Armbian for Amlogic S9xxx kernel 5.x

[Reddwarf]

1 hour ago, gameseg said:

Yes, I ended up going back a few versions and used a USB instead of SD Card. I selected "Armbian_5.44_S9xxx_Ubuntu_bionic_4.18.0-rc5_mate_20180806" and the eth0 speeds are excellent, as expected right around 75-100Mbps! So this is very good on my s905x A95x device. However, I cannot install to eMMC right now and need help with that. The step: "create-mbr-linux.sh" does not work for me, I get errors "no such file or directory". And if I go right for "nand-sata-install" I also get errors as: "Possibly non-existent device?". I'm attaching screenshots and would like help on how to install to eMMC please :]!

Is this the correct process for my s905x? It was not working for me:

Install Armbian to eMMC.

1. Be sure to activate multi-boot using the new image. If multiboot previously activated is required to repeat activation using files in a new image.

2. Run Armbian from external media, run "ddbr" and create full backup eMMC.

3. Execute script “/boot/create-mbr-linux.sh” (fails for me)

4. and install Armbian on eMMC execute script “/root/install.sh”. (fails for me)

What am I doing incorrectly? Or what do I need to change in order for this to work for me?

I might be wrong but I don't think that kernel supports emmc or nand, I remember having the same problems and gave up.

[gameseg]

The kernel is 4.18 from what I can tell for image "Armbian_5.44_S9xxx_Ubuntu_bionic_4.18.0-rc5_mate_20180806" - and @balbes150 stated that "kernel 4.16 does not support internal eMMC memory" this first post here: (ARMBIAN for Amlogic S905 and S905X (ver 5.44 =<))

Has anyone testing the USB speeds compared to the eMMC speeds on the s905x??? If they are equal or close to it, I'll stick with using my USB 3.0 16GB... I would still like to know why / how to get eth0 to function properly on the latest release using ver 5.72 firmware.

 

[dbsharpe]

1 hour ago, martinayotte said:

Why are you mount this partition using loop device ?

It could be mounted directly using :

mount /dev/mmcblk0p14 /mnt

 

Your correct but under android or older 3.14.x kernels, aml_sd_emmc presents all the flash partitions laid out but with more recent 4.x and above kernels, meson-gxbb-mmc is one device according to /proc/partitions

[Reddwarf]

14 hours ago, dbsharpe said:

Your correct but under android or older 3.14.x kernels, aml_sd_emmc presents all the flash partitions laid out but with more recent 4.x and above kernels, meson-gxbb-mmc is one device according to /proc/partitions

It's an easy way to find out if installing to emmc will work, run gparted and select mmcblk0, if you can see all partitions it will probably work. If it presents itself as unallocated or one big partition it will NOT work.

[amirul]

How do you test emmc r/w speed to see whether it is worthwhile to install instead of running on sdcard?

[Reddwarf]

Just now, amirul said:

How do you test emmc r/w speed to see whether it is worthwhile to install instead of running on sdcard?

EMMC will almost always be faster than SDCard, there are a variety of disk read/write tests you can download and use to test.

 

[dbsharpe]

2 hours ago, amirul said:

How do you test emmc r/w speed to see whether it is worthwhile to install instead of running on sdcard?

 

You will need to mount (/mnt) a partition in emmc with enough space and issue:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512mbfile.bin bs=1024 count=512000

which will report speed in bytes at the end. Its difficult to a read test due to the caching element but

dd if=/mnt/512mbfile.bin of=/dev/null bs=1024

will give you the speed of RAM if you run read test after write!

Edited January 29, 2019 by dbsharpe
typo

[martinayotte]

1 hour ago, dbsharpe said:

You will need to mount (/mnt) a partition in emmc with enough space and issue:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt bs=1024 count=512000

You did a typo here , it should be "dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512mbfile.bin bs=1024 count=512000" I presume ...

[gameseg]

3 hours ago, Reddwarf said:

It's an easy way to find out if installing to emmc will work, run gparted and select mmcblk0, if you can see all partitions it will probably work. If it presents itself as unallocated or one big partition it will NOT work.

