rf_cancer Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 (edited) Hey all, The DreamCatcher Board had an armbian image (Linux dreamcatcher 4.10.14-sunxi #21 SMP Sun May 7 22:37:19 UTC 2017 armv7l GNU/Linux) that worked fine, doing a apt upgrade completes, but prevents the system from booting... any insight to resolution is appreciated.. Currently were putting holds on the following for updates... linux-dtb-next-sunxi linux-headers-next-sunxi linux-image-next-sunxi linux-firmware-image-next-sunxi error... U-Boot SPL 2017.03-armbian (May 07 2017 - 22:36:09) DRAM: 512 MiB CPU: 1008000000Hz, AXI/AHB/APB: 3/2/2 Trying to boot from MMC1 U-Boot 2017.03-armbian (May 07 2017 - 22:36:09 +0000) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner A13 (SUN5I) Model: Outernet A13-dreamcatcher I2C: ready DRAM: 512 MiB MMC: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0, SUNXI SD/MMC: 1 *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment In: serial@01c28400 Out: serial@01c28400 Err: serial@01c28400 U-Boot 2017.03-armbian (May 07 2017 - 22:36:09 +0000) Allwinner Technology CPU: Allwinner A13 (SUN5I) Model: Outernet A13-dreamcatcher I2C: ready DRAM: 512 MiB MMC: SUNXI SD/MMC: 0, SUNXI SD/MMC: 1 *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment In: serial@01c28400 Out: serial@01c28400 Err: serial@01c28400 Net: No ethernet found. Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 38518 bytes read in 170 ms (220.7 KiB/s) Unknown command 'bmp' - try 'help' switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 3550 bytes read in 250 ms (13.7 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 43100000 U-boot loaded from SD Boot script loaded from mmc 128 bytes read in 214 ms (0 Bytes/s) 4308964 bytes read in 666 ms (6.2 MiB/s) 6264064 bytes read in 705 ms (8.5 MiB/s) Found mainline kernel configuration ** File not found /boot/dtb/sun5i-a13-dreamcatcher.dtb ** ** File not found /boot/dtb/overlay/-fixup.scr ** ## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 43300000 ... Image Name: uInitrd Image Type: ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed) Data Size: 4308900 Bytes = 4.1 MiB Load Address: 00000000 Entry Point: 00000000 Verifying Checksum ... OK ## Flattened Device Tree blob at 43000000 Booting using the fdt blob at 0x43000000 Loading Ramdisk to 49be4000, end 49ffffa4 ... OK reserving fdt memory region: addr=43000000 size=6000 Loading Device Tree to 49bdb000, end 49be3fff ... OK Starting kernel ... Edited August 3, 2017 by zador.blood.stained Moved to community section since this HW is not officially supported
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 2 minutes ago, rf_cancer said: The DreamCatcher Board had an armbian image Where did you get that image? This board doesn't have mainline kernel and u-boot support and also it doesn't have Armbian support, so it's not surprising that apt upgrade breaks it. Please report any issues to people that provided that OS image.
rf_cancer Posted August 3, 2017 Author Posted August 3, 2017 Ok, No problem, that explains alot.. This is on their website "Fully mainline (4.10) kernel and Uboot (2017.01) support!" did it *ever* have mainline support? I find nothing on armbian.com about it..
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 (edited) 4 minutes ago, rf_cancer said: This is on their website "Fully mainline (4.10) kernel and Uboot (2017.01) support!" did it *ever* have mainline support? Don't think so. While A13 SoC has pretty good mainline support, each device needs to have its own configuration (defconfig in u-boot and Device Tree in the kernel). And since even Google Search results for "sun5i-a13-dreamcatcher" are almost empty, looks like nobody attempted to push this configuration upstream. Edited August 3, 2017 by zador.blood.stained typo
martinayotte Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 It seems that you took the image from there : https://archive.outernet.is/images/Dreamcatcher Armbian/ They probably didn't do their own testing properly according to the log you've provided : "File not found"
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 Just now, martinayotte said: They probably didn't do their own testing properly according to the log you've provided : "File not found" They added a DT somehow, but it is lost on upgrade since we are removing old DT directories.
rf_cancer Posted August 3, 2017 Author Posted August 3, 2017 yea thats the company that makes the boards, many people blindly did apt upgrade and got burned... just trying to track down a solution.
