CSC Armbian for RK322x TV box boards

[jock]

36 minutes ago, kyon said:

any link for multitool img ? gdrive link is restricted thanks in advance

Thanks for reporting, link should be available for anyone now!

[jock]

On 9/2/2021 at 11:49 PM, Imad Addin said:

I have an EMCP board so is booting by sd is the only way to run? 

 

Nope, it should be possibile to run directly on eMCP but at the moment, since I never had any chance to test any of them, it is still not officially supported.

 

The latest multitool is capable of guessing the existing configuration and patching the image while installing it on the eMCP so it should run even there.

I recently added another menu item that allows to change the DDR Command Rate Timing, which is the problem for the eMCP boards: eMCP DDR part usually wants 2T Command Rate, but existing images are configured for 1T Command Rate.

 

If you install the armbian image with this misconfiguration, the board just bricks and the only chance to bring to board to life is shorting eMCP clock pins to bring the board in maskrom mode.

Since eMCP clock pins are difficult to find because the package of the chip is BGA, installing on eMCP at the moment is discouraged.

 

If you feel confident enough and have some electronic skills and you don't fear to lose the board, you may give a chance:

• First install the armbian image as usual using the multitool
• Use the "Change DDR Command Rate" menu item to switch to 2T command rate
• Shutdown the board, unplug the sdcard, reboot and hope!

 

 

On 9/2/2021 at 11:49 PM, Imad Addin said:

By the way, everything is fine except as usual, wifi is not working . My board is using the esp8089 chip.

 

For this I may need the original device tree. Your board seems a newer one which is probably missing the right configuration for wifi

[jock]

44 minutes ago, kyon said:

thanks the next problem was the after i burn multitool to the card is seems it only use 2gb (of 32gb) the rest was unallocated so therefore i cannot paste the arm img 

appreciate your effort

Yes, the partition is enlarged as soon as you put it in the box.

Anyway you can paste the compressed armbian image on the sdcard as the instructions never tells you to decompress it.

[nafanovich]

hi, i have fresh install Armbian 21.08.2 Buster with Linux 4.4.194-rk322x and i can't run FTDI ft232rl usb-com converter on it. where or what i need fix?

[    4.382101] usb 5-1: Manufacturer: FTDI
[    7.178390] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[    7.178837] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[    7.186473] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[    8.660421] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0

sorry for my english

[jock]

3 hours ago, nafanovich said:

hi, i have fresh install Armbian 21.08.2 Buster with Linux 4.4.194-rk322x and i can't run FTDI ft232rl usb-com converter on it. where or what i need fix?

[    4.382101] usb 5-1: Manufacturer: FTDI
[    7.178390] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[    7.178837] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[    7.186473] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[    8.660421] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0

sorry for my english

Don't know, but google may help you.

[ArkhanLK]

Hello amazing people,

I have a really nice version of the system running as I want it to: Armbian is a productivity suite and I can watch twitch on Kodi. 
I have been trying to play stuff, like emulators, and I am now having issues - which I am sure I wasn't having earlier on.

While on Armbian Mednafen/Mednaffe will run some games well, some will suck. Like, even if GLRUN it will, at best, play 17fps.

So, I thought: silly me, let's try the emulators through Kodi cuz Kodi twitch is smooth 1080p (while on Armbian I'm lucky if I have 360p), so the video stuff might be better in Kodi... And, well, shit.

 

It seems like there was an update on Kodi and it is now way above 18.6 (default Kodi for mediaFramework) and it is just not possible to install things there anymore. It keeps asking for stuff, such as libretro and whatnot, which I can't install unless I upgrade, but I can't upgrade Kodi...

Am I missing something here? Is there an option? Basically: I want to able to run some SNES/GBA games and that's all.

Thanks o/

[nafanovich]

12 часов назад, jock сказал:

Don't know, but google may help you.

yes, google fix this problem

it's old bug ->

simple and easiest way, but not the best:

apt-get purge --auto-remove brltty

 

[ArkhanLK]

Hey, here I am again! 

This time around I'm trying to use "leocad", but I have this weird bug going on where I cannot see the bricks, nor the tile... Has anyone experienced something similar, maybe with another CAD program...? I will be asking this on their forum as well! On the other picture you can see my terminal info about the package and its dependencies!
 

Thanks and best!

[gianlucaf]

Ciao, sto provando ad installare Docker su un Alfawise A8, voglio provare a farci girare Home Assistant. Le varie procedure trovate qui e qui mi portano sempre ad un errore simile nel momento in cui do install.

Sapete se è possbile installarlo e come, accetto ogni tipo di suggerimento, sono abbastanza neofita di linux. Grazie

 

Hi, I'm trying to install Docker on an Alfawise A8, I want to try to run Home Assistant on it. The various procedures found here and here always lead me to a similar error when I do install.

