Armbian for OrangePi PC2, AllWinner H5

[zador.blood.stained]

I wonder how many times the wheel can be reinvented... 

root@orangepiplus2e:~# fdtget /boot/dtb/sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb /cpus/cpu@0 operating-points
1008000 1300000 816000 1100000 624000 1100000 480000 1100000 312000 1100000 240000 1100000 120000 1100000
root@orangepiplus2e:~# fdtput /boot/dtb/sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb /cpus/cpu@0 operating-points 1008000 1300000 816000 1300000 624000 1100000 480000 1100000 312000 1100000 240000 1100000 120000 1100000
root@orangepiplus2e:~# fdtget /boot/dtb/sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb /cpus/cpu@0 operating-points
1008000 1300000 816000 1300000 624000 1100000 480000 1100000 312000 1100000 240000 1100000 120000 1100000
root@orangepiplus2e:~#

 

[hojnikb]

guess you're right, but its still a good learning experience

Lesson learned; you can almost always do stuff with a single liner

 

Thank you for this, i was not aware of the ftd* command

[Phillip Close]

I went through the build kernel  doc I enabled the multimedia bit and built the img but it still don't add dvb support 

 

[Phillip Close]

Sorry I'm a complete novice at this and trying to learn but it's above me . Please could someone put a build up for the pc2 . On a Google drive for me to install so I can get the t230 dvb to work 

With lots of thanks phill

[hojnikb]

So i played undervolting a little bit (focusing on the 1.3Ghz freq. point) and the lowest i got was 1.27V. Any lower than that, StabilityTester spits out different results, which obviously means instability. So i'm a bit skeptical of the results @Bruno George de Moraes posted. 

[Hipolito]

I am trying to get the I2C bus on my PC2. I wired a PCF8591 @ PA11 PA12 ran "I2Cdetect -y 0" and all I can see is the power regulator at 0x65 ... I remember something about the I2C bus being disabled somewhere. Any clue about it? If its disabled, how to properly enable it?

Thank you

[martinayotte]

/dev/i2c-0 is loaded by kernel early for the power regulator.

This means that the PA11/PA12 is located as /dev/i2c-1, and you need either tweaking the main DT or use an overlay to enable it.

 

[Hipolito]

Well, I just opened the /boot/dtb-4.10.0-sun50iw2/allwinner/sun50i-h5-orangepi-pc2.dtb database:
Under soc/pinctrl/i2c0 you have pins = "PA11", "PA12" thus my question: "How (exactly) to enable it properly on main DT ?"...I still have to do some research to use overlays, any tips?

 

Thanks again!

[Hipolito]

[UPDATE] According to the same sun50i-h5-orangepi-pc2.dtb DT, the i2c I am seeing should be the connected to PL0 and PL1. This is according to schematics too since the power regulator(0x65) is phisically connected like that.
Now the question remains: "How to properly enable it?"

[zador.blood.stained]

17 minutes ago, Hipolito said:

According to the same sun50i-h5-orangepi-pc2.dtb DT, the i2c I am seeing should be the connected to PL0 and PL1. This is according to schematics too since the power regulator(0x65) is phisically connected like that.

Please check the schematics again. On PL0 and PL1 is the R_I2C bus and it is wired only to the regulator. On the pin headers 2 other (of 4 total) busses are exposed: I2C0 (PA11, PA12) and I2C1 (PA18, PA19).

To enable them currently you need to either write a DT overlay (allows enabling it temporarily) or edit the DT file and change status in i2c@01c2ac00 or i2c@01c2b000 nodes.

[Bruno George de Moraes]

Well, i know my results cannot be generalized without further samples (boards) and more testing for different workloads; 

 

 /sys/kernel/debug/OPP/xxxxxxxxx/supply/  allows for a target, min and max voltages;   Maybe an adaptive mechanism could be enabled if certain instructions are used or other situation ? 

Also, PSCI boot msg now reports that idle_states, need a "arm,psci-suspend-param = <0x0010000>;" to activate,  but this default value from arm/psci.txt  doesnt boot.  The correct thing would be dump it from the firmware PSCI memory map, but for now i trying some other examples.

  Anyway cpu_standby (WFI, WFE) is different from cpu_suspend that need DT hierarchy, idle-states and so on.

 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27188807/arm-sleep-mode-entry-and-exit-differences-wfe-wfi

https://www.linaro.org/blog/core-dump/dont-waste-power-when-idle/

[Hipolito]

Sorry if I was unclear, that is exactly what I meant to say when I said the "I2C I am seeing" it was indeed the r-I2C.

I said like that because the output of the I2C detect command output.

I am about to change the status value of the i2c@01c2ac00 to "okay" to see what happens. My concern is to mess-up the regulator control.

