CSC Armbian for RK322x TV box boards

[Tiago Nogueira]

How to enable hardware acceleration for mpv, kodi or even chrome?

[fabiobassa]

@Tiago Nogueira

You asked an info, but let me make a question to you:

did you read the whole thread ???

Or just you came in with this question " never made before" ? 😅

Edited March 3 by fabiobassa

[svdmk]

14 hours ago, jock said:

I can reinstate the opensource optee as Trust OS, which seems to be more compatible, but we lose DDR clock scaling - that increases a lot the general performances - and virtual poweroff from the closed source rockchip Trust OS. Which one to choose?

I see that OPTEE is still in developing.

Is it possible to implement option to choose which bootloader to use during the compilation of the armbian image?

[jock]

16 hours ago, RaptorSDS said:

When a script is possible than uENV.txt should be the best point , also in thinging of rk322x-config where a question for user can be implement 

 

my thought was more that we support Multitool with 2 small xz files extractet  and from 24.xx image and 21.01.01 image ( maybe later get update in newer  multitool version) , and when he has problem he can use a new item point where the bootloader get write like the script above

It looks to me way too complex from the maintenance point of view: users may create unwanted mixtures installing things from the multitool over already installed systems (for example 24.02 bootloader on an older armbian release); and also when armbian advances I have to keep the multitool binaries updated as well. It is already very tiring keeping the thing aligned against mainline kernel on every release I don't want to add another burden.

 

One thing that solves all the boot problems is to reintroduce the OPTEE trust os: it surely does not unwanted things in the background, but then we lose some useful features.

Otherwise I would keep the "manual" procedure for the time being for the problematic boards, until I get the hands on one of them and can study the issue with detail, or some bright idea pops out.

 

 

[jock]

6 hours ago, svdmk said:

Is it possible to implement option to choose which bootloader to use during the compilation of the armbian image?

Nope, because this is a very specific problem of tvboxes; regular single board computer users and maintainers don't have to mess with such unknown variables.

That is the main reason why tv boxes, along the funny and always changing hardware they carry, are not and will never be officially supported by armbian, but just by community members.

[jaum20]

Recently I started to get system freezes when torrenting. I use the ubuntu server version and it worked fine for years, but now the system freezes when I download torrents greater whan 1 GB. I have tried qbittorent and rtorrent with the same result. I know that is the torrent because the system runs for hours untill I add a torrent and afeter a few minutes it became inacessible by ssh. I use a mounted external sd card as download folder, but the system itself is intalled in the internal memory. Can this be as hardware issue?

[baryon]

37 minutes ago, jaum20 said:

now the system freezes when I download torrents greater whan 1 GB

The problems you're facing are consistent with failing storage. Whether that's the SD or the onboard MMC remains to be seen.

 

Of course, it might not be, either, but this would be where I start the diagnostic: try swap that SD.

[svdmk]

On 3/3/2024 at 4:04 PM, jock said:

That is the main reason why tv boxes, along the funny and always changing hardware they carry, are not and will never be officially supported by armbian, but just by community members.

You are so right.

 

What a surprise when I removed the heatsink!

 Probably that's why this board has trouble during booting process.

Edited March 16 by svdmk

[KanexMarcus]

I have successfully booted the  Armbian_community_24.5.0-trunk.93_Rk322x-box_bookworm_current_6.6.18_minimal.img on my new MXQ PRO 4k rk3229, first I use the MultiTool to flash the armbian to internal storage (if it doesn't find the internal storage reboot the device in the menu), then download the LibreELEC-RK322X.arm-11.0-nightly-20240218-d7324fb-rk322x.img and flashed to an sd card, I booted on this sdcard and use the SSH to copy the rk322x-box.dtb to the internal storage, then it boots just fine, here is the .dtb file I use rk322x-box.dtb

[Sigma7]

@KanexMarcus Could you share the links to the Armbian and LibreElec images?

[KanexMarcus]

@Sigma7 Here are the Libreelec and Armbian that I have used, you don't actually need to download the libreelec if you have access to a linux machine, because you can just download the .dtb file above and put them into the armbian image flashed to the sd card (replace the file /boot/dtb-6.6.18-current-rockchip/rk322x-box.dtb with the rk322x-box.dtb from the libreelec image), I think it should work on other armbian images (I suggest you to try the latest stable Armbian build) note that I use the images without desktop environment because I mainly use for servers, if you want grab a xfce desktop image and should work as well.

Let me know if it worked for you.

[jock]

@KanexMarcus hello, why did you substitute the armbian device tree with the libreelec one? It is wrong and prevents the armbian device tree overlays to work correctly if you do so.

[KanexMarcus]

@jock with the original armbian dtb the tvbox didn't boot

[jock]

@KanexMarcus probably your board is a r29 and you need to enable the led-conf7 device tree overlay in /boot/armbianEnv.txt. Unfortunately it is a manual procedure that has to be done manually from the multitool.

[KanexMarcus]

@jock thanks, It worked, I just added the line "overlays=led-conf7" to /boot/armbianEnv.txt

Edited March 24 by KanexMarcus

[moddien]

Hi everyone.

 

I have a that box here (rk3229 2/16GB) and tried to install Armbian, but the Multitool crashes after a few seconds.

 

The blue LED stops flashinng and turns on and HDMI signal drops (screen goes to power saving).

 

I started backing up my emmc but after 2% or so it happens, the exact time seems a bit random, between 10 seconds and 1 minute maybe. It also happens when I just let it stay on the initial screen.

Tried different power adapters and SD cards, one was a brand new Sandisk 32GB. The Android it came with runs flawlessly for more than one hour now. Only HDMI and a generic keyboard are connected.

