Cannot get Rock Pi S images to boot, please help.

[boi]

I am working with a Rock Pi S v1.3 and thus far the only image I have been able to get to boot is Armbian 21.05.9 Focal with Linux 4.4.247-rockpis. I have tried the recent Arabian Bookworm, Armbian Jammy and a few other variations I have come across on various forum posts here.

 

With the above working image I can communicate with it via UART and get to the terminal. With everything else I don't even get the blinking blue LED; just two solid green LEDs. I have a few of these boards and have confirmed this issue across all of them.

 

I am not sure what next steps to take so any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you very much in advance. 

[Igor]

On 6/6/2023 at 12:13 AM, boi said:

I am working with a Rock Pi S v1.3

v1.3 needs some special treatment, mainline based kernel needs special treatment - UART on legacy (4.4.y kernel) is on different pins then on modern kernel. Did you read and follow instructions on the download pages https://www.armbian.com/rockpi-s/ ?

 

[boi]

15 hours ago, Igor said:

v1.3 needs some special treatment, mainline based kernel needs special treatment - UART on legacy (4.4.y kernel) is on different pins then on modern kernel. Did you read and follow instructions on the download pages https://www.armbian.com/rockpi-s/ ?

 

Thank you very much for your feedback!

 

Please, what is the special treatment required for a mainline based kernel? Is there any existing documentation on this anywhere that  I can refer to? My objective is kernel development, so getting mainline kernel working, along with the necessary debug tools and kernel headers is a strong requirement. 

 

I did follow the instructions on the download page up until the last section on modifying the overlay, and as I could not get the kernel to boot, I was unable to make the change. Is there a method of making the changes to the image directly before attempting to boot?

 

Again, thank you very much in advance for all your help!

[Igor]

36 minutes ago, boi said:

Is there any existing documentation on this anywhere that

 

I don't know. I suspected you didn't notice that hint with overlays that is valid for revision 1.3

 

36 minutes ago, boi said:

Is there a method of making the changes to the image directly before attempting to boot?

Mount SD card on some Linux computer, edit files in /boot/ and try.

 

I don't know if this will work or not, don't have this revision. Mine works.

[JHthe4]

Hi there,

 

I have a Rockpi S Rev. 1.2 512 MB with WiFi. I can confirm failure to boot on the most recent Armbian 23.5.2 Bookworm CLI 6.1.32. The SBC stays dead, with only the green power LED shining, and no output via the serial console. 

 

Weirdly, I'm seeing the same behavior also on Bookworm CLI 6.1.30 and Armbian 23.02.1 Bullseye CLI 6.1.14. I know that my hardware setup is good, since the official Radxa Debian Buster image from 20210924 boots without a problem on the same SD card, and outputs everything to UART0 as expected. 

 

What do you figure could be the cause for this? Might it be a bootloader issue with the WiFI chip or something like that?

 

Thanks!

[boi]

6 hours ago, Igor said:

I don't know. I suspected you didn't notice that hint with overlays that is valid for revision 1.3

Got it!

 

6 hours ago, Igor said:

Mount SD card on some Linux computer, edit files in /boot/ and try.

 

I don't know if this will work or not, don't have this revision. Mine works.

Thank you very much for the tip! I will try this.

[boi]

On 6/7/2023 at 1:36 PM, JHthe4 said:

What do you figure could be the cause for this? Might it be a bootloader issue with the WiFI chip or something like that?

I am not sure, hopefully we find out 🙂

[boi]

On 6/7/2023 at 12:47 PM, Igor said:

I don't know. I suspected you didn't notice that hint with overlays that is valid for revision 1.3

So I mounted the image and modified /boot/armbianEnv.txt by adding "overlays=bs bs@1.3ghz" as per the instructions. However, the modified image still does not boot.

 

Do you have any recommendations for further investigating this issue?

 

Thank you very much again in advance!