMMC from a bricking perspective? Can the device be rescued with a defective partition layout or none at all? If i do for eg a dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 completely zeroing the eMMC can i still un-brick? This would mean U-Boot would be missing completely and everything else, but what will happen at start time? Will he still try to boot from an alternate storage (SD-Card or USB) or just simply halt and that's all.

What are the scenarios under which one needs to to that ugly fix of shorting the pins on the eMMC in order to unbrick?
 

Darn, i hate this ARM stuff (or ARM hates me)... x86, x86 where are thee?

 

[mdel]

6 hours ago, Ian Pat said:

Darn, i hate this ARM stuff (or ARM hates me)... x86, x86 where are thee?

 

x86 is here http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_562952.html?wid=21

 

Partitions are mostly android related (at least for the android image provided by the manufacturer), i don't know for sure but i remember seeing some emmc with non android scheme but if you get it wrong you'll brick your device.

 

if you clear your emmc you will brick the device, the same way you flash a wrong uboot to it.

uboot in on the emmc and it initiates alternate boot (sd / usb). i don't now about low level boot sequence (before uboot), it's usually related to your specific soc or arm platform. 

 

unbricking a really bricked device involves flashing the emmc with an external tool and usually making a hardware modification to the circuit (shorting pins, nand only ?).

 

but other more experienced users will tell you more about that..

 

 

 

 

[mdel]

On 4/1/2017 at 9:12 PM, balbes150 said:

Test versions images (20170401) server and mate  kernel 4.10.8. When run from SD card the system starts up and allows you to log in through the console UART. Network and USB does not work yet. Error with the eMMC. Note that these images are for experienced users only, if you would be willing to help with debugging and testing.

 

thx for those images i will test them shortly.

Do you need tests on both s905 and s905x (i also have s912), do you want testers to check for specific things ?

 

i'm using your latest 5.27 image on emmc, it seems to work fine, i haven't had time to try some fbset things to see if i can get hdmi output on my a95x (s905).

[Shimon]

On 4/5/2017 at 5:47 PM, xXx said:

• pigz does a great job in compression part, but decompession is still single core ( correct me if things has changed ).
• SD/USB read/write bandwidth may be a bottleneck to backup/restore operations even with pigz in action ( just a guess ).

Pigz could be checked for and used if present (not installed in the default images). 

 

It's true decompression would be unaffected but it doesn't matter, as a single A53 core is powerful enough to provide enough throughput.  However, it's not true for compression, and backing up with pigz to a 10MB/s memory stick already offers a sizeable speedup (i.e. until you hit empty space).

 

@Ian Pat

You probably meant "where art thou"?

[xXx]

I managed to get myself a new SD card Sandisk Ultra 32BG HC I Class 10 and i just put

Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img  on it.

I will mail the Rikomagic MK36 to its owner tommorrow ( fixed it ),

so i have some time again to spend with my mini M8S box and armbian.

First of all:

The gui error about mate-panel and trash ( KEEP / DELETE ) should be  gone if mate-applets

package was present in the default images. The error comes up because the default panel layout have

trash applet icon hardcoded in the far right of the bottom panel, but trash applet is not installed.

Also:

A good alternative image viewer for mate could be viewnior

I also remove at first start:

everything about xfce (mirage*, thunar*,lxtask*) also libreoffice*,mc*,thunderbird*,vim*

I also always install:

adwaita-icon-theme-full,gnome-themes-standard,gnome-themes-standard-data

in order to have a pleasant desktop, and mate-applets and viewnior at first boot.

Now:

I am going to make some tests with pigz and report the time savings

 

[xXx]

Here are the results for pigz VS gzip:

 

backup and compress

pigz 7752122368 bytes (7.8 GB, 7.2 GiB) copied, 193.749 s, 40.0 MB/s

gzip 7752122368 bytes (7.8 GB, 7.2 GiB) copied, 292.576 s, 26.5 MB/s

 

test the compressed backup

pigz 0m26.781s

gzip 1m18.495s

 

decompress

pigz 9m55.684s

gzip 9m51.756s

 

All in all pigz will be a good addition in the dd_backup script.

So if balbes150 feels like adding pigz in his images, he only have to do:

sed -i "s/gzip/pigz/g" /usr/sbin/dd_backup(_x)

and if decompession is also desired

sed -i "s/gunzip/unpigz/g" /usr/sbin/dd_backup(_x)

and compression step will be faster and maybe decompression also a bit (according to pigz man pages).

