ecolezen Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 [Photo of LED] http://www13.plala.or.jp/pskitty/img/pa64sysled/DSC_0045-photo-led.jpg [LED holes illustration] http://www13.plala.or.jp/pskitty/img/pa64sysled/pine64-drawing-v2-p6.jpg Hi, this is my first post here, after few first hours with Armbian on a 1G Pine64 board... I did a small initialization script to turn "ON" the System LED (upopulated "LED" label on the board), so that it helps to user to know that the boot process is running... I like to ask the dev team to think about including something like it to the Pine64 Armbian images, since the Pine64 board itself does not provide such indicator, the user is left in the "darknesss", when everything is connected but there is no output to the HDMI (it was my case in the first boot tentative with the new board)... I am not sure what is the original plan that the core board designer have for the "System LED" ( "LED" ), but if we can at least have it on the OS side, it does, in my point of view, provide the user with one little element to help the "user experience"... I did a little page documenting the script here: http://www13.plala.or.jp/pskitty/pine64-sysled.html Thanks all, Valter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkaiser Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 Unfortunately that's useless since this led is not populated by default. Please search for the word 'nightmare' here: If they would've rethought the board design and added a second custom led to a new PCB revision then it would be just a simple node in device tree to get desired behaviour (led lighting up when booting). But since that's not the case (even shitty Micro USB is still there!) all you can do is to attach an Ethernet cable, start the board and wait ~20 seconds for led activity on the Ethernet jack. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 I added this led to the DT as a standard GPIO LED with "heartbeat" trigger by default. Still better than nothing. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted May 25, 2017 Author Share Posted May 25, 2017 On 5/24/2017 at 7:43 AM, tkaiser said: Unfortunately that's useless since this led is not populated by default. Please search for the word 'nightmare' here: If they would've rethought the board design and added a second custom led to a new PCB revision then it would be just a simple node in device tree to get desired behaviour (led lighting up when booting). But since that's not the case (even shitty Micro USB is still there!) all you can do is to attach an Ethernet cable, start the board and wait ~20 seconds for led activity on the Ethernet jack. Hi tkaiser, btw, thanks, you is the one that help me then (on the chat) on my first boot experience, to which I describe as *dark moments* because I had no idea about what was going on then... Here is the thinking (not doing it yet): I want this "sys led on" signal for more than one reason, the first to signal booting and other kind of activity, unfortunatelly you right, since the LED is not physically present and new users may have difficulty to put one there (besides being easy)... The second reason, and this is what I am thinking now, is to put a small MCU (a PIC 10F or 12F) to monitor this "sys led" state and, if the signal "ON" does not come out after 30 seconds, the MCU will issue a hardware-reset directly to the reset line, and keep repeating the procedure until it receive the "sys led ON" signal... Looks crazy, but since I want to use (also) this board as headless, having a mechanism to overcome the "power instability", even if it is a "dirty" solution, I will like to have one... Besides... the fact that the power instability issue does NOT obey any kind of pattern... the MCU boot assistent idea still persist in my mind... I will try it later... Valter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted May 25, 2017 Author Share Posted May 25, 2017 On 5/24/2017 at 9:42 AM, zador.blood.stained said: I added this led to the DT as a standard GPIO LED with "heartbeat" trigger by default. Still better than nothing. My first boot experience with Pin64 board was not very happy because I was thinking something as easy as 1-2-3... but it was not so cool... First, I want to ask on their forum what it the easiest and simple OS image I can try, but to my surprise, after registering on their forum, I was surprise to discover that only 3 DAYS after registration I can ask questions!!! Then I decide for Debian Base and nothing... change AC adapter, and nothing, change monitor, and nothing, change SDCard and nothing... just black screen... also change image to Ubuntu... and nothing... It was at this point that tkaiser (chat room) suggested the Armbiam, which I did, and THEN: IT WORKS! Not easy to explain the logical connections of these actions, but it is the true description of my first boot experience... !?!? Sometimes, very very little things can, together, compose to an issue that may become "significant" in some way... BUT, I found this $15 GNU/Linux / Android box a very interesting proposition, and being a 64bit CPU I am trying to find a peaceful relationship with it, and if such is possible, this is a COOL raw material to have (my board is the $19 1GB Model)... Hopefully, we can find a "way"... Valter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pfeerick Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Yeah, sorry about the three day wait... we have had issues with human spammers (either that or bot spammers that are good at reading the latest google recaptchas) joining up and posting garbage on the forums. I asked for a first three moderated post queue, but instead we got a 8hr + 3d cooldown window. Not new user friendly, but it is working. I'm just concerned that it will also cut down on the number of new users who will join the forum, but my concerns fell on deaf ears. You'll usually find somebody on the IRC chat though who can help, and the Armbian crew are very helpful also as you've found! What do you consider a 'simple' image? A console one or a GUI (graphical interface) one? The Armbian builds are probably the best supported due to the automated build process keeping everything consistent, and you get console and GUI options OOTB (out of the box). ayufan has some builds for the pine64 now also (although I haven't tried them yet) which could be quite interesting also going forward, although it's console only to start with. