Curietruck has only console through HDMI

[Tilator]

Hello,

 

I have't used my old Cubietruck for years but would like to use it again in a project.

 

I downloaded the new Armbian version:

 

Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.124_Cubietruck_noble_current_6.6.62_xfce_desktop.img

 

and installed it. There is console display just fine through HDMI, but not graphical display.

 

There seems to be some trouble before as in this discussion:

 

 

I downloaded this image:

 

https://github.com/IGNNE/cubietruck-armbian-unofficial/releases/

 

and it seems to work. But when it updates itself, the graphics is gone again.

 

So - is there some old driver mess back again or what? Is there any cure available for this diseace?

[Igor]

20 minutes ago, Tilator said:

Is there any cure available for this diseace?

 

Cure? There is common misconception that once hardware reaches mainline, that all job is done, while in reality this is where endless problems starts ... and this frustration kills most of attempts to keep this maintained. Doctors, that most scarce resources, not just around Armbian but in general, went to cure other platforms long time ago. We keep Allwinner kernel maintained, but we can't maintain all boards within. Already this is done only by 1-2 people, that don't even have this old hardware at their hands.

 

I have idea to establish a team for retro SBC section, as interest exists, but someone would need to volunteer to assemble and lead such team. (Armbian team is too small for such operations). That would be a viable long term solution to keep older boards in operation.

 

2c

 

Workarounds - try some of old images and freeze kernel upgrade before upgrading. If the problem is in the kernel - could also be related to something else.

https://rsync.armbian.com/oldarchive/cubietruck/archive/

[Tilator]

Thanks. I know it's a way too old device. I don't expect it to be maintained regularly, but since it still hangs around as a community maintained device, I just wanted to know if someone else has this problem and has some solution for it.

 

Maybe I'm the only one to have this trouble. If nobody else even tried to use it connected to a TV set by HDMI.

 

It's just annoying if there is some bug that can be fixed but it comes back after next update.

 

Can you tell me what file was edited in the "cure" seen in above links? I didn't find exact location, but I would like to try it again.

[CryBaby]

There is a patch. It doesn't appear to have reached mainline yet. Perhaps it could be added to Armbian builds.

 

You probably want to go back to your original, working, kernel.

[Igor]

1 hour ago, CryBaby said:

Perhaps it could be added to Armbian builds.

Make a PR and @Tilator will have this auto-fixed via a regular update. Community images are connected to rolling repository - instant fix and ... instant bug  

[Tilator]

I managed to put nand drivers back to u-boot 2019.04 so that u-boot and u-boot environment can be booted solely from nand.

 

Then I managed to put Armbian on a sata disc so that SD-card is not needed at all. It just took some editing in armbianEnv.txt, fstab and boot.cmd and file copying after sata-install.

 

It would be nice if Armbian could yet be updated to some more reasent version. If it only takes this one kernel driver patch.

[Tilator]

I was about to try compiling it myself, but didn't find source. There seems to be only main branch.

[Tilator]

Hello again.

 

As I am not any kind of an expert in this, I would like to ask if there was anything I can do to add the patch in it?

[Werner]

Easiest way to make adjustments for uboot and kernel for a specific board is using the uboot-patch and kernel-patch commands. This will pause compilation and tells you where the sources are that you want to patch. When done it automatically creates proper patch files for you.

 

So like this for example: ./compile.sh kernel-patch BRANCH=current BOARD=orangepi4

[Tilator]

I only found mainline source code and it didn't even have Cubietruck config available.

 

Should I use some Git command to get community maintained source acive?

[CryBaby]

https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Build-Preparation/

 

Once you have the code installed copy the above-linked patch to build/patch/kernel/archive/sunxi-something/ and do the compile.