Armbian + EFI\grub + NVMe

[chandlerkc]

5 hours ago, lurk101 said:

Hard to say, I've had so many different configurations on this board in the last 6 weeks. Here's how I did it last time.

 

- The 1st time I started with an unformatted nvme SSD. Then using https://github.com/armbian/build/releases/download/23.02.0-trunk.0186/Armbian_23.02.0-trunk.0186_Rock-5b_jammy_legacy_5.10.110_minimal.img.xz burnt to SD.

- Booted the SD then used arbian-install and selected the 3rd option (i think) to flash the boot loader to SPI flash. It's a slow operation, be patient.

- Then selected option 1, install to mmc, nvme, or something like that.

- Power cycle after removing the SD card.

 

The downside of this configuration is that you can no longer boot from SD, as pointed out previously. This leads to problem with consecutive installs. To workaround the problem I zero out the 1st few blocks of the nvme before shutting down prior to the install.

 

That said, for the time being I've given up on Armbian for the rock-5b and have reverted to to Radxa's Ubuntu server image. I run exclusively headless, except for installs, and that configuration best meets my needs. I've alsways had a trouble free experience with Armbian running on all my previous Rockchip based SBCs so this is a 1st!

 

I was able to boot and run armbian-config only with the lastest Official Armbian Image.

 

The Power Supply, the NVMe and the microSD card I used did not cause ANY issue...

 

I was not able to install and boot armbian to NVMe with that image, I would be so glad if someone could provide me better information of the procedure to make that installation to install Armbian and boot it directly from NVMe.

 

If I get more information I will keep you up to date 😊

[balbes150]

15 часов назад, lurk101 сказал:

Ok,  you have no clue why your image won't boot from SD, so you blame the supply.

 

I explained to you what the problem is and I absolutely don't care what you will use.

 

 

[lurk101]

Quote

I explained to you what the problem is and I absolutely don't care what you will use.

 

Pretend I'm a moron and try again. The question I asked was: With the NVME SSD disconnected, why does my Rock 5b boot a Radxa or standard Armbian image from SD, but fails to boot your image. You responded with: The PD power system is 'crap'. As I understand the problem, most PD power supplies will time out before the power negotiation software which resides in the kernel gets to run. The PD supply I'm using has never had that problem.  I find it hard to believe that your uboot version is so much slower that it causes this timeout on my PD supply.

 

I don't care either what runs on the box, but I do care that the boot device ordering is wrong on all of the bootloaders I've tried so far. Your bootloader would have fixed that.

Edited January 24, 2023 by lurk101

[TRS-80]

56 minutes ago, lurk101 said:

You responded with [...]

 

I think you should read his reply(ies) again (and some others in this thread), perhaps more carefully this time, as I came away with a different interpretation.

[balbes150]

16 часов назад, lurk101 сказал:

Pretend I'm a moron and try again. The question I asked was: With the NVME SSD disconnected, why does my Rock 5b boot a Radxa or standard Armbian image from SD, but fails to boot your image. You responded with: The PD power system is 'crap'. As I understand the problem, most PD power supplies will time out before the power negotiation software which resides in the kernel gets to run. The PD supply I'm using has never had that problem.  I find it hard to believe that your uboot version is so much slower that it causes this timeout on my PD supply.

OK. I'll repeat it again with details. Armbian and Radxa images use essentially the same u-boot (in any case, this was the case at the time when I analyzed them). They are assembled from the same sources, so their behavior is the same. My u-boot is significantly different, it is a different source code and configuration, in which errors have been fixed and the configuration has been changed (UART is enabled, the startup order has been fixed, support for PD has been removed, etc.). Therefore, when using a power supply with PD, my version will not work. By the way, I recommend thinking about why radxa disabled the UART console in its u-boot. For the correct launch of my u-boot, you also need to completely erase the SPI, so that its "pieces" do not interfere with the correct launch of the new u-boot from the SD card. For reference, the primary loader (the first stage) is always launched in the strict order of SPI-eMMC-SD polling.

[lurk101]

Thanks, the critical part I'd missed is 'support for PD has been removed'. Not sure where I got the misinformation, but I thought PD negotiation was done early in the kernel, not the bootloader. Things make a lot more sense now.

[blondu]

Is it possible to install gnome with wailand on Armbian version 23.02.0-trunk_Rock-5b jammy legacy 5.10.110?

[balbes150]

13 часов назад, blondu сказал:

Is it possible to install gnome with wailand on Armbian version 23.02.0-trunk_Rock-5b jammy legacy 5.10.110?

In the coming days I plan to upload  version with Gnome3

[balbes150]

26.01.2023 в 20:38, blondu сказал:

gnome with wailand on Armbian

 

Ver 20230129-legacy -  image gnome3 and kde5

[blondu]

I tried the version Ver 20230129-legacy image gnome 3, it works normally without acceleration.
I tried to install with the procedure from the download page, but it didn't load the gdm anymore...
Thanks!