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted May 25, 2017 Author Share Posted May 25, 2017 18 hours ago, pfeerick said: Yeah, sorry about the three day wait... we have had issues with human spammers (either that or bot spammers that are good at reading the latest google recaptchas) joining up and posting garbage on the forums. I asked for a first three moderated post queue, but instead we got a 8hr + 3d cooldown window. Not new user friendly, but it is working. I'm just concerned that it will also cut down on the number of new users who will join the forum, but my concerns fell on deaf ears. You'll usually find somebody on the IRC chat though who can help, and the Armbian crew are very helpful also as you've found! Hi, thanks for the input, I fully understand and support some measures to certification that the message is a true message, for that, I believe there is a need to do something to provide a more safe environment where people can come, specially the less-technical people... To be honest, I think I was very fortunate that tkaiser gave me valuable information, not only the suggestion to use Armbian, which ended up booting up the board successfully... Thanks for clarifying the matter, Valter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted May 25, 2017 Author Share Posted May 25, 2017 18 hours ago, pfeerick said: What do you consider a 'simple' image? A console one or a GUI (graphical interface) one? The Armbian builds are probably the best supported due to the automated build process keeping everything consistent, and you get console and GUI options OOTB (out of the box). ayufan has some builds for the pine64 now also (although I haven't tried them yet) which could be quite interesting also going forward, although it's console only to start with. After receiving the board, I was sure I was going to try possible ALL OS images, but at the very first moment, my thinking was, *What is the Helloworld* OS image here... I want to start from the smallest and easiest possible start, and that was my very first question... That is the reason I went to Debian CLI Base Image... For example, if someone ask me the question today, I will answer: go with Armbian. I even tested Armbiam with an old 2GB Class4 SDCard, and EVEN install XFCE4 there, and STILL leave about 300MB free! apt-get inst xorg apt-get clean apt-get inst xfce apt-get clean apt-get lightdm apt-get clean and, still about 300MB free!!! I was UNABLE to do the same 2GB SDCard test with Debian Base, for some reson it fails (did about 2 or 3 times)... Of course, I am not asking to develop and create an OS image specific for "helloworld", but it is the idea around which I was asking for... something like: This is the most basic stuff that we can recommend now... Anyway, the question is more about "What is More Succesfull (to boot)" and less about the OS image itself... So, this is, more or less, what I was then, trying to ask, hope you can understand the general idea exposed, Valter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pfeerick Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Yup, that makes perfect sense... the SBC equivalent of a blinking LED in Arduino / micro-controller, or the infamous 'hello world' program! I would have suggested you go with the Ubuntu Xenial images that longsleep maintains instead of the debian ones... they start off stupidly small, and should also have 'just worked'... there have been more than a few issues with the Debian images. They're not immune to the odd gremlin, but Simon does try to work out the underlying problems if he can reproduce the symptoms. 2GB Class4 SDCard? l see you're asking for a world of pain and slowness! But a good point still! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted May 29, 2017 Author Share Posted May 29, 2017 On 5/25/2017 at 2:31 AM, pfeerick said: I would have suggested you go with the Ubuntu Xenial images that longsleep maintains instead of the debian ones... they start off stupidly small, and should also have 'just worked'... there have been more than a few issues with the Debian images. They're not immune to the odd gremlin, but Simon does try to work out the underlying problems if he can reproduce the symptoms. Hi, sorry for the delay... I did something wrong on forum setup because I am NOT receiving notifications... As for my incarnation of the Duend Grenlins, he decide in this order: a- Debian base fail for 2 SDCards, 2 Power adapters and 2 different monitors... b- Xenial also fails somewhat for the same combinations... c- Armbian boot OK in the very first attempt... !!! But lets be correct and fair, because I am going to use ALL images, and ALL effort that is being done I consider valid and important, so that, in the end, it can agglutinate to a large body of knowledge and strong platforms with choices for us to use for any kind of application... After all, variety and choices is one of the great things that ARM SBCs is creating... Valter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecolezen Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 There is another (related) update to this topic, on a new topic/thread below... Pine64 Boot Co-Processor: Valter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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