 

The only thing to be checked is if restoring will be working as expected ( should be, but not tested ).

[balbes150]

38 minutes ago, xXx said:

The only thing to be checked is if restoring will be working as expected ( should be, but not tested ).

This is the main test. I'll add these changes after checking to recover.

[balbes150]

Added to the website test option image kernel 4.11.1 (test\20170407). Pay attention - video output NOT working (monitor NOT working). Management connection via SSH.

 

As part of your image there are options to the dtb for all the chips s905 s905x s905d s912.

 

 

ADD

Pay attention to the way the working environment MATE. At least the monitor doesn't work, but in this way it is possible to connect via ssh with-X and run remotely (displaying on the workstation) graphics program. For example - gparted , synaptic, etc. This is useful to simplify system maintenance or debugging programs.

Edited April 7, 2017 by balbes150

[Ian Pat]

4 hours ago, balbes150 said:

Added to the website test option image kernel 4.11.1 (test\20170407)

Internal eMMC working?

[balbes150]

It's in the verification process.

[Ian Pat]

i managed to compile 4.9 from amlogic and i have all the stuff i need for using this a95x box as a tvheadend headless server for my dvb-c usb tuner (astrometa, mn88473 only supported for digital cable in kernels > 4.7). working usb, sd, emmc, ethernet (those were the only i tested/needed, others might or might not work, worked from uart until network was configured), now lets add a minimal linux userspace to that kernel and forget about it.

that's it! bye bye Arm world

 

dmesg.log

[sukanime]

On 4/6/2017 at 10:14 PM, xXx said:

I managed to get myself a new SD card Sandisk Ultra 32BG HC I Class 10 and i just put

Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img  on it.

I will mail the Rikomagic MK36 to its owner tommorrow ( fixed it ),

so i have some time again to spend with my mini M8S box and armbian.

First of all:

The gui error about mate-panel and trash ( KEEP / DELETE ) should be  gone if mate-applets

package was present in the default images. The error comes up because the default panel layout have

trash applet icon hardcoded in the far right of the bottom panel, but trash applet is not installed.

Also:

A good alternative image viewer for mate could be viewnior

I also remove at first start:

everything about xfce (mirage*, thunar*,lxtask*) also libreoffice*,mc*,thunderbird*,vim*

I also always install:

adwaita-icon-theme-full,gnome-themes-standard,gnome-themes-standard-data

in order to have a pleasant desktop, and mate-applets and viewnior at first boot.

Now:

I am going to make some tests with pigz and report the time savings

 

 

Hi xXx, i want to ask you about Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img  , i want to try it, did its have RTL8723BS Wifi Driver on it?
or perhaps balbes150 can confirm about RTL8723BS Wifi Driver for Mini M8S (S905) on it?

The last time i use Armbian ( 3 month ago ), it's doesn't have it, i have to get it from LibreELEC in https://github.com/kszaq/linux/tree/amlogic-3.14.y and get the driver in folder drivers/amlogic/wifi/

I need it, because i use wifi to connect internet through my handphone wifi thethering.

Thanks before.

[xXx]

8 minutes ago, sukanime said:

i want to ask you about Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img  , i want to try it, did its have RTL8723BS Wifi Driver on it?

For Mini M8S the wifi drivers was always working for me, even with previous versions.

All i had to do with Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img was simply dd it ( Rufus it indeed  as i was working

with Rikomagic win10 32bit at the time) in my SD card, put it in the slot, and give power.

Everything worked right from the start.

No sources, no compilations, no dtb's, nada.

[sukanime]

4 minutes ago, xXx said:

For Mini M8S the wifi drivers was always working for me, even with previous versions.

All i had to do with Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img was simply dd it ( Rufus it indeed  as i was working

with Rikomagic win10 32bit at the time) in my SD card, put it in the slot, and give power.

Everything worked right from the start.

No sources, no compilations, no dtb's, nada.

 

Thanks for the quick answer, if i remember corectly, the last time i use i Armbian 5.24 and its doesn't have the wifi driver.
I will download it after i finished downloading http://dn.odroid.com/S905/Ubuntu/ubuntu64-16.04.2lts-mate-odroid-c2-20170301.img.xz
i hope i still have Internet Quota for it...