You know if it is possible to install it and how, I accept all kinds of suggestions, I am quite new to linux. Thanks

 

root@rk322x-box:~# sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package docker-ce is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  docker-ce-cli:arm64

E: Package 'docker-ce' has no installation candidate
E: Unable to locate package docker-ce-cli
E: Unable to locate package containerd.io
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'containerd.io'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'containerd.io'

 

[Imad Addin]

On 9/10/2021 at 6:22 PM, jock said:

 

Nope, it should be possibile to run directly on eMCP but at the moment, since I never had any chance to test any of them, it is still not officially supported.

 

The latest multitool is capable of guessing the existing configuration and patching the image while installing it on the eMCP so it should run even there.

I recently added another menu item that allows to change the DDR Command Rate Timing, which is the problem for the eMCP boards: eMCP DDR part usually wants 2T Command Rate, but existing images are configured for 1T Command Rate.

 

If you install the armbian image with this misconfiguration, the board just bricks and the only chance to bring to board to life is shorting eMCP clock pins to bring the board in maskrom mode.

Since eMCP clock pins are difficult to find because the package of the chip is BGA, installing on eMCP at the moment is discouraged.

 

If you feel confident enough and have some electronic skills and you don't fear to lose the board, you may give a chance:

• First install the armbian image as usual using the multitool
• Use the "Change DDR Command Rate" menu item to switch to 2T command rate
• Shutdown the board, unplug the sdcard, reboot and hope!

 

 

 

For this I may need the original device tree. Your board seems a newer one which is probably missing the right configuration for wifi

Hi Jock, I actually just installed on flash normally from armbian-config without changing anything and it works great.

From my understanding you need the device tree from the original android image right? Unfortunately I didn't create any backups beforehand so I guess this is how it is

[jock]

36 minutes ago, Imad Addin said:

Hi Jock, I actually just installed on flash normally from armbian-config without changing anything and it works great.

From my understanding you need the device tree from the original android image right? Unfortunately I didn't create any backups beforehand so I guess this is how it is

You took your chances and it went good Glad to hear!

I wonder which led-conf you choose from rk322x-config (if you choose one). I guess your board gpio configuration is very similar to r329q family (led-conf2)

 

[fabiobassa]

@gianlucaf
Ciao Gianluca, molti italiani qui

That is because in repository of armbian (  could be or could be not ) your deb doesn't exist!!
I am not very fan of docker and I installed home assistant just once.. and it worked.

But since not really interested in HA I deleted the steps to install docker . Sorry. Have a look for some instruction how to install docker on raspberry and choose the ARMHF architecture, NOT the aarc64

Ican only say to you it worked smooth !

[Willy Moto]

On 3/18/2021 at 3:04 AM, jock said:

Just use the multitool to backup your current installation if you want to. We are going to erase everything on the NAND so if you want to keep the content just do a quick backup.

I suggest you to install from scratch, but if you spent time to do some configurations you don't want to lose again, the multitool will make your life easier.

 

What you need:

• from the rockchip/rkbin repository you need the binaries upgrade_tool and rkdeveloptool, place them in /usr/local/bin directory. Important: use the rkdeveloptool provided by rockchip on their repository, don't compile yours. It was a great source of headaches to discover the rkdeveloptool I compiled from sources was misbehaving.
• the new bootloader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.256.bin

The procedure:

• Do the backup using the Multitool
• Do "Erase Flash" using the Multitool
• Unplug the power cord, detach all unnecessary things: no network, no hdmi, no sdcard, no power cord and no USB things; if serial adapter is attached, keep only ground and TX wires (stock bootloader uses 1.5mbps speed)
• Connect the USB male-to-male cable to the computer and then to the USB OTG port of the box
• The box should turn on automatically, you should see a device with ID 2207:320b running lsusb command
• Erase the flash, but in a more deep way to remove the existing bootloader: invoke the command rkdeveloptool ef and wait a few seconds
• Now we have to put the the board in maskrom mode: unplug the USB cable, wait a few seconds and replug the USB cable. If you don't see anything on serial adapter and the device is listed in lsusb, you are in maskrom mode! As an alternative to unplug/replug, you can also run rkdeveloptool rd 3, but it is preferred to do a power cycle.
• If you have a serial adapter attached, set the baudrate to 115200 to see the box output. The new bootloader is configured with a lower baudrate to be more compatible.
• We are ready to upgrade the bootloader. Invoke upgrade_tool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.256.bin
• Wait for a minute, the command may return after a few seconds but the box may do its own business in the background that you may see from the serial if you have one.
• Unplug the USB cable
• Done!

