Genesio Lini Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 Hello everyone, I am trying to achieve first boot with a Clearfog Base with eMMC. It was not clear (at least to me) that the eMMC version does not allow booting from SD card *at all* But hey, let's get this baby up&running, can anybody please help me? I am trying to follow this procedure [https://www.armbian.com/clearfog-base/]: 1) Write the image to a USB flash drive -> easy enough, I did it with Win32DiskImager and a well-tested 64GB USB stick 2) Load the modified u-boot (from the Armbian image) using the UART method -> I have issues here. I suppose that UART method consists in plugging in the microUSB cable into my PC and open the COM3 port with Putty, than hitting some key to interrupt normal boot. Unfortunately the terminal just spits out garbled text. The setup for the COM3 port in windows is 9600bps, 8data, no parity, 1 stop, no flow control and matches the config in Putty. Where do I find the modified u-boot in armbian image? I'm stuck here, and I don't know how to proceed. Thank you Genesio 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chwe Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 14 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: -> easy enough, I did it with Win32DiskImager and a well-tested 64GB USB stick https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/ Quote 7z and zip archives can be uncompressed with 7-Zip on Windows, Keka on OS X and 7z on Linux. Images shall only be written with Etcher on all platforms since unlike other tools Etcher validates burning results saving you from corrupted SD card contents. 16 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: Unfortunately the terminal just spits out garbled text. The setup for the COM3 port in windows is 9600bps, 8data, no parity, 1 stop, no flow control and matches the config in Putty. Isn't it 115200? (not sure.... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 29 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: Where do I find the modified u-boot in armbian image? It may be easier to unpack the .deb package from here than mounting the existing image and extracting files from its filesystem. 30 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: -> I have issues here. I suppose that UART method consists in plugging in the microUSB cable into my PC and open the COM3 port with Putty, than hitting some key to interrupt normal boot. Not with PuTTY and I'm not sure if there is a good way to do it from Windows in general. I would recommend reading this tutorial and official Solid-Run instructions here. You can get the u-boot binary from Armbian packages and this binary can easily boot an image from USB flash with "run usbboot" but you still need to find a way to load the u-boot via UART (either using kwboot or scripts linked in the first tutorial). 14 minutes ago, chwe said: Isn't it 115200? It is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 Regarding Putty: 115000bps, 8data, 1stop, no parity, xon/xoff works I am now flashing the USB drive with Etcher and will let you know the results... Still I have no clue on what to do with the deb package containing the u-boot files. Thank you very much for the help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 Ok, I am going to start from scratch from inside a Debian VM following the first linked tutorial. Thank you guys for your detailed instructions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 9, 2017 Author Share Posted December 9, 2017 I had issues with VM and serial ports, so I fired up an Ubuntu physical machine and I was able to start the procedure. Unfortunately it seems I got stuck again. The serial downloader shell script does not complete the first step (endless loop) Quote sudo ./download-serial.sh /dev/ttyUSB0 '/home/ubuu-boot-uart.mmc' Sleeping Out of sleep Got something 0 Sleeping Out of sleep Got something -1 Sleeping Out of sleep Got something -1 Sleeping Out of sleep Got something -1 Sleeping Out of sleep Got something -1 Dip switches are set to ON from number 1 to number 4 (https://pasteboard.co/GXok3Gb.jpg) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted December 9, 2017 Share Posted December 9, 2017 51 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: Dip switches are set to ON from number 1 to number 4 (https://pasteboard.co/GXok3Gb.jpg) Please try setting switches to OFF,ON,OFF,OFF,ON instead. I just tried to use kwboot from mainline u-boot and it worked fine for me git clone --depth 1 git://git.denx.de/u-boot.git cd u-boot make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- clearfog_defconfig make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- tools tools/kwboot -b ~/u-boot-uart.mmc /dev/ttyUSB0 screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 ➜ u-boot git:(c253573) % _ tools/kwboot -b ~/u-boot-uart.mmc /dev/ttyUSB0 Sending boot message. 