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 7 minutes ago, rf_cancer said: just trying to track down a solution. apt-mark hold is a simple solution (no need to upgrade the u-boot and kernel if everything works well enough already). Unofficial/community support for this board can be added if documentation (schematic if it is public, Device Tree source) are provided (so at least kernel and u-boot upgrades won't break anything, but there will be no prebuilt images provided by Armbian). Official support can may be added if a couple of hardware samples are provided (ideally still with documentation like board schematics).
martinayotte Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 They should add some "apt-mark hold <packages>" into their images, that would prevent bad upgrades ...
rf_cancer Posted August 3, 2017 Author Posted August 3, 2017 yea we are recommending those (apt-mark hold) be added manually after the initial image is booted the first time. Its not really a solution though...
tkaiser Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 34 minutes ago, zador.blood.stained said: Official support can may be added if a couple of hardware samples are provided (ideally still with documentation like board schematics). Hmm... instead of providing board samples they could also donate (of course still providing documentation and schematics). This board seems to be not that cheap anyway due to the special hardware included on the board.
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 2 minutes ago, tkaiser said: Hmm... instead of providing board samples they could also donate (of course still providing documentation and schematics). This board seems to be not that cheap anyway due to the special hardware included on the board. For official support (beyond providing something that boots and doesn't break on upgrade) we would need to have a hardware sample anyway.
rf_cancer Posted August 3, 2017 Author Posted August 3, 2017 the board itself is ~$60 US the L-band antenna is ~$24 US. Its a bit of a specialty board, but has lots of enthusiasts.. They are a bit tight with technical info, i'm not sure if its worker bandwidth or intentional, schematics certainly are not public. I would think a physical sample would be a requirement for official support..
zador.blood.stained Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 Just now, rf_cancer said: They are a bit tight with technical info, i'm not sure if its worker bandwidth or intentional, schematics certainly are not public. I'm fine if schematic doesn't include the RF part, but without SoC peripherials and powering diagrams it may be hard to create a good DT, unless the board is based on a public reference design.
tkaiser Posted August 3, 2017 Posted August 3, 2017 25 minutes ago, zador.blood.stained said: For official support (beyond providing something that boots and doesn't break on upgrade) we would need to have a hardware sample anyway. Agreed. But what we see here is again a hardware vendor most probably paying an employee or external consultant fiddling around with Armbian and failing somewhat which neither serves the hardware vendor (and his customers) nor us (I really hate to read such stories about 'Armbian on device xy breaks after updating'). Moving the hardware vendor's software development process into the open and donating a bit to Armbian project most probably will both decrease costs and increase software quality a lot.
zefie Posted March 30, 2019 Posted March 30, 2019 Can we revisit this? I have two Dreamcatcher v3.03 boards, one of them had a improperly soldered USB port (which resulted in be being a fool and supergluing my hub into it), they sent me a replacement anyway and told me to keep both. I have no need for the new replacement as the old board still works (just with a USB hub permanently attached to it). The replacement board does not come with the LCD, but does have lvttl pins soldered. If this is acceptable, I would be willing to donate it to the armbian team. Edit: port broke, so using replacement, but can still donate old board to armbian team. Everything still works, would just need a usb port soldered back on to attach kb/m or wifi. I feel terrible that as soon as I offer this, it breaks. I hope this helps. https://github.com/zefie/linux-4.19-dc3/blob/master/arch/arm/boot/dts/sun5i-a13-dreamcatcher.dts
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