I posted images above of my external USB drive gparted partitions, and local mmcblk1 showing one unallocated partition. Would you take a look and confirm whether or not I can install to eMMC? From what I interpreted on your message, it seems that I will be unable to. However, this makes me wonder, why won't it work? I'm using kernel 4.18 I think at least, and just 4.16 kernel is the non-compatible version as outlined by balbes150. I also noted in my above posts that it appears the shell scripts aren't finding the correct name of my eMMC partition (e.g., mmcblk0 vs mmcblk1)

[Reddwarf]

Just now, gameseg said:

I posted images above of my external USB drive gparted partitions, and local mmcblk1 showing one unallocated partition. Would you take a look and confirm whether or not I can install to eMMC? From what I interpreted on your message, it seems that I will be unable to. However, this makes me wonder, why won't it work? I'm using kernel 4.18 I think at least, and just 4.16 kernel is the non-compatible version as outlined by balbes150. I also noted in my above posts that it appears the shell scripts aren't finding the correct name of my eMMC partition (e.g., mmcblk0 vs mmcblk1)

If you are referring to the 14.68 Gb unallocated partition the answer is NO it won't work. That's typically what it looks like when the kernel lacks support for emmc. I have seen it swap partition names also in the past, I also had a case where on my MiniM8S emmc was not supported but it worked fine on my MXQPro+ (perhaps it has a different type).

[gameseg]

1 hour ago, Reddwarf said:

If you are referring to the 14.68 Gb unallocated partition the answer is NO it won't work. That's typically what it looks like when the kernel lacks support for emmc. I have seen it swap partition names also in the past, I also had a case where on my MiniM8S emmc was not supported but it worked fine on my MXQPro+ (perhaps it has a different type).

Do anyone know if the s905x is supported by the "regular distributions of Armbian" (e.g., Armbian Stretch / Bionic as seen here: https://www.armbian.com/nanopi-k2/)? I'm confused as to whether or not balbes150 is the only one making "supported" firmware for the s905x / a95x device. What is the brand of my s905x / a95x device, who is it made by? My board has printed: "A7_S905X_V2_3" if that helps. This is something that has confused me from the start. I do not mean to specifically ask you the questions - if anyone else has the answer I hope they can chime in.

I'm going to perform a speed test on the eMMC and the USB port to determine if it is worthwhile to install on the eMMC... I'll try to do that within a couple days.

[balbes150]

Don't waste time on tests. eMMC is much faster than USB on all current s9xx, they use USB 2.0. Now begin to emerge S905X2 with USB 3.0 , but they have no support in Armbian. When you first start the installation in eMMC (when eMMC is Android firmware), there are no partitions yet and what you see in GPARTD is normal. For eMMC installation, it is important that eMMC (mmcblk) is visible (partitions are not required, they will be created by the installation system). Only after the initial installation of Armbian in eMMC will appear sections that can see GPARTED. The easiest way to find out if you can install to eMMC or not. Run the "ddbr" utility, if it can create a full backup of eMMC, then the installation in eMMC will work (but it does not guarantee 100% system health from eMMC).

[balbes150]

New version 5.73.

1. A separate section for images with the s905 LIMA driver has been added to the catalog.  Notice is images in which there is only the kernel driver LIMA, HW support for DE until they do not. For HW you need to collect a special version of MESA-LIMA. I tried to build it, but I have a bug at the end of the build. May be there is a wish to collect the desired version of MESA-LIMA and help the process of the emergence HW to s905 ? 

 

2. In the usual directory S905  Assembly for without driver LIMA.

 

3. I built an FFMPEG package with support for decoding using HW. To check, you can download the package and install it in the system with the command "dpkg". When checking the work I was able to run FFMPEG command decode test video.

 

HW

ffmpeg -c:v h264_v4l2m2m -i Test.mkv -f null /dev/null

 

not HW

ffmpeg -c:v h264 -i Test.mkv -f null /dev/null

 

When you start to S905 , when using the decoder with HW h264 decoding speed is equal to 11.9 , without using HW decoding speed is equal to 4.3. When tested on S912-with HW speed 12 , without HW speed 7.9.