[balbes150]

1 час назад, blondu сказал:

I tried to install with the procedure from the download page, but it didn't load the gdm anymore...

I am not involved in panfork support.

https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/4476#issuecomment-1330101529

[blondu]

Xfce 5.10.110-station-m4 works best so far.

[blondu]

Greetings.
One question though: why did you call him media? (kernel)

[balbes150]

51 минуту назад, blondu сказал:

One question though: why did you call him media? (kernel)

Because all supported devices from this group strive to have the maximum possible support for media functions.

[balbes150]

Version 20230209 with kernel 5.10.110 with added HW support.

Test results.

 

[function] fragment-complexity=medium:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 4379 FrameTime: 0.228 ms
[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4636 FrameTime: 0.216 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4973 FrameTime: 0.201 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4869 FrameTime: 0.205 ms
=======================================================
                                  glmark2 Score: 3851 
=======================================================
user@rock-5b:~$ PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gofaster glmark2-es2-wayland
arm_release_ver of this libmali is 'g6p0-01eac0', rk_so_ver is '6'.
arm_release_ver of this libmali is 'g6p0-01eac0', rk_so_ver is '6'.
=======================================================
    glmark2 2021.02
=======================================================
    OpenGL Information
    GL_VENDOR:     ARM
    GL_RENDERER:   Mali-LODX
    GL_VERSION:    OpenGL ES 3.2 v1.g6p0-01eac0.ba52c908d926792b8f5fe28f383a2b03
=======================================================
[build] use-vbo=false: FPS: 4336 FrameTime: 0.231 ms
[build] use-vbo=true: FPS: 4783 FrameTime: 0.209 ms
[texture] texture-filter=nearest: FPS: 4729 FrameTime: 0.211 ms
[texture] texture-filter=linear: FPS: 5175 FrameTime: 0.193 ms
[texture] texture-filter=mipmap: FPS: 5091 FrameTime: 0.196 ms
[shading] shading=gouraud: FPS: 4258 FrameTime: 0.235 ms
[shading] shading=blinn-phong-inf: FPS: 4404 FrameTime: 0.227 ms
[shading] shading=phong: FPS: 3972 FrameTime: 0.252 ms
[shading] shading=cel: FPS: 4183 FrameTime: 0.239 ms
[bump] bump-render=high-poly: FPS: 2528 FrameTime: 0.396 ms
[bump] bump-render=normals: FPS: 5949 FrameTime: 0.168 ms
[bump] bump-render=height: FPS: 6005 FrameTime: 0.167 ms
[effect2d] kernel=0,1,0;1,-4,1;0,1,0;: FPS: 4548 FrameTime: 0.220 ms
[effect2d] kernel=1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;: FPS: 3866 FrameTime: 0.259 ms
[pulsar] light=false:quads=5:texture=false: FPS: 5457 FrameTime: 0.183 ms
[desktop] blur-radius=5:effect=blur:passes=1:separable=true:windows=4: FPS: 1829 FrameTime: 0.547 ms
[desktop] effect=shadow:windows=4: FPS: 4512 FrameTime: 0.222 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 528 FrameTime: 1.894 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=subdata: FPS: 495 FrameTime: 2.020 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=true:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 817 FrameTime: 1.224 ms
[ideas] speed=duration: FPS: 2543 FrameTime: 0.393 ms
[jellyfish] <default>: FPS: 3489 FrameTime: 0.287 ms
[terrain] <default>: FPS: 299 FrameTime: 3.344 ms
[shadow] <default>: FPS: 3963 FrameTime: 0.252 ms
[refract] <default>: FPS: 633 FrameTime: 1.580 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 4990 FrameTime: 0.200 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 4897 FrameTime: 0.204 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4423 FrameTime: 0.226 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=low:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 4529 FrameTime: 0.221 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=medium:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 4752 FrameTime: 0.210 ms
[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4532 FrameTime: 0.221 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4175 FrameTime: 0.240 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 4724 FrameTime: 0.212 ms
=======================================================
                                  glmark2 Score: 3800 
=======================================================

 

 

For details of the new features, see this topic.

 

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/22986-firefly-station-m3-rk3588s/?do=findComment&comment=159554

 

[chandlerkc]

On 2/9/2023 at 8:01 AM, balbes150 said:

Version 20230209 with kernel 5.10.110 with added HW support.

Test results.

 

Is it booting directly from NVMe? I would be glad if you could share the installation procedure 😊

 

Thanks in advance!!