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Genesio Lini Posted December 9, 2017 Author Share Posted December 9, 2017 Ok I am now installing the toolchain (gcc v6 is needed to compile kwboot) I am going to try with the dip switches set as you recommend and kwboot. What's the correct dip switches sequence for normal operation after successful flash? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted December 9, 2017 Share Posted December 9, 2017 24 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: What's the correct dip switches sequence for normal operation after successful flash? OFF,OFF,ON,ON,ON as per Solid-Run wiki for SD/eMMC. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 9, 2017 Author Share Posted December 9, 2017 With your help and kwboot I got the u-boot-uart.mmc file flashed to the clearfog base. I also noticed that, after the flash, the system automatically booted my USB flash drive with armbian image flashed with Etcher. Is there an "easy way" to install the running system into eMMC at this point? Or should I copy the .iso file on a separate USB stick and dd it into the eMMC? BTW how can this procedure be so hard to perform? Am I alone with these issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted December 9, 2017 Share Posted December 9, 2017 13 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: Or should I copy the .iso file on a separate USB stick and dd it into the eMMC? You can copy it to the same USB stick (as a file) and dd it to the eMMC. Please note that you need to add/set "emmc_fix=on" in /boot/armbianEnv.txt both on your USB stick and on eMMC after you flash the image on it, or you can just insert any SD card into the SD slot. 13 minutes ago, Genesio Lini said: BTW how can this procedure be so hard to perform? Am I alone with these issues? There is no USB OTG port here so UMS (mass storage gadget) or fastboot is not an option here. The only "better" solution could be tftp based to download the image to RAM or USB storage and flash it to eMMC, but it requires setting up a tftp server, or writing the image from USB to eMMC from u-boot. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 10, 2017 Author Share Posted December 10, 2017 I just copied to iso file to the USB stick and rebooted the clearfog. If I repeat the kwboot procedure again, Armbian does not boot like the first time. Instead, I get this: I tried to flash the ISO back to the USB stick again with Etcher but the error persist. I am almost ready to give up and sell the clearfog on ebay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zador.blood.stained Posted December 10, 2017 Share Posted December 10, 2017 Did you add "emmc_fix=on" to /boot/armbianEnv.txt on the eMMC (you needed to mount it after flashing) or did you try to insert a SD card in the microSD slot on the board? Without this eMMC won't be detected by the kernel. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 10, 2017 Author Share Posted December 10, 2017 I have a uSD card into the slot. And first boot from USB stick was working, I don't know why I am not able to boot from the USB stick anymore. I did not do anything apart from rebooting. I am now trying again. kwboot is succesfull and I am able to run the modified u-boot loaded thru UART. As I have no system in eMMC and no USB stick into the USB port, I feel good with this result (I am using picocom) Following the procedure I should insert my USB stick and execute "run usbboot", right? This is the result: I am now logged in as root (1234) into the running Armbian system from USB stick. I am also able to log in thru SSH, and I uploaded both armbian ISO file and u-boot-mmc file to /tmp Could you please help me with instructions on how to permanently install the bootloader and armbian to the eMMC? Thank you for your great support Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 10, 2017 Author Share Posted December 10, 2017 I am now trying following steps from here: https://github.com/nightseas/arm_applications/blob/master/doc/getting_started_with_clearfog_base.md#boot-from-usb-disk----download-armbian-to-emmc from inside armbian running from the USB stick: dd'ing the img to the eMMC device was successful: root@clearfogbase:~# dd if=/root/Armbian_5.35_Clearfogbase_Ubuntu_xenial_default_4.4.102.