[Shimon]

Meanwhile I did a quick test of the 4.11 kernel. Not much difference in these benchmarks:

 

http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1704098-RI-1702269RI99

 

@balbes150 There was no zram module and it wasn't compiled in either.

[Shimon]

 @mdel I've just iperf'ed my Beelink MXIII and a friend's MXQ PRO+ and the gigabit performance results are as follows:

 

UDP: both achieve about 800Mbit/s in either direction

TCP:  both can RX at 930 Mbit/s, but for some reason MXQ PRO+ can only TX at about 200Mbit/s (after fiddling with the tcp window size, it was closer to 130 in the beginning)

 

Probably needs some tuning? 

 

edit:

2.4G Wi-Fi performance on that MXQ (dhd driver):  38.6 up/44.4 down

 

 

 

[balbes150]

Another may influence the parameters set in the dtb file.

[Shimon]

@balbes150 I'll try investigating. I used two different Linux images and neither box was affected by the changing dtb files (old format mxq_pro_plus.dtb and new gxbb_p200_2G.dtb in their respective images) yielding equally good/bad performance.

 

I remember from an old freaktab thread about MXQ Pro+, Android gigabit performance seemed to suck as well, so maybe there's a hardware issue too?

 

edit:

I got about 700Mbit/s TX'ing to a different device, so I'll leave it there for now.

[balbes150]

Update test images  kernel 4.11.0 (20170412). They have added modules for WiFi networks and many other elements. An important feature of primary configuration is possible only through the SSH connection. Network support is based on modules, so it is important when building your kernel to assure that the name of the directory with the modules , the name of the kernel.

 

https://yadi.sk/d/kZHc0uQE34z5jR

[umiddelb]

Which kernel source tree and kernel configuration are you taking? At this time the Khadas VIM suffers from strange network timeouts (similar to those to be found on the ODROID-C2 with older mainline kernels), no matter what source tree I have taken (khilman, xdarklight, mainline). 

[balbes150]

For initial setup through the console UART (for connectivity with root user), you need to add to the file /etc/securetty  line description of the interface ttyAML0.

 

 

2 hours ago, umiddelb said:

Which kernel source tree and kernel configuration are you taking? At this time the Khadas VIM suffers from strange network timeouts (similar to those to be found on the ODROID-C2 with older mainline kernels), no matter what source tree I have taken (khilman, xdarklight, mainline). 

I use the 4.12 branch/integ (correction TEXT_OFFSET for direct download command booti) and a modified config. What patches are we talking ? Can you provide me ?

[sukanime]

On 4/9/2017 at 8:30 PM, xXx said:

For Mini M8S the wifi drivers was always working for me, even with previous versions.

All i had to do with Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img was simply dd it ( Rufus it indeed  as i was working

with Rikomagic win10 32bit at the time) in my SD card, put it in the slot, and give power.

Everything worked right from the start.

No sources, no compilations, no dtb's, nada.

 

Hi @xXx  today i have the time to try it, but i'am stuck on Google TV Screen.

 sukanime@Asus-X201EV:~/Anime > sudo dd if=Armbian_5.27_S9xxx_Ubuntu_xenial_3.14.29_mate_20170323.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M
[sudo] password for sukanime:
944+0 records in
944+0 records out
3959422976 bytes (4,0 GB) copied, 519,527 s, 7,6 MB/s
sukanime@Asus-X201EV:~/Anime > sync
sukanime@Asus-X201EV:~/Anime > 

After that, i don't do anything, just take out SDCard from Card Reader Then i put to my Mini M8S.
Turn it on, then i'am stuck on Google TV logo , i wait for so long, but still Google TV Logo on my TV Screen.

Then i change s905_autoscript and aml_autoscript from my running Odroid Ubuntu Mate, its just go to blank then go back to Google TV Logo, and its go on until i turn it off.

[umiddelb]

1 hour ago, balbes150 said:

I use the 4.12 branch/integ (correction TEXT_OFFSET for direct download command booti) and a modified config. What patches are we talking ? Can you provide me ?

 

I'm using mainline with some additional patches related to the ODROID-C2, but a common config for both the C2 and the KVIM (make gx_defconfig). 

[xXx]

8 hours ago, sukanime said:

but still Google TV Logo on my TV Screen.

Some times i had to unplug the power, and plug it back again, 2 or 3 times.