 

I tried running the video using ffplay.

 

HW

ffplay -vcodec h264_v4l2m2m Test.mkv

 

not HW

ffplay -vcodec h264 Test.mkv

 

It shows the test video, the sound is correct, but the video is played in the braked mode (as if the deceleration is enabled). Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong when building or testing. I would appreciate it if someone could find a reason why the video is stalled.

 

https://yadi.sk/d/9igaopSIabKsjw

[Linton]

Nvm.

[Linton]

Nvm.

[jewlz]

Hello everyone,

 

I've seen some people having good success with Realtek RTL8723BS wifi chipset on their boards.  Could anyone let me know if the driver for this is provided with the kernel in the current images, or if I'd have to find, download, install, myself?

 

I'm looking at de-soldering the spi junk wifi module that came on my board and replacing it with this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Manufacturer-provides-straightly-RTL8723BS-SDIO-WIFI-interface-WIFI-BT-module-bluetooth-module/32832047940.html

 

Any thoughts?

 

JH

 

[martinayotte]

5 minutes ago, jewlz said:

Could anyone let me know if the driver for this is provided with the kernel in the current images

There is a RTL8723BS on OrangePiPrime (and in Pinebook too if I recall correctly), and it is working fine with both NEXT or DEV images.

[Reddwarf]

Just now, jewlz said:

Hello everyone,

 

I've seen some people having good success with Realtek RTL8723BS wifi chipset on their boards.  Could anyone let me know if the driver for this is provided with the kernel in the current images, or if I'd have to find, download, install, myself?

 

I'm looking at de-soldering the spi junk wifi module that came on my board and replacing it with this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Manufacturer-provides-straightly-RTL8723BS-SDIO-WIFI-interface-WIFI-BT-module-bluetooth-module/32832047940.html

 

Any thoughts?

 

JH

 

Instead of messing with a big soldering iron on surfacemounted components and potentially ruining the whole board I suggest uou buy an USB WiFi dongle (and possibly a BT dongle)

 

[C0NPAQ]

@balbes150:

 

With my Mecool Ki Pro, I have already successfully used your Archlinux 9XXXX images with the 3.14 Kernel.

 

Now the Armbian_5.73_Aml-s905_Debian_stretch_default_4.20.2_desktop_20190129.img doesn't work out at all, although I did all the steps required.

 

First, like I did on the Archlinux image, I had to rename the s905_autoscript to aml_autoscript and remove the now-new aml_autoscript to get a boot response. But now screen remains without signal, instead of booting into Android recovery.

 

I am somewhat puzzled by the excess of files and I don't know what could be at fault.

 

My pressing question is: What's up with the 3.14 kernels being the standard for the ODROID-C2 (same specs as my Mecool Ki Pro) on arch and used by yourself, instead of the newer kernel versions?

 

I have read of people running 4.xx on odroid-c2, but perhaps my box can't run newer kernels at all?

 

 

Many thanks for all your good work!

[Linton]

Nvm.

[C0NPAQ]

Oh also I have another question:

 

When I upgraded the kernel from inside the OS last time twice, it would not boot up but instead just power down.

 

What do you have to do by hand that the scripts don't, when you do a minor kernel upgrade with a sysupgrade?

[AndrewDB]

Hello all,

First I would like to thank Balbes150 for his amazing work. I am using his Armbian images on the five various Amlogic S9XXX TV boxes I have.

Thank you very much, Oleg! Fantastic work! 

What I have right now on my workbench:

1) MXQ Pro 4k, S905, 1GB/8GB RAM/ROM, running Armbian Ubuntu 18.04 server 5.67 with kernel 4.19.7. I am using meson-gxbb-p201.dtb.

2) M9C Max 4k, S905X, 2GB/16GB RAM/ROM, also running Armbian Ubuntu 18.04 server 5.67 with kernel 4.19.7. I am using meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb.