 

If everything went well, the serial output should tell you that the DDR3 are initialized at 660 Mhz during the very first bootstrap phase.

You can now restore the backup using the multitool (or do a new installation)

 

Note: I also attached to this post a couple of known working bootloaders in case the one I suggested above does not work and you need to restore back the functionality of your board.

Those bootloaders (RK322XMiniLoaderAll...) are not initializing the DDR3 to 660 Mhz, so indeed they won't raise the benchmark numbers, but may at least still solve the reboot issue.

Use them if the one above does not work.

 

 

RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.51_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_180703.bin 176.33 kB · 37 downloads RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.47_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_171127.bin 140.33 kB · 41 downloads

 

@jock

Thank you very much for your detail instructions.

 

I recently came across a fake S905X "Home Theater TV box".    Turns out it has RK3229 inside.

I followed your instruction to try & upgrade the NAND bootloader, but rkdeveloptool & upgrade_tool only gave out the error "Creating Comm Object failed".

 

Even tried the troubleshooting tip from this guide:  https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock/flash_the_image#Troubleshooting_2

But the error didn't budge.

 

===============

 

In the end,  I resorted to use the Windows-based Rockchip toolchains to erase & upgrade the NAND firmware.     

They can be found on Github:    https://github.com/rockchip-linux/tools/tree/master/windows

 

On Windows 10 PC:

1.  Unpack & install Rockchip Drivers from  *DriverAssitant_v5.xx.zip*

2.  Unpack "RKDevTool_Release_v2.84.zip"

 

Then just use the RKDevTool GUI to erase & upgrade the NAND bootloader.

One thing good about the RKDevTool is that, it can change the device to mask mode by simply issuing a command in the GUI, if the device is soft-bricked or something.

 

 

PS:  The unbranded  "Home Theater TV box"  could only use the bootloader "RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.51_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_180703.bin",   as flashing bootloader "rk322x_loader_v1.10.256.bin"  rendered it able to to boot MultiTool, but unable to boot  Armbian LegacyKernel  when installed to the NAND storage.

[jock]

1 hour ago, Willy Moto said:

but unable to boot  Armbian LegacyKernel  when installed to the NAND storage.

You have to use the multitool stepnand install method for that, otherwise won't work.

[Willy Moto]

Yes, I did use the stepnand method.  But still the box would not boot after a few minutes with bootloader "rk322x_loader_v1.10.256"

 

I flashed bootloader "RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.51_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_180703" and then installed Armbian with stepnand method again.  This time it was able to boot Armbian.

 

Seems like my unbranded TV box has DDR2.

[jock]

12 hours ago, Willy Moto said:

Yes, I did use the stepnand method.  But still the box would not boot after a few minutes with bootloader "rk322x_loader_v1.10.256"

 

I flashed bootloader "RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.51_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_180703" and then installed Armbian with stepnand method again.  This time it was able to boot Armbian.

 

Seems like my unbranded TV box has DDR2.

It says ddr2, but actually works fine with ddr3 too.

BTW, I need to update the rk322x_loader to be more compatible. For example, ddr3 frequency is set to 660 Mhz, but it may cause malfunction on some boards: it is unnecessary nowadays because newer armbian releases (even on mainline kernel!) have the dram memory controller driver to allow run-time and on-demand frequency scaling.

About the "spectek" bootloader: we noticed that some rare boards only like that old bootloader, using the newer rk322x_loader results in lockups and unstability.

[fabiobassa]

@jock

Rare?? 

 

It becames to be the normality this odd behaviour of the loader so is good idea sit on the most compatible and left out the newer boards that need the famous 2t initialisation

 

@Willy Moto

The 2.51 is somehow I call the definitive ERASER 

 

We discovered that old 2.47 +but ALWAYS spectec in name ) is one of the most compatible loader ever.

Stay tuned because exactly in these days jock and me actively discovering more odds behaviour on some boards ( x96 mini e.g.) and trying to solve them. Are you sure your board IS NOT a emcp board instead of emmc or nand ?

 

 

 

[Willy Moto]

@jock  Thanks for the clarification.   Looking forward to a newer, more compatible bootloader build that would allow ondemand DRAM frequency.  

 

@fabiobassa  Thanks for the insight shared. 

I am not sure on the EMCP question, because the MultiTool told me the TV box is using NAND memory, so I basically trusted what it told me.   

Do I have to open the TV box to see the hardware inside?   

 

 

Thank you guys for both of your efforts to support Armbian running on this little TV box.  I am sure a lot of people would benefit from this. 

