Building Armbian for a New Board (Radxa CM3)

[theBotanist]

Hello everyone,

 

I am trying to build a custom image of Armbian for the Radxa CM3, but I'm a little confused with how to proceed.  I thought if I cloned the repo I could modify a similar board configuration file (such as rock-3a.conf) by renaming a copy as radxa-cm3.conf and changing BOOT_FDT_FILE to use my own device tree, but this is where I got lost.  I'm not sure where to put the device tree in the cloned repo so that it gets used during the build process.  I'm also not sure if I would need to change BOOTCONFIG as well, and if so where to find the file to modify.  Any and all advice to point me in the right direction is appreciated!

 

Thanks!

Luke

[Werner]

Device tree adjustments are applied via patches over the given kernel/uboot sources. Easiest would probably be to use CREATE_PATCHES switch.

This way the build framework will patch everything up to the point where it is ready to compile stuff but will pause to give you a chance to modify the sources to your needs. Then it will scan those and create fresh patch files with the adjustments you made. These patches then can be applied to further builds.

Take a look over here:https://zuckerbude.org/armbian-using-create-patches/

[schwar3kat]

Using Armbian build:
If creating a patch for u-boot, the dts will go in build/cache/sources/u-boot/v2022.07/arch/arm/dts/
Or similar depending on uboot version.

If creating a patch for kernel, the dts will go in build/cache/sources/linux-mainline/6.0/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/
Or similar depending on kernel version and architecture.

Don't forget to modify the Makefile's

[Qwerty Plm]

@theBotanist I want Armbian image on cm3 io. Do you build it?!

[Qwerty Plm]

Hello there, I am very new on building OS, any way I have Radxa CM3-io

How to build uboot and kernel of this board.
In this post, changes directories and I cant find them
And can you guide me how to find dts files of this board?🙏
 

[Igor]

5 hours ago, Qwerty Plm said:

Hello there, I am very new on building OS

Great. Spent some time to build OS for supported hardware to get familiar with the build framework.
 

5 hours ago, Qwerty Plm said:

How to build uboot and kernel of this board.

 

If board is not supported by Armbian, it can be complicated ... This HW is similar to Rock 3, but different enough that not all things will just work, perhaps it won't even boot ... and your are "very new" which means learning many new things but there will be problems beyond possibility to fix. 

 

5 hours ago, Qwerty Plm said:

And can you guide me how to find dts files of this board?

There are no special guides: Google search? Forum search? Linux kernel mailing lists, Linux kernel sources ...
 

If you look for something that is maintained, supported and you can rely to? I can recommend you to switch to similar hardware from our platinum section https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported which has this property. If you have know-how, then you already have all you need: HW schematics can be found on Radxa Wiki somewhere and something is already in the kernel https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3568-radxa-cm3i.dtsi?h=v6.5-rc5

 

My 2c

(will merge this with existing topic as this is forum and not a dedicated technical support)

[Qwerty Plm]

Thanks @Igor, I port Ubuntu and debian for this board, but my goal is install qt with opengl on this board, but not supported because of mentioned it on radxa forum.

But afew hours ago for first time I created Armbian for rock3a for learning this and it is too much easy (for supported boards 😅)

Now, in general, can you tell me if it supports this board at all and if there is a way to install it or not

 

If not, do you familiar with yocto, does it support it?!

My main goal is install qt with opengl!!

Or do you have any suggestions🙏🙏

[Igor]

37 minutes ago, Qwerty Plm said:

but my goal is install qt with opengl

Sorry, don't know nothing about the state of openGL / QT.

 

37 minutes ago, Qwerty Plm said:

and it is too much easy

Making it easy and hiding complexity its the hardest part.
 

38 minutes ago, Qwerty Plm said:

can you tell me if it supports this board at all and if there is a way to install it or not

 

Researching further is something you will do on your own, pay for or not know. I am afraid there might not be many shortcuts.

 

40 minutes ago, Qwerty Plm said:

If not, do you familiar with yocto, does it support it?!

Yes, I am familiar with Yocto. Been using it for years ... Yocto is a build system like Armbian and certainly does not support this hardware:
https://github.com/armbian/build#compared-with-industry-standards They don't support any hardware, this is a your problem - they support build framework.

 

44 minutes ago, Qwerty Plm said:

do you have any suggestions

Yes I do. Hire experts that will help you getting where you want.