How to install armbian in h618?

[Ducdanh Nguyen]

On 11/27/2023 at 2:53 AM, Victorhtf said:

Did anyone made any progress? I also bought a TVBox transpeed with H618 and I would like to install armbian to make my own server based in Linux.

Anyone tried with H616 image? By the way, is it possible to backup original ROM before I run some tests? Cause if it not works I would like to keep my TV Box working on.

 

you can install and boot from the sd card, also h616 uses nand flash, which can't write on it (or maybe it uses emmc)

[Nick A]

@dale there’s a new patch to fix boards without external 32k clock. I haven’t tested it yet. 
 

https://github.com/warpme/minimyth2/commit/728a14a73924e349fe88fb4def7e5f50a79aed5c

Edited August 14 by Nick A

[dale]

On 6/26/2025 at 7:21 PM, c0rnelius said:

You apply the patch to the kernel source-tree, In this case we will use meson64 as an example.

 

Add the patch to: patch/kernel/archive/meson64-6.12/

Enable in the defconfig: echo "CONFIG_OPENVFD=m" >> config/kernel/linux-meson64-current.config

Build a new  IMG or KERNEL as one normally would for your unit.

Hi I got error when applying the patch you shared.

Can I know how to fix it?

Edited Monday at 02:04 AM by dale

[buzz89]

I just got an H618 board. It is able to boot using the Vontar image, but the onboard Ethernet is not working. USB Ethernet works fine. The Ethernet chip is RTL8211F, I’m hoping to get some guidance on this issue.

Here’s the relevant dmesg output related to Ethernet:

dmesg  | grep eth
[    0.000000] psci: probing for conduit method from DT.
[    2.422638] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ eth_wake_irq not found
[    2.422669] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ eth_lpi not found
[    2.422678] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ sfty not found
[    2.422989] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: supply phy-io not found, using dummy regulator
[    2.423245] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: PTP uses main clock
[    2.423316] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Current syscon value is not the default 53fe1 (expect 0)
[    2.426176] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: No HW DMA feature register supported
[    2.426204] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: RX Checksum Offload Engine supported
[    2.426211] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: COE Type 2
[    2.426220] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: TX Checksum insertion supported
[    2.426226] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Normal descriptors
[    2.426232] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Chain mode enabled
[    2.469198] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: renamed from eth0
[    3.060680] asix 2-1:1.0 eth0: register 'asix' at usb-5200000.usb-1, ASIX AX88772B USB 2.0 Ethernet, 00:0e:c6:c5:f5:e5
[    3.068667] asix 2-1:1.0 enx000ec6c5f5e5: renamed from eth0
[   11.377369] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: Register MEM_TYPE_PAGE_POOL RxQ-0
[   11.388786] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: PHY [stmmac-0:00] driver [Generic PHY] (irq=POLL)
[   11.388838] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: No Safety Features support found
[   11.388849] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: No MAC Management Counters available
[   11.388859] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: PTP not supported by HW
[   11.393925] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet end0: configuring for phy/rmii link mode

 

 

[Nick A]

@buzz89

 

[buzz89]

I have build a new image, but no luck, the ethernet is still not working.

Here is what I changed.

 

diff --git a/patch/u-boot/u-boot-h616/160-add-vontar-h618-defconfig.patch b/patch/u-boot/u-boot-h616/160-add-vontar-h618-defconfig.patch
index 747ddca7b..6a88acfcf 100644
--- a/patch/u-boot/u-boot-h616/160-add-vontar-h618-defconfig.patch
+++ b/patch/u-boot/u-boot-h616/160-add-vontar-h618-defconfig.patch
@@ -73,9 +73,9 @@ diff --speed-large-files --no-dereference --minimal -Naur u-boot-2024.01-rc3/dts
 +};
 +
 +&mdio1 {
-+      rmii_phy: ethernet-phy@16 {
++      rmii_phy: ethernet-phy@0 {
 +              compatible = "ethernet-phy-ieee802.3-c22";
-+              reg = <16>;
++              reg = <0>;
 +      };
 +};
 +

 

dmesg:

 

root@vontar-h618:~# dmesg | grep ether
[    2.850576] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ eth_wake_irq not found
[    2.850587] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ eth_lpi not found
[    2.850597] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: IRQ sfty not found
[    2.850841] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: supply phy-io not found, using dummy regulator
[    2.851059] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: PTP uses main clock
[    2.851089] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Current syscon value is not the default 53fe1 (expect 0)
[    2.851770] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: No HW DMA feature register supported
[    2.851780] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: RX Checksum Offload Engine supported
[    2.851787] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: COE Type 2
[    2.851794] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: TX Checksum insertion supported
[    2.851801] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Normal descriptors
[    2.851807] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Chain mode enabled
[    2.979923] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: EMAC reset timeout
[    2.979966] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet eth0: stmmac_dvr_remove: removing driver
[    3.004135] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: probe with driver dwmac-sun8i failed with error -110

 

 

ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
3: enx000ec6c5f5e5: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0e:c6:c5:f5:e5 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

[Nick A]

RTL8211F Is an external gigabit chip. Maybe this post will help. 

 

[buzz89]

unable to build.

 

dts/upstream/src/arm64/allwinner/sun50i-h616-vontar-h618.dtb: ERROR (phandle_references): /soc/ethernet@5020000: Reference to non-existent node or label "reg_dcdce"

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ diff --speed-large-files --no-dereference --minimal -Naur u-boot-2024.01-rc3/dts
 +              mmc0 = &mmc0;
 +              mmc1 = &mmc1;
 +              mmc2 = &mmc2;
-+              ethernet0 = &emac1;
++              ethernet0 = &emac0;
 +              serial0 = &uart0;
 +      };
 +
@@ -61,21 +61,21 @@ diff --speed-large-files --no-dereference --minimal -Naur u-boot-2024.01-rc3/dts
 +      status = "okay";
 +};
 +
-+&emac1 {
++&emac0 {
 +      pinctrl-names = "default";
-+      pinctrl-0 = <&rmii_pins>;
++      pinctrl-0 = <&ext_rgmii_pins>;
 +      phy-mode = "rmii";
-+      phy-handle = <&rmii_phy>;
-+      phy-supply = <&reg_aldo1>;
++      phy-handle = <&ext_rgmii_pins>;
++      phy-supply = <&reg_dcdce>;
 +      allwinner,rx-delay-ps = <3100>;
 +      allwinner,tx-delay-ps = <700>;
 +      status = "okay";
 +};
 +
 +&mdio1 {
-+      rmii_phy: ethernet-phy@16 {
++      rmii_phy: ethernet-phy@0 {
 +              compatible = "ethernet-phy-ieee802.3-c22";
-+              reg = <16>;
++              reg = <0>;
 +      };
 +};
 +

 

[Nick A]

@buzz89In oranges zero2 dts it has a 3.3v regulator defined as reg_dcdce. There’s only 5v defined in the vontar dts. You can add this to your dts

reg_dcdce: dcdce {

regulator-always-on;

regulator-min-microvolt = <3300000>;

regulator-max-microvolt = <3300000>;

regulator-name = "vcc-eth-mmc";

};

 

https://linux.googlesource.com/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf/+/refs/tags/v6.9-rc2/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner/sun50i-h616-orangepi-zero2.dts

 

you can borrow code off these boards as well

https://linux-sunxi.org/index.php?search=RTL8211F&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go

 

if you can extract your android dts for more clues.

Edited 14 hours ago by Nick A

[buzz89]

Sorry, I don't have the Android dts, the Android image is erased. 

I have tried the image from niulinkcloud,  The ethernet is working on this image, can we extract dts from this image?