 

[fabiobassa]

@Willy Moto
Indeed some photos of the internal box and some close pictures of the ddr and storage chip name/identifier are highly appreciated

Thanks

[jock]

5 hours ago, Willy Moto said:

Looking forward to a newer, more compatible bootloader build that would allow ondemand DRAM frequency. 

All bootloaders allows that, just because the bootloader is not involved in.

The kernel driver does the thing: it wasn't there before, hence for performance reason booting at high DRAM frequency was good. Now it the driver is there, so there is no necessity to boot at high DRAM frequency because the driver can do the thing during run-time.

 

You board however has NAND 100%, see clarification on first page.

[Willy Moto]

1 hour ago, jock said:

You board however has NAND 100%, see clarification on first page.

 

I see.  I figured as much, it's working fine now after installed via stepnand method.

[Slider]

 

Nice day!

I am try to run Multitool img on my RK3229 TV BOX. It has emmc flash chip on board.

I got multitool.img from first post and burn to 16G sdcard.

In uart log I see next lines (no video or any reaction from box):

Can someone help me to boot in Armbian?

___________

U-Boot 2020.10-armbian+ (Mar 12 2021 - 13:38:05 +0000)

Model: Generic Rockchip rk322x TV Box board
DRAM:  2 GiB
MMC:   dwmmc@30000000: 1, dwmmc@30020000: 0
Loading Environment from EXT4...
** Unable to use mmc 0:auto for loading the env **
In:    serial@11030000
Out:   serial@11030000
Err:   serial@11030000
Model: Generic Rockchip rk322x TV Box board
Net:   eth0: ethernet@30200000
starting USB...
Bus usb@30040000: USB DWC2
Bus usb@30080000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@300c0000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@30100000: USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus usb@30040000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@30080000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@300c0000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@30100000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
Card did not respond to voltage select!

Device 0: unknown device
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0(part 0) is current device
** No partition table - mmc 0 **
ethernet@30200000 Waiting for PHY auto negotiation to complete......... TIMEOUT !
Could not initialize PHY ethernet@30200000
missing environment variable: pxeuuid
missing environment variable: bootfile
Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/01-16-45-53-76-2a-af
ethernet@30200000 Waiting for PHY auto negotiation to complete......... TIMEOUT !
Could not initialize PHY ethernet@30200000
missing environment variable: bootfile
Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/00000000

[jock]

What kind of board you have? We are facing an issue like that right now; for some reason u-boot does not detect the sdcard.

 

BTW, the workaround is to burn the multitool on an USB stick, plug both the USB stick and the sdcard in box and then boot. multitool will happily boot from USB, from there you can burn an image into eMMC, if it is your desire.

[fabiobassa]

@Slider

very corious to know what board you have since in these exactly days we are " fightening" against this kind of problem
Please photos and close photos of chips are highly appreciated, thank you

[Slider]

Sorry for my late reply, but looks forum not allow me to post more once per day.
And Yes, you are right! I also found this step, and now latest armbian on this box :).
I burn multitool to both sdcard and USB Stick, so it can boot. Booting from USB stick, but then works with sdcard (resize partition and search img files in images dir)
About pictures, it is below:
ROM - 16G eMMC Samsung KLMAG2WEMB-B031
RAM - 4x4Gb DDR3 Samsung K4B4G0446B-HYK0
WiFi - SV6051P
 

[fabiobassa]

@Slider

yes unfortunately new users can just ost once per day
Thank you so much for photos and yes, at the actual state of the art one workaround is booting with both sd card and usb. then it goes smoothly

[ArkhanLK]

Hi! One of my boxes is no longer booting on android or armbian, and I'm unsure on how to proceed. If I force it to boot with the reset pressed, trying to open multitool, I get the following screen. Does it seem like it is "recoverable" or is it some hardware failure...?

 

[Willy Moto]

On 9/24/2021 at 4:13 PM, fabiobassa said:

@Willy Moto
Indeed some photos of the internal box and some close pictures of the ddr and storage chip name/identifier are highly appreciated

Thanks

@fabiobassa:

Here are some photos of my TV box for your inspection.  Though @jock already said it's a NAND memory model.

 

Do you think it's a good idea if I replace the CPU heatsink with a larger one to increase the cooling effect? 

 

[jock]

@ArkhanLK It's hard to say if it is an hardware failute or not. Surely if reinstalling the original android does not work, most probably there is an hardware fault.

Multitool also should always boot without issues, if it fails to boot with similar error messages, maybe your board is faulty.

 

Did you try the cpu-stability overlay in /boot/armbianEnv.txt?

[jock]

11 hours ago, Willy Moto said:

Do you think it's a good idea if I replace the CPU heatsink with a larger one to increase the cooling effect? 

Surely will increase the cooling effect, but you should evaluate if you have overheating issues first.