 

[Hipolito]

So, to all of the I2C explorers out there:
- With the pristine Armbian DTB :

• i2cdetect -l returned only one i2c bus which was the r_I2C thus mapped on I2C-0.

- If you edit the dtb on /boot/dtb-4.10.0-sun50iw2/allwinner/sun50i-h5-orangepi-pc2.dtb and change the "status" value to "okay" under the i2c@01c2ac00 you will have two I2C buses :

• I2C-0 which is mapped to the GPIO PA11 and PA12;
• I2C-1 which is the r_I2C;

Hope this may help those in need!

[OLO]

1. Fast?  Well, faster than PC. 

 

2. Hot?  CPU is much hotter than PC.   maybe this is why the seller recommended 3A  power supply. and heatsink highly recommended

 

3.  SD card:  Running Android image from official website slowly, perhaps  emmc is better than SD card for desktop image/application.

 

4.  Remote control: can use universal TV box control

 

5.  As server?  perhaps $10 orange one is enough for general use.

 

Just noticed: no image from armbian, any schedule to release image?

 

[Igor]

6 hours ago, OLO said:

Just noticed: no image from armbian, any schedule to release image?

 

https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-pc2/ -> Nightly releases. Working pretty decent, check this video: 

 

[hojnikb]

In my experience (at least for desktop use) PC2 isn't all that much faster than PC (legacy armbian image). Web browsing in particular seem to be only marginally better on PC2.

 

i guess thats down to A53 being less efficient (more throttling) and software not being as good as h3 (h5 doesn't have any kind of gpu acceleration).

[ImmortanJoe]

The PC2 has its good points. The mainline kernel is improving constantly. There are still some really weird bugs with xorg, terminal display, and something with memory management, but beyond that it's a solid performer. It seems to have less issues with USB device stability than PC mainline kernel, and although I haven't empirically checked it seems to have lower power consumption than the PC. I say this because The PC or peripherals can get upset, however when I have the exact same peripherals and PSU plugged into the PC2 it's fine.

 

I use my PC2 with Armbian mainline as an aarch64 build server for various projects. Something which my RPi3 was meant to be for when I bought it shortly after release, yet aarch64 is only just starting to appear...

Sometimes I use the PC2 as a desktop but the memory use is problematic. It works well serving X apps remotely via ssh though.

 

The official Ubuntu legacy image for PC2 is a train wreck and should be avoided. A DIY distribution of Debian based off the source is a headache. I spent ages editing the scripts to make something that would build. A couple of days later the hard drive crashed. I only just re downloaded the source for the most recent fork. So now I have to start again.

Edited April 2, 2017 by ImmortanJoe
PC was meant to be PC2 in first paragraph.

[hojnikb]

8 hours ago, ImmortanJoe said:

The PC2 has its good points. The mainline kernel is improving constantly. There are still some really weird bugs with xorg, terminal display, and something with memory management, but beyond that it's a solid performer. It seems to have less issues with USB device stability than PC mainline kernel, and although I haven't empirically checked it seems to have lower power consumption than the PC. I say this because The PC or peripherals can get upset, however when I have the exact same peripherals and PSU plugged into the PC2 it's fine.

 

I use my PC2 with Armbian mainline as an aarch64 build server for various projects. Something which my RPi3 was meant to be for when I bought it shortly after release, yet aarch64 is only just starting to appear...

Sometimes I use the PC2 as a desktop but the memory use is problematic. It works well serving X apps remotely via ssh though.

 

The official Ubuntu legacy image for PC2 is a train wreck and should be avoided. A DIY distribution of Debian based off the source is a headache. I spent ages editing the scripts to make something that would build. A couple of days later the hard drive crashed. I only just re downloaded the source for the most recent fork. So now I have to start again.

 

 

PC2 is actually more power hungry than PC.

[dekip]

As a few guys above...

I downloaded nightly desktop 4.10.0, unzipped it with 7zip, tried to flash it with Etcher, but get error. Tried to copy error massage, but can not be copied. If there is log file, please tell me,i will post it here.

After that attempt with Etcher, i tried it with Win32diskimager and made Armbian image. But on boot i can't log in with root and 1234.

 

Win 10, card is samsung evo+ class 10, with card adapter i get with the sd card. Opi PC2.

 

Any help would be nice.

[tkaiser]

41 minutes ago, dekip said:

tried to flash it with Etcher, but get error.

That's because burning process went wrong (either caused by a bad SD card, bad card reader or if it's USB attached bad cabling)

41 minutes ago, dekip said:

i tried it with Win32diskimager and made Armbian image. But on boot i can't log in with root and 1234

That's because burning process went wrong (either caused by a bad SD card, bad card reader or if it's USB attached bad cabling).

