CSC Armbian for RK3318/RK3328 TV box boards

[Taz]

Two days of uptime on X88 pro using original power supply and the AP6330 wifi crashed again flooding dmesg with "err=-110". https://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2105.3/05569.html goes into some detail about -110. "rmmod cfg80211 brcmfmac && modprobe brcmfmac" caused firmware loading error. So is this limited to X88 pro or all AP6330 I do not know. However since this a hard to reproduce bug there probably isn't much that can be done to actually fix it. I've been using MT7601U usb wifi module that landed on my hands for 5 days without issues. I measured about 600mA current draw on these devices under load so the power supply should be fine I guess. Using MT7601U it takes about 100mA more than with AP6330. I haven't bothered to measure but MT7601U feels about as fast AP6330.

[pakos96]

Hello!,

can you tell me how can I configure the leds (for the main board that has led config 1) so that red red is always on and red blue is only on if there are I/O operations?

Thanks in advance.

Edited June 3, 2023 by pakos96

[jock]

@pakos96 https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Control_LED_Lights, in particular the paragraph "Inspecting Your LED Lights"

 

Note that, depending on the board, red and blue leds can be controlled independently or are mutually exclusive (ie: "on" state turns red led on, "off" state turns blue led on)

[pakos96]

15 minutes ago, jock said:

@pakos96 https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Control_LED_Lights, in particular the paragraph "Inspecting Your LED Lights"

 

Note that, depending on the board, red and blue leds can be controlled independently or are mutually exclusive (ie: "on" state turns red led on, "off" state turns blue led on)

 

Thank you!

Yes, I have this comportamento:

echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/working/brightness -------- BLUE LED

echo 255 > /sys/class/leds/working/brightness ----------- RED LED

 

and I set:

echo "disk-activity" > /sys/class/leds/working/trigger

 

but I didn't have the blue led when there are I/O operations.

I see two led (red and blue when read/write) only in the first steps of armbian startup

 

Board: RK3328_8D4_V1.1

Edited June 4, 2023 by pakos96

[jock]

9 hours ago, pakos96 said:

echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/working/brightness -------- BLUE LED

echo 255 > /sys/class/leds/working/brightness ----------- RED LED

Yes, then the red and blue leds are alternative and cannot be controlled independently. It is very common.

 

For making them blink on "disk" operations, for which I intend sdcard/emmc IO, you have to echo the right mmc device (mmc0, mmc1 or mmc2 - depending on what you want) to trigger.

[Taz]

@olivluca
There is also Orangepi 5. If I were to become trapped in island with only one SOC this is probably the one I would pick since RK3588S cpu on these should be somewhere around 2-4 times faster than RK3318(and everything that is available). Especially 8GB and 16GB models are suitable for a lot of tasks such as browsing, emulation even running multiple applications at once. Supposedly there is a debian image for Orangepi 5 with video and opengles acceleration but do not take my word for it.
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_are_supported_with_Linux_in-kernel_drivers.md suggests mt7612u of the cheap category can do access point mode at 5Ghz.

I think these rk3318 boxes are great for running klipper, web server, pihole, wireguard, home assistant and network share. I used to have home assistant and samba running on openwrt but because it resets settings once you upgrade openwrt I eventually got tired of it all and moved everything out to the RK3318. Also pihole and probably bunch of rpi style services does not work on openwrt. I am not sure I would bother pursuing the matter of usb tethering. If you can get wifi to act as an access point just add another usb wifi adapter to connect to you phone. Either way with charging phone or having another usb wifi you are pushing the power supply to its limits maybe beyond.
 

[olivluca]

@Aapo Tahkola thank you, but the orangepi 5 is way over budget. The appeal of a tvbox is to spend 20€ for something that includes a box and a power supply. For much less than the price of the orange pi 5 I could get an AP with proper openwrt support.

[dicky soeliantoro]

Hi @jock

May I asked for your help?

i Have T9 tv box, opened it up and saw :

TV Remote Control = FD6551
RAM = D9PQL
EMMC = Isocom MEMA032G M0S00
Processor = Rockchip RK3288
Wifi + BT = Realtek RTL8723CS

 

which of your rk3318 images I should get?

I flashed with your Armbian_22.08.0-trunk_Rk3318-box_jammy_edge_5.18.10_xfce_desktop.img

but could not get wifi to be detected.

