Devterm a06 and kernel 6.x no video

[Greg_E]

I have a Dev term a06 and have been having problems with the newer releases based on kernel 6.x. After booting one of these, the display does not have backlight or any text/image displayed.  On the last 5.x it boots and works fine. I have not yet tried the HDMI output on the 6.x versions, need to get an adapter, but I'm guessing that the built in display is not discovered. The Dev term does not normally have a serial port, I'd need to solder up an adapter, or I would have looked at it to see if anything was happening.

 

Any suggestions for a very basic Linux user to try? Especially something I can maybe edit after flashing (before first boot). I should be able to get a Linux image up on WSL if needed to read/write the card. I had Kali on WSL, but it broke during an update, but shouldn't be too hard to stand up a new VM.

Edited July 12 by Greg_E
autocorrect is stupid

[Greg_E]

Just realized that autocorrect got me in the title, grrrr!

 

Devterm 

[Igor]

19 hours ago, Greg_E said:

Any suggestions for a very basic Linux user to try?

If non basic Linux user which you are addressing here would know what needs to be fixed, fix is usually sent to the build system and we would all have an image that boots fine. Until then, you can only join in exploring or use some older image that works.

 

AFAIK currently nobody knows what is the problem or problem is being discussed, solution being tested. If you have a custom device and keep on with recent kernel, this is most common thing that happens. Things starts to fall apart and until time, will and interest comes together, its usually fixed. And sometimes, if there are not enough people, which eventually happens, support stops / functioning on upgrades becomes random.

[Greg_E]

Well, I would suggest no longer building any OS for this device, there doesn't seem to be enough interest to run this OS, so might as well not spend the time on building updates. I think I'm just going to ditch mine since the hardware designers have very little desire to see it stay operational.

 

I tried with an hdmi, and still nothing. The system also doesn't try to expand the filesystem to fill the free space. And since the hardware designers didn't bother to include a serial port, can't see what is happening. I'm guessing something with GRUB, but that's a guess at this point. It is definitely something different between kernel v5 and v6, every one of the v5 flavors boot right up as expected.

[Igor]

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

Well, I would suggest no longer building any OS for this device, there doesn't seem to be enough interest to run this OS, so might as well not spend the time on building updates.

Generating images, once device is in the system, does not burn our expensive time. It costs a lot less then answering this support question. Updates are generated for all devices (of one family) at once. Adding and removing is expensive and perhaps someone fixed this problem? Then we need to put it back. Those are already maintaining activities, which we don't have resources for ... keeping devices in auto-build costs us close to nothing (until compilation succeeded) and this is the same way all others distros do, while they are marking those random auto-build as "supported by Linux X" ... We at least tell you "we don't know if it works", as checking is expensive. Or even impossible as nobody from the team has this device. It was added by someone like you, user, that wanted to keep this device in the Armbian system, which system provides a lot of common fixes and generally helps maintaining those devices. 

 

Our interest is that Armbian runs well on as many devices as possible, but the costs of that is super extreme - as you know, we can't sell you our work, you don't want to pay our bills .... Once we bring support on some device, we have copycats that does absolutely nothing but also "supports" this device. It is really difficult as costs dealing with those devices is close to impossible to cover. If you want that device function perfectly and when there is close to nobody helping, one needs to spent serious time / money to support HW dealers business, copycats and you. Its not sustainable. The same applies to other devices that were thrown to the market ... We are maintaining this system, some devices, while the rest are on you - community.

Providing images, keeping this device in the system that is getting common updates all the time, is already great added value. Bugs are shared among similar devices, which means when this bug will be fixed for Pinebook PRO, this device will also have working images ...

 

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

hardware designers have very little desire

 

Its pure economy. They can't afford that. Device is here - and if you want to keep it operational, its your problem. Well, our common problem. We add our share and we can't add more. We don't have this device, we don't have anyone maintaining it. Not anymore. Now, a lot of those devices will still work even nobody maintain them.

 

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

The system also doesn't try to expand the filesystem to fill the free space.

 

This indicates it stops before loading user space, probably kernel is crashing.

 

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

And since the hardware designers didn't bother to include a serial port

Sometimes you need to solder those pins. HW designers aim is to make a device that they can sell well ... Does this device matches that? Yes, its a nice toy.

 

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

I'm guessing something with GRUB

There is no GRUB on those devices, but yes, problems with boot loader are possible.

 

3 hours ago, Greg_E said:

It is definitely something different between kernel v5 and v6

Every major kernel bump renders some devices into not usable state. That is why we have so much work that nobody notice and very little help. If we could allocate needed resources, all of those "Community (not) supported" will be working. This is certainly not in HW designers interests (as they want to sell you new device), while end users can't understand that buying hardware is just a fists step and means nothing. You need to add a lot more to have this device functional. This is not RPi, who has masses of people that will maintain it for free.