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M 352+0 records in 352+0 records out 1476395008 bytes (1.5 GB, 1.4 GiB) copied, 79.9802 s, 18.5 MB/s root@clearfogbase:~# sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt mount: special device /dev/mmcblk0p1 does not exist I was not able to mount the partition in order to modify the armbianEnv.txt. But, as I have a uSD card into the slot, I am trying to boot from eMMC anyway. So I just went on with dd'ing the bootloader to the eMMC: root@clearfogbase:~# echo 0 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot0/force_ro root@clearfogbase:~# echo 0 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot1/force_ro root@clearfogbase:~# sudo dd if=u-boot.mmc of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0 1836+1 records in 1836+1 records out 940108 bytes (940 kB, 918 KiB) copied, 0.167683 s, 5.6 MB/s root@clearfogbase:~# sudo dd if=u-boot.mmc of=/dev/mmcblk0boot1 1836+1 records in 1836+1 records out 940108 bytes (940 kB, 918 KiB) copied, 0.17947 s, 5.2 MB/s root@clearfogbase:~# echo 1 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot0/force_ro root@clearfogbase:~# echo 1 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot1/force_ro root@clearfogbase:~# sync Now I think I could just set the dip switches into eMMC boot position and reboot. Is that correct? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genesio Lini Posted December 10, 2017 Author Share Posted December 10, 2017 Ok, it works. after setting the DIP switches to eMMC boot, I rebooted with the uSD card into the slot and armbian was running fine from eMMC. Then I logged in and modified the armbianEnv.txt The clearfog now boots from eMMC without uSD card into the slot. Thank you for your help and patience 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_r9 Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 I summarized the content of a few sites and wrote a complete installation guide for Armbian on a Clearfog pro and Clearfog base. You will need a FAT formatted USB Stick where you can store the Armbian image and some bootloader files an USB A to microUSB B cable Clearfog Base or Pro with a power adapter Prepare installation files mkdir -p /opt/clearfog_installation cd /opt/clearfog_installation curl https://wiki.solid-run.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=products:a38x:software:debian:clearfog-emmc-v3.tar.gz --output clearfog-emmc-v3.tar.gz tar xfz clearfog-emmc-v3.tar.gz Copy following files to an USB stick mnt <your usb> /mnt/ mv u-boot-clearfog-base-mmc.kwb zImage armada-388-clearfog.dtb /mnt/ Put Armbian to the stick You have to create the _extlinux_ directory and put the _extlinux.conf_ into it. You'll need this do boot a linux image. With it you will be able to write the Armbian image to the eMMC memory mkdir -p /mnt/extlinux mv extlinux.conf /mnt/extlinux/ cd /mnt/extlinux/ Clearfog Pro wget https://dl.armbian.com/clearfogpro/Debian_stretch_next.7z Clearfog Base wget https://dl.armbian.com/clearfogbase/Debian_stretch_next.7z Extract and check integrity 7za e Debian_stretch_next.7z shasum -a 256 -c sha256sum.sha Armbian_*.img STRG+c cd /opt/clearfog_installation umount /mnt Next Steps Plug in USB stick to the Clearfog Plug in USB cable (USB A site) to the PC Plug in USB cable (microUSB B site) to the Clearfog Set Jumper to UART **0 1 0 0 1** PC The maintainer delivers *kwboot* for the installation. With it you can send the u-boot bootloader to the device ./kwboot -t -b u-boot-clearfog-base-uart.kwb /dev/ttyUSB0 Clearfog - Power up the Clearfog - Wait a few minutes of the U-Boot image to download - !! Hit a key to stop autoboot !! - Configure the eMMC to boot from hardware boot partition PC (kwboot terminal) mmc partconf 0 1 1 0 date reset run bootcmd_usb0 login with _root_ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt dd if=/mnt/extlinux/Armbian_5.59_Clearfogpro_Debian_stretch_next_4.14.66.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M conv=fsync hdparm -z /dev/mmcblk0 umount /mnt/ mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/ echo 0 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot0/force_ro dd if=/mnt/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-next-clearfogpro_5.59_armhf/u-boot.mmc of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0 sed -i 's/emmc_fix=off/emmc_fix=on/g' /mnt/boot/armbianEnv.txt umount /mnt/ poweroff PC (a second terminal) killall kwboot screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 Clearfog Unplug power adapter Set jumpers to **0 0 1 1 1** Plugin power jack Now you should see Armbian booting up in the terminal were you executed the _screen_ command SourcesFirst insights (armbian.com)Maintainers installation guide (wiki.solid-run.com)First hint for armbian bootloader installation (armbian.com)Final Armbian bootloader installation hint 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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