[balbes150]

3 часа назад, chandlerkc сказал:

Is it booting directly from NVMe? I would be glad if you could share the installation procedure

Yes. To use Name, start the system from the SD card and perform the installation using arm bin-config (use the SPI + NVMe\SATA installation option). Please note - my version does NOT support PD power supplies

[Jay Maynard]

I wasn't offered SPI + NVMe/SATA; I only got boot from SD or MTD. This is on the 20230209 image, booted from SD with an NVMe installed. (It found the NVMe just fine.)

[chandlerkc]

6 hours ago, Jay Maynard said:

I wasn't offered SPI + NVMe/SATA; I only got boot from SD or MTD. This is on the 20230209 image, booted from SD with an NVMe installed. (It found the NVMe just fine.)

 

You were not able to install it in NVMe? It boots only from SD?

[Jay Maynard]

I could install to NVMe, but it didn't offer to load things into the SPI. I actually did the NVMe install by selecting MTD/NVMe, but aborted the copy to MTD.

[balbes150]

21 час назад, Jay Maynard сказал:

I wasn't offered SPI + NVMe/SATA

MTD = SPI 

these are new abbreviations , they appeared recently in the installation scripts

[Jay Maynard]

Well, that went not much of anywhere...I did the install to MTD+NVMe, and at boot, the machine came on, the blue light came on, and then never started blinking. I've been using a power supply that came with my Pi 400, but I suspect that does PD. Now to find one that doesn't and is beefy enough to run this machine.

But...the machine does boot from SD after doing the installation to MTD+NVMe with that same power supply. Is it really the power supply, or something else?

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jay Maynard

[balbes150]

16 часов назад, Jay Maynard сказал:

But...the machine does boot from SD after doing the installation to MTD+NVMe with that same power supply. Is it really the power supply, or something else?

The reason is in the power supply. When running with NVMe, it starts to be used intensively and consumption increases. When starting from SD - NVMe, it may be in "hibernation" and there is enough power at the very limit. Try to start intensive data exchange with NVMe when starting from SD, most likely it will turn off.

[Jay Maynard]

It turns out it wasn't my power supply. I had partitioned my NVMe into two, one for /boot and one for root, and told it to install to the root partition on /dev/nvme0n1p2 . Had the same issue: hang at boot time with the blue light on continuously (but not looping through a power cycle: the blue LED never turned off, as it would in a boot loop). Then I had a flash of "maybe..." and repartitioned the NVMe as one partition, then installed to it with armbian-config. Success! I get a lot of messages at boot time scrolling through the console that I can't read (I use a 4K monitor, and it's tiny text), but it does run without the SD card in place. Yay!

 

Now to see how fast it runs the application I got it for.

[chandlerkc]

12 hours ago, Jay Maynard said:

then installed to it with armbian-config.

 

which version of Armbian did you use? did you compile or use a built image?

[Jay Maynard]

I used an image downloaded from the Yandex link in the first message, with GNOME and Jammy, the latest version there (23.02).

[Guest]

Its always nice to see others having issues so i know im not alone 

 

I got mine in December, and even with all sorts of supplies/images/spi/etc  I had yet to see it do anything other than let me flash spi. ( even UART was blank ).  It didnt actually boot ( at least no HDMI or Ethernet ), but your image actually gave me something on UART finally .. it was garbage, but something ( yay! ).  

 

And i may have missed it, as this thread is getting pretty long but did you use their default parameters for UART?   ( 1.5m/8/n/1 )

[balbes150]

There is good news. I am currently testing a new loader u-boot. A version with support for direct start from USB media will be uploaded to the website tomorrow. That is,  can have a bootloader in SPI\MTD and only a USB media with the system and fully run the system from USB. Or have a system on NVMe and fully launch another system from USB media, simply by connecting a USB media (disconnected the USB media and the system starts with NVMe). 

[balbes150]

Version 20230217 with support for launching from USB media.

To enable USB startup, after writing the image to the SD card (or after installing it on eMMC), add the dtb.img file to the / of the first SD\eMMC partition (download link).

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/vM36JzR-xyyERw

Burn the image to USB  connect it to the device and turn on the power. The system starts automatically from USB.

For details, see this topic.

 

[balbes150]

New version 20230219 with direct support for launching from USB. You don't need to copy anything manually anymore. When installing a new bootloader in MTD\SPI, you get the opportunity to directly start the system from USB without using any additional devices (no longer requires SD\eMMC\NVMe). At the same time, you get the opportunity to start from USB when using SD\eMMC\NVMe, i.e. if you have these media with your system, when you connect USB to the system, when you turn on the power, the system starts from the beginning with USB. This is convenient for quick startup of other systems, without the need to change something or disable other media (SD\mmc\NVMe). For example, you can install the main Ubuntu system on NVMe and at any time quickly launch another version from USB - Debian, etc.