 

Thanks,

[jock]

1 hour ago, dicky soeliantoro said:

which of your rk3318 images I should get?

None, since you say your box has a rk3288 which is not rk3318 nor rk3328

[dicky soeliantoro]

Hi @jock

so very sorry, i has a typo. 

it's RK3328 for the processor.

the rest are correct.

so sorry.

[jock]

@dicky soeliantoro On first page you can find the "Prebuilt images" links. The "archived" ones are quite recent with kernel 6.1.x are good to go with stable kernel.

There are also the "nightly stables", which have 6.3.x kernel, which is newer and with more features, but also could be less stable.

 

The choice is yours, it depends on what you want to do with the box.

[dicky soeliantoro]

I'll try it @jock

also i read it somewhere here to use rk3328-t9.dtb file from @hexdump

I'm new to linux, and dont know what to do with the dtb file.

is there any guide i can read to deplot the dtb file?

thanks in advance guys.

[jock]

@dicky soeliantoro follow the instructions, you don't need to change dtb files manually. The approach is radically different: there is a basic device tree installed by default which is very compatible among the various boards then, with the help of rk3318-config script, you can choose your board and apply a device tree overlay which further enables features and compatibility settings with specific boards.

 

Exchanging device trees without consciousness is the proper way to cause unwanted troubles.

[callegar]

Hi, would like to know whether there is experience in upgrading to bookworm from bullseye with these RK3318/28 boards.

 

Notably I would like to know about upgrading without a reinstall from scratch.

 

From the general armbian upgrade instructions (https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-upgrade-distribution-like-focal-to-jammy-or-bullseye-to-bookworm) I see that I should:

1. Fire up armbian-config to freeze the firmware packages (if not frozen already, by selecting System and Freeze)
2. Follow the generic upgrade instructions specific to debian

Is this enough? Should I unfreeze the firmware packages afterwords?

 

Others when it was time to upgrade from buster to bullseye suggested a slightly different procedure:

1. apt update & full-upgrade
2. Disable /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list all entries to stop armbian from upgrading
3. Use normal debian upgrade steps -> Change release in /etc/apt/sources.list 
4. apt update & full-upgrade
5. Restart, validate working system
6. Update /etc/apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list with new release
7. apt update & full-upgrade

Is this any safer? They recommend making sure at least some working version of armbian-image-* armbian-dtb-* is installed before rebooting which seems reasonable, but is there any reason this might fail?

 

Thanks!

[jock]

1 hour ago, callegar said:

Is this any safer? They recommend making sure at least some working version of armbian-image-* armbian-dtb-* is installed before rebooting which seems reasonable, but is there any reason this might fail?

I would suggest you to keep the multitool around. Make a backup first of the entire system, but beware the 4G file size limit. You have to double check the validity of the compressed file after you make the backup, because the multitool won't give you errors 😕

You can use it in case something happens and you need to do maintenance.

 

About the upgrade process per-se, I did a couple of times an upgrade from buster to bullseye and a "downgrade" from sid to bookworm.

Despite the "usual" issues when doing upgrades, kernel and bootloaders have been kept at their places.

 

Anyway check that the kernel, uInitrd and dtb files are still there in /boot after the upgrade (they should) and follow the standard debian/armbian upgrade instructions and cross the fingers!

[kirill91]

Good evening,
 I have the x88pro tv box with RK3318 chip
I tried to flash the box with multitool.
used the Armbian_23.8.0-trunk.56_Rk3318-box_bookworm_edge_6.3.8_minimal.img.
after i deleted the old image from the box and put the armbian image on it,
the box starts but the display is completely black and the multitool doesn't start anymore.
how can i fix it all?

[k3n]

Hi,

 

I have an A5X Max+ TV Box that is partially working using Firefly Station-m1 image. The HDMI output in this box is flickering but it is fine as I only access it through SSH. The WIFI and SD card slot is not working. From the past few days of reading, I think the issue is the SDIO that is not correctly defined in the device tree. Hope someone has the same box and can share how to properly define SDIO in the device tree or if the DTB under /boot is working.

Attached is the DTS file extracted from android image and the DTS I use to update the box's DTB.

rk3328-evb-avb-android.dts rk3328-evb-avb-armbian.dts

[jock]

On 6/26/2023 at 6:12 PM, kirill91 said:

Good evening,
 I have the x88pro tv box with RK3318 chip
I tried to flash the box with multitool.
used the Armbian_23.8.0-trunk.56_Rk3318-box_bookworm_edge_6.3.8_minimal.img.
after i deleted the old image from the box and put the armbian image on it,
the box starts but the display is completely black and the multitool doesn't start anymore.
how can i fix it all?