3) 3 x Mecool KM8 P, S912, 1GB/8GB RAM/ROM, running Armbian Ubuntu 18.04 server 5.44 with kernel 3.14.29. I am using gxm_q201_1g.dtb. These boxes are used as a distcc build farm, which I have documented here: http://wiki.loverpi.com/specs:sbc:distcc-kernel-compile

 

I can get the kernel to compile in just under 17 minutes on the build farm, instead of 44 minutes on a single S912 box or more than an hour on the S905/S905X boxes!

 

All TV boxes are booting from Samsung EVO micro SD cards, and yes, it's important to use good SD cards, as repeatedly suggested in the Armbian documentation. 

 

I have a USB serial cable soldered to my MXQ Pro 4k TV box, this has been very helpful to play around with u-boot.

 

I have a question for anybody who also has a Mecool KM8 P S912 box: have you been able to boot any Armbian image with a 4.xx Linux kernel? What dtb file did you use? I have been unable to boot anything other than the 3.14.29 kernel on these S912 boxes. Thanks for any answer on this issue.

 

[C0NPAQ]

I narrowed the issue now down to the kernel version:

 

Mecool Ki Pro (905d with Mali-450 2GB/16GB) boots only the 3.14 kernels, but not the 4.XX kernels.

 

Why is that? 

 

I saw the Odroid-C2 also having its own 3.14 kernel on archlinuxarm, while the main kernel was 4.XX. The Odroid-c2 is very very similar in specs to Mecool Ki Pro, but so should be any 905 box? And this thread is all about 905 boxes...?

 

Please someone explain why the new kernels won't boot or why they are problematic.

[jewlz]

2 hours ago, martinayotte said:

There is a RTL8723BS on OrangePiPrime (and in Pinebook too if I recall correctly), and it is working fine with both NEXT or DEV images.

 

That's good news since I already ordered the replacement chipset.

 

2 hours ago, Reddwarf said:

Instead of messing with a big soldering iron on surfacemounted components and potentially ruining the whole board I suggest uou buy an USB WiFi dongle (and possibly a BT dongle)

 

Sure, but:

1. Who says I'm going to use a soldering iron, and not a smd reflow heatgun?

2. I'm interested in keeping this as compact as possible so that I can fit it somewhere, and i need at least 2 usb ports.  adding a USB hub to the setup is not desirable.

3.  The box i have is a donation, so it's worth a shot to see if I can do this without messing things up too badly.

 

I'll post in another thread once I have the parts and we'll see if it works.

[martinayotte]

49 minutes ago, jewlz said:

Who says I'm going to use a soldering iron, and not a smd reflow heatgun?

Are the old module and the new RTL8723BS are pin compatible ?

[Mashhup]

8 hours ago, C0NPAQ said:

I narrowed the issue now down to the kernel version:

 

Mecool Ki Pro (905d with Mali-450 2GB/16GB) boots only the 3.14 kernels, but not the 4.XX kernels.

 

Why is that? 

 

I saw the Odroid-C2 also having its own 3.14 kernel on archlinuxarm, while the main kernel was 4.XX. The Odroid-c2 is very very similar in specs to Mecool Ki Pro, but so should be any 905 box? And this thread is all about 905 boxes...?

 

Please someone explain why the new kernels won't boot or why they are problematic.

 

A lot of the dtb's are different for the 4.x and 5.x kernels. Make sure you're not using the same dtb file for both.

 

You might also not use the same dtb (name wise) on both as a lot has changed between releases. Please try all the dtb's, starting with those closest to the one that worked previously. 

[amirul]

19 hours ago, balbes150 said:

New version 5.73.

1. A separate section for images with the s905 LIMA driver has been added to the catalog.  Notice is images in which there is only the kernel driver LIMA, HW support for DE until they do not. For HW you need to collect a special version of MESA-LIMA. I tried to build it, but I have a bug at the end of the build. May be there is a wish to collect the desired version of MESA-LIMA and help the process of the emergence HW to s905 ?

S11 boots s905 lima with gxbb-p200 but no eth although wifi works

[balbes150]

16 hours ago, purplepumkin said:

Have you tried the superna9999 drivers and binary?

This driver uses private binary blobs from ARM. LIMA is completely open data. I prefer to use the open version.