 

If Etcher already told you something's wrong with your setup you should try to fix the problem instead of fooling yourself (Win32diskimager happily writing garbage to SD cards without telling you).

[hojnikb]

1 hour ago, dekip said:

As a few guys above...

I downloaded nightly desktop 4.10.0, unzipped it with 7zip, tried to flash it with Etcher, but get error. Tried to copy error massage, but can not be copied. If there is log file, please tell me,i will post it here.

After that attempt with Etcher, i tried it with Win32diskimager and made Armbian image. But on boot i can't log in with root and 1234.

 

Win 10, card is samsung evo+ class 10, with card adapter i get with the sd card. Opi PC2.

 

Any help would be nice.

 

erase the card using sdformatter (evo+ supports, but you need to specially enable this feature), redownload the image and flash again with etcher.

[dekip]

@tkaiser

Talk much, says little...

 

@hojnikb

Did at your suggestion. Get the same. It could be the card, but it's brand new. Laptop has card reader and it is not old one. With Etcher the same. With that "fooling" software i started Debian and Ubuntu. So i guess it's ok. PSU obviously makes me problem with Android. I have 2A and 2.5A, but it restarts. Maybe PSU is guilty for Armbian failure.

[hojnikb]

26 minutes ago, dekip said:

@tkaiser

Talk much, says little...

 

@hojnikb

Did at your suggestion. Get the same. It could be the card, but it's brand new. Laptop has card reader and it is not old one. With Etcher the same. With that "fooling" software i started Debian and Ubuntu. So i guess it's ok. PSU obviously makes me problem with Android. I have 2A and 2.5A, but it restarts. Maybe PSU is guilty for Armbian failure.

 

try a different card and/or card reader. Obviously there is an issue, when burning the image.

If PSU is causing issues, the board would reset. Its less likely that it would cause you not being able to login.

[znoxx]

Just tried very last image for PC2 - no issue with cpu scaling, discussed before, boots in seconds even on ugly SD card, and what I noticed - ssh login for initial change of password is much more faster, then in previous builds.

 

Still an issue with reboot instead of shutdown, but "shutdown -H now" even without bringing down eth0 in shutdown sequence now shows 280ma consumption, which is quite acceptable and does not lead to overheating (heatsink is still required, I guess).

 

Great!

[dekip]

@hojnikb

You think that problem must be in sd card/adapter/reader something while burning image? There is no way to overrun that login issue while burning image with other program, other then Etcher?

[OLO]

Quote

https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-pc2/ -> Nightly releases. Working pretty decent, check this video

 

thanks, seems I missed it. 

Edited April 2, 2017 by zador.blood.stained
Removed the video preview

[ImmortanJoe]

14 hours ago, hojnikb said:

 

PC2 is actually more power hungry than PC.

That's interesting. It seems more stable at least so I'm not complaining.

 

I know I said it before but the Armbian mainline kernel is advancing so well. Congratulations to the people working on it. It's a great achievement. The improvements are really showing.

I wish I could help but I can't because of reasons involving what I want to do with the OPi PC.

 

The OPi PC2 works well as a headless build server. However it really needs swap space. I've found when doing big builds using GCC it tends to blow it's RAM budget by 100 - 150MB. I don't know what it swaps out but it doesn't seem to be used, because it stays in swap after the build has finished.

[hojnikb]

10 hours ago, ImmortanJoe said:

That's interesting. It seems more stable at least so I'm not complaining.

 

I know I said it before but the Armbian mainline kernel is advancing so well. Congratulations to the people working on it. It's a great achievement. The improvements are really showing.

I wish I could help but I can't because of reasons involving what I want to do with the OPi PC.

 

The OPi PC2 works well as a headless build server. However it really needs swap space. I've found when doing big builds using GCC it tends to blow it's RAM budget by 100 - 150MB. I don't know what it swaps out but it doesn't seem to be used, because it stays in swap after the build has finished.

Thats because it's running 64bit image. Pretty much everything is more ram hungry. Sometimes you need to resort to installing armhf packages, just to keep the ram usage down.

[Nadeus]

On 1. 4. 2017 at 8:09 AM, Igor said:

 

https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-pc2/ -> Nightly releases. Working pretty decent, check this video: 

Spoiler

 

 

Hey, thanks for sharing it

 

Didn't thought people will actually watch it, so when I'm back of my vacations I'll make another videos about the board (got a tripod and I'll try to make something without talking understandable by anyone)

 

Have a good day,

 

Nadeus

[Igor]

3 minutes ago, Nadeus said:

Didn't thought people will actually watch it, so when I'm back of my vacations I'll make another videos about the board (got a tripod and I'll try to make something without talking understandable by anyone)

I do search and watch them deliberately. They are valuable source of feedback, they provide different perspective, gives 3rd party opportunity to learn something .... and make me feel good.