I'm afraid you have to find and use the emmc clock pin to enter in maskrom mode and clean the emmc with rkdeveloptool using a male-to-male cable

[jock]

7 hours ago, k3n said:

I have an A5X Max+ TV Box that is partially working using Firefly Station-m1 image. The HDMI output in this box is flickering but it is fine as I only access it through SSH. The WIFI and SD card slot is not working. From the past few days of reading, I think the issue is the SDIO that is not correctly defined in the device tree. Hope someone has the same box and can share how to properly define SDIO in the device tree or if the DTB under /boot is working.

Attached is the DTS file extracted from android image and the DTS I use to update the box's DTB.

You should use the images from this thread instead of the firefly

[Taz]

I can confirm success with RTL8153 1000Mbps usb 3.0 ethernet adapter like https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003293799477.html . I had to copy firmware file from my main pc. I initially got very poor 2MB/s big file transfer rates but after replacing cable, https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345256/cant-get-rtl8153-gigabit-ethernet-adapter-usb-3-0-working-on-ubuntu-20-04 and forgetting about it for a couple of weeks I tested again. Somehow even though I have different IP addresses for the links, they seem to still get little mixed by the linux kernel and openwrt router so I am going to disable the wifi altogether. I measured around 20 MB/s big file(from TF card) transfer speed over NFS while MT7601U clocks at 3.3 MB/s. AP6330 is some 20% faster than MT7601U. Now we are cooking with fire!

Edited July 4, 2023 by Aapo Tahkola

[k3n]

On 7/5/2023 at 12:47 AM, jock said:

You should use the images from this thread instead of the firefly

Thanks. I will try the images from the attached screenshot and also the ones from here https://imola.armbian.com/archive/rk3318-box/archive/.  By the way, my TV box has RTL8822bs that I believe is already supported by rtw88_88xx drivers.

 

 

Update: None of the image solved the Wifi nut at least the SDMMC is working now. Will continue to explore.

Edited July 6, 2023 by k3n

[Andre B]

Hello, does anyone know the shortpin for this board ? its a fake r98mini

tried to search in on internet but nobody discusing this board

 

emmc is SanDisk SD1N7DU2-16G

 

i'm trying to install archlinux for rock64 following this tutorial, now i cannot boot multitool, and usb doesn't detect the board

 

 

in case the image is not show up, here's the original url 
https://pasteboard.co/tLDW0zAOzWMA.jpg
https://pasteboard.co/0oMYdaPXA6fR.jpg

Edited July 9, 2023 by Andre B

[k3n]

5 hours ago, Andre B said:

Hello, does anyone know the shortpin for this board ? its a fake r98mini

 

 

Did you try this
 

[kirill91]

y

Edited July 9, 2023 by kirill91

[kirill91]

Am 4.7.2023 um 18:46 schrieb jock:

I'm afraid you have to find and use the emmc clock pin to enter in maskrom mode and clean the emmc with rkdeveloptool using a male-to-male cable

i tried the same thing after that, but the problem is that windows doesn't recognize the device as a rockchip device, but as an unknown device. i tried installing drivers several times but that didn't help.

[Andre B]

16 hours ago, k3n said:

Did you try this
 

doesn't seem to work, if i just break the emmc, will it boot from sdcard ?

Edited July 10, 2023 by Andre B

[OvenCrate]

Hello,

I have a RK3328 box called 'MX9 Pro' that I'm trying to make use of. It boots the multi-tool from SD card perfectly, but none of the images I found through your link seem to work at all. Flashed to eMMC with the multi-tool or trying to boot from SD card, I get no screen output at all with any of them. Any idea what could cause this?

[Andre B]

found it !

in case someone has the same board, this is the short pin 

[jock]

18 hours ago, OvenCrate said:

Any idea what could cause this?

Yes, it could be the 660 Mhz ddr that is causing a bit too many troubles around.

 

If have practice with hexadecimal editors, you can open the image find the red bytes in the top half of this screenshot and exchange with the red bytes in the lower half; save and try again.

[OvenCrate]

Wow that's really specific, thanks for the suggestion @jock

I'll try it tomorrow with a hex editor for sure.