 

11 hours ago, C0NPAQ said:

With my Mecool Ki Pro, I have already successfully used your Archlinux 9XXXX images with the 3.14 Kernel.

What the dtb has been used and what exactly the version of the image.

 

11 hours ago, C0NPAQ said:

My pressing question is: What's up with the 3.14 kernels being the standard for the ODROID-C2 (same specs as my Mecool Ki Pro) on arch and used by yourself, instead of the newer kernel versions?

The 3.14 kernel is very outdated and no longer supported, so I don't use it anymore.

 

11 hours ago, purplepumkin said:

I would like to help to get h/w acceleration to work for desktop usage. I'm downloading the LIMA image right and play around in there with the mesa drivers I found around with Google. My skill level is not big enough to patch the kernel with the drivers I linked earlier. They seem to be for 4.10. 

 

Let me know if there's any specific testing I can do. I'm testing on a older 1G/8G a95x p212 board I'm not using atm.

 LIMA drivers are in the image. Only the correct version of MESA with LIMA support is missing (and  may need to build programs using LIMA \ MESA-LIMA).

 

11 hours ago, C0NPAQ said:

When I upgraded the kernel from inside the OS last time twice, it would not boot up but instead just power down.

 

What do you have to do by hand that the scripts don't, when you do a minor kernel upgrade with a sysupgrade?

Write in detail all the steps that you did. Without this, there is no point in making assumptions.

 

10 hours ago, AndrewDB said:

I can get the kernel to compile in just under 17 minutes on the build farm, instead of 44 minutes on a single S912 box or more than an hour on the S905/S905X boxes!

Very useful information. Thanks.

 

10 hours ago, AndrewDB said:

I have a question for anybody who also has a Mecool KM8 P S912 box: have you been able to boot any Armbian image with a 4.xx Linux kernel? What dtb file did you use? I have been unable to boot anything other than the 3.14.29 kernel on these S912 boxes. Thanks for any answer on this issue.

Do you have a UART console on it ?

 

10 hours ago, C0NPAQ said:

 

Please someone explain why the new kernels won't boot or why they are problematic.

The problem is not with the kernel, but with your hardware (the manufacturer's support for it). The manufacturer of your model doesn't want to do anything for it to work with the new kernel.

 

1 hour ago, amirul said:

S11 boots s905 lima with gxbb-p200 but no eth although wifi works

You have a model with a network card 100Mb, it needs dtb p201

 

S11 Hardware:    
CPU: Amlogic S905 Quad-core A53 2.0GHz 64bits
GPU: Penta(5) core Mali 450
Android Version: 5.1
RAM: 1G
ROM: 8G
WiFi: Built in 2.4G WiFi
Ethernet: 10/100 mbps RJ45

[AndrewDB]

7 minutes ago, balbes150 said:

...

Do you have a UART console on it ?

...

Hello Oleg, thank you very much for your quick reply. Unfortunately no, I don't have a UART on any of my S912 boxes, only on the S905 box, so I am unable to debug the problem. I have tried various Armbian images with different 4.XX and even 5.0rcX kernels, and various meson-gxm-xxxxxxx dtb's, but never managed to boot.

But these Mecool KM8 P boxes boot OK with the 3.14.29 kernel with the gxm_q201_1g.dtb.

I know user Seasalt here in this forum also has 3 x KM8 P boxes and he is booting late Armbian with a 4.xx kernel on them, but I don't know which dtb file he is using or if he boot from SD card or USB key.

[amirul]

1 hour ago, balbes150 said:

You have a model with a network card 100Mb, it needs dtb p201

 

S11 Hardware:    
CPU: Amlogic S905 Quad-core A53 2.0GHz 64bits
GPU: Penta(5) core Mali 450
Android Version: 5.1
RAM: 1G
ROM: 8G
WiFi: Built in 2.4G WiFi
Ethernet: 10/100 mbps RJ45

Oops my bad, p201 it is then. All good now :-)

 

The box turns off after a few minutes of activity. Perhaps heat or segfault?

Edited January 31, 2019 by amirul
Update