Not with the image in question, but anyway, you should try that a few times.

Also some times the waiting time may be a minute or more. Make sure you wait enough.

And a last bit of info about my situation: i have LibreELEC installed in my MiniM8S's eMMC,

and i really don't know if this has any effect on booting this image. balbes150 is the expert

on that field, and maybe he ( and others in this forum i believe ) can tell you more about that.

I have many years of experience in Linux, but i am not "the hardware guy", and especially for

these android boxes, i know even less for the hardware, and the stuff that makes them boot.

[sukanime]

5 hours ago, xXx said:

Some times i had to unplug the power, and plug it back again, 2 or 3 times.

Not with the image in question, but anyway, you should try that a few times.

Also some times the waiting time may be a minute or more. Make sure you wait enough.

And a last bit of info about my situation: i have LibreELEC installed in my MiniM8S's eMMC,

and i really don't know if this has any effect on booting this image. balbes150 is the expert

on that field, and maybe he ( and others in this forum i believe ) can tell you more about that.

I have many years of experience in Linux, but i am not "the hardware guy", and especially for

these android boxes, i know even less for the hardware, and the stuff that makes them boot.

 

Thanks for the reply, i will try to get LibreELEC 8.0.1e and see how this will come.
When i got my Mini M8S for the first time, booting the Mini M8S with LibreELEC on SD Card will make booting Armbian much better.

And i hope @balbes150 will give some advice too.

Update, after i post it, i try to boot it again:
1. I Try to add dtb image from dtb folder in BOOT Partition, i choose gxbb_p200_2G.dtb then rename it to dtb.img and put it in BOOT partition.
it passing the Google TV Logo, but afteraround 5 secons in my samsung tv give me "no signal" message.

 

2. Try it with LibreELEC dtb with the name gxbb_p200_2G_m8s+_k3_pro.dtb and rename it to dtb.img , its just like above.

 

3. The last time i do is try to run Libre ELEC with the SD Card, because i though there something wrong with it.
 So Delete all files in BOOT Partition, and put the renamed gxbb_p200_2G_m8s+_k3_pro.dtb to dtb.img and put all files from LibreELEC Boot Partition.
 So in BOOT Partition now have these files:  aml_autoscript      dtb.img     kernel.img.md5   SYSTEM  aml_autoscript.zip  kernel.img  s905_autoscript  SYSTEM.md5
 Then Boot the SDCard on my Mini M8S , and i succesfully enter LibreELEC, so nothing wrong with the SD Card.

Edited April 13, 2017 by sukanime
try it to run with dtb

[balbes150]

7 hours ago, xXx said:

And a last bit of info about my situation: i have LibreELEC installed in my MiniM8S's eMMC,

This is an important point. Together with the installation LE in the internal memory and writing a new dtb. So when you start Armbian, without a file "dtb.img" on the carrier will use this new version of the dtb from the internal memory.

 

6 hours ago, sukanime said:

will give some advice too.

You need to pick up the correct version of the dtb file. Maybe xXx will clarify which exact version of the LE it is used (in each version, there could be differences in dtb data). Another important point - Armbian works with "personal" versions of the dtb , i.e. if you try to just copy the dtb file (which is a multi-dtb) from the image LE, the system may not start.

[balbes150]

A corrected version of the images 20170413. The only difference is that you can perform the initial configuration via the console UART (fixed authorization root user through the console UART).

[xXx]

@sukanime

This is the dtb.img i was using before installing LibreELEC in my eMMC

Remember: My box is "MiniM8S" and NOT "MiniM8S II"

The specs of my box is:

8GB eMMC

2G RAM

 

dtb.img

[superman]

So do we have now a version that runs on eMMC and has a HDMI output ?

[sukanime]

3 hours ago, xXx said:

@sukanime

This is the dtb.img i was using before installing LibreELEC in my eMMC

Remember: My box is "MiniM8S" and NOT "MiniM8S II"

The specs of my box is:

8GB eMMC

2G RAM

 

dtb.img

Yes, i know about your Android Box is the same as mine, you can see on my signature.
Thanks for the reminder and the dtb,
i will try it again, i hope i can try the Armbian and will like it, if not, i will go to Odroid Ubuntu 16.04.2 (v2.3)
<< right now i use Ubuntu Odroid 16.04 (v1.2) >>