 

Any ideas what I could try? Thank you

[RaptorSDS]

vor 15 Minuten schrieb moddien:

have a that box here (rk3229 2/16GB)

please also show picture of boeard maybe board print name , some R29 boards have diffirent pin setting so ist maybe one of this creepy and non standart boards

 

 

 

[moddien]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

edit: would a serial cable help? i could borrow one from a friend. also added screenshot from the device info android app

Edited March 26 by moddien

[jock]

@moddien Hello! Yes, a serial adapter would indeed provide some debug info that can be useful. I don't remember such "r3229q-221p" board, so perhaps it is a new board.

Be sure to use the latest multitool first. User @svdmk had a similar problem, you can check the latest two pages of this thread for some reference.

 

At the moment the solution is a bit of a hack and involves switching bootloaders, which is not the easier thing to do.

[svdmk]

23 hours ago, jock said:

User @svdmk had a similar problem

Two same boards but different cpu.

Rockchip labeled works fine with armbian, multitool and libreelec.

The board with huawei labeled cpu has the previously described problem, multitool and armbian stop working after a minute.

Method of switching bootloaders suggested by @jock  works.

[MattWestB]

Looks like the CE (China Export NOT the EU CE) have "re branding"  one RK to some HUW chop that was likely in one phone copy running one RK chip and (or more likely tablet).

[송호상]

2020. 1. 9. 오전 5시 31분, jock이 말했습니다:

•  

 

위의 절차는 간단하고 편안하지만 항상 장치가 SD 카드에서 Armbian 이미지를 시동하는 것을 먼저 테스트하는 것이 좋습니다 .

하드웨어가 매우 다양하기 때문에 여기에 제안된 이미지가 작아질 가능성은 거의 없습니다.

This is the MXQ PRO 4K 5G TV BOX with RK322A CPU, 1GB RAM, and 8GB eMMC. I booted MULTITOOL onto the SD card and burned the latest jammy image and Legacy 4.4 image for RK322X. After REBOOT on MULTITOOL, I got a nice ARMBIAN screen and everything was fine. But when I restart it after shutdown, the screen goes blank. It is still possible to boot with MULTITOOL on SD, and from here you can enter ARMBIAN through the REBOOT menu, but booting with only eMMC fails as the monitor screen goes into sleep mode. What's the problem?

[jock]

13 minutes ago, 송호상 said:

This is the MXQ PRO 4K 5G TV BOX with RK322A CPU, 1GB RAM, and 8GB eMMC. I booted MULTITOOL onto the SD card and burned the latest jammy image and Legacy 4.4 image for RK322X. After REBOOT on MULTITOOL, I got a nice ARMBIAN screen and everything was fine. But when I restart it after shutdown, the screen goes blank. It is still possible to boot with MULTITOOL on SD, and from here you can enter ARMBIAN through the REBOOT menu, but booting with only eMMC fails as the monitor screen goes into sleep mode. What's the problem?

Hello, there can be dozen of problems with those symptoms: the kernel does not boot, the image you used is bad, the board is unsupported and does not boot, HDMI does not work on your board, the eMMC is empty, etc... etc...

You should try a newer image with a mainline kernel (4.4 is unsupported and unmaintained anymore) and possibly provide UART serial logs to debug the problem.

 

[moddien]

Thank you all for your replies. I was a bit busy in the last days and it took me some time to figure out how to dump the flash to my windows pc (i didnt want to mess with it before I had a backup) - I used this rkdumper 1.09test with driver 4.5, other versions gave me errors.

 

RK3229Q-221P-V1.3 original android (Google Drive)

 

Tbh I didnt read the whole thread, i stopped after about 15 pages from the beginning before I posted. Indeed @svdmk 's board looks identical to mine. I will look into the bootloader switch next and report back. also I ordered a ttl adapter which should arrive within a week.

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

[jock]

@moddien thanks for the firmware, I will try to inspect as soon as possible.

Usually the first page of the thread and the last 3/4 pages are enough to get up to date with recent developments.

Many useful experiences are scattered through the  thread, but usually the most important things are collected in the first page.

 

[송호상]

Thank you for answer. I've only tested the Legacy 4.4 image briefly, and baked the latest image for rk322x. If I boot with the SD card (MULTITOOL), press the REBOOT menu, and remove the SD card, then I can boot with the latest image burned into eMMC and use all functions. I'm just curious as to why I have to go through procedures like "SD boot" and "Remove SD after REBOOT" to boot. I still don't know how to check LOG through UART.

Edited March 30 by 송호상

[jock]

8 minutes ago, 송호상 said:

Thank you for answer. I've only tested the Legacy 4.4 image briefly, and baked the latest image for rk322x. If I boot with the SD card (MULTITOOL), press the REBOOT menu, and remove the SD card, then I can boot with the latest image burned into eMMC and use all functions. I'm just curious as to why I have to go through procedures like "SD boot" and "Remove SD after REBOOT" to boot. I still don't know how to check LOG through UART.

You're welcome. Normally, after burning the image on eMMC, you should do SHUTDOWN in multitool, remove power, unplug the sdcard and restore power.

 

[02l4nds56]

So where can I find the multitool? https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/multitool/multitool.img.xz gives me a 404 error. In fact the whole https://users.armbian.com/jock folder appears to be empty. Do I need to register an account in order to view/download?

[송호상]

Unfortunately despite your suggestions it still failed. I'll study some more and come back when I'm free. Thank you for your kindness.

Edited March 30 by 송호상

[jock]

1 hour ago, 02l4nds56 said:

So where can I find the multitool? https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/multitool/multitool.img.xz gives me a 404 error. In fact the whole https://users.armbian.com/jock folder appears to be empty. Do I need to register an account in order to view/download?

Mmmh, apparently all the users directories have been emptied 🤔 Perhaps @Igor can help us about?