[Experiment] armbian on NanoPi A64

[guidol 106]

In the FriendlyARM thread
http://www.friendlyarm.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1427&p=5685#p5685

we did try to use A64 images from the Pine64 or the BananaPi M64 with the NanoPi A64.

 

The last times we did that with less success - OK Sytem is running but Network/Sound has to added via USB.
No suppport for the onboard devices

But today a user did wrote that - with the actual stable Pine64-image ( Armbian_5.69_Pine64_Debian_stretch_next_4.19.13 )
WiFi is useable.

 

So I flasded the Pine64-image to a MicroSDCard and did boot.

Additiionally I did see with "aplay -l" the HDMI and the analog Sound-device.

But ethernet isnt "connected" right via the .dtb

 

armbian inside can see the ethernet-part of the SoC (set IP and see MAC) and the external RTL8122E Phy blinks the Link and Transfered-Packets via LED....

 

My first idea was to edit the Pine64 DTB to match the NanoPI A64 DTB in the ethernet-part - but with these Pins & PHandle's I did get stuck

 

BUT my second idea did work  much better, because in the armbian-build-system I also did see the

sun50i-a64-nanopi-a64.dtb

 

So I checked the board-config-file for the pine64.conf ( under ./build/config/boards/ ) - there is an entry for a defconfig file

and the armbin-build-system has also a defonfig file for the nanopi-a64

./build/cache/sources/u-boot/v2018.11/configs/nanopi_a64_defconfig

 while  the NanoPi A64 isnt (official) supported by the Meneu-System of the armbian-build-system.

 

So I copied ./build/config/boards/pine64.conf to ./build/config/boards/nanopia64.conf and did edit it like in the following way:
 

# A64 quad core 512MB-2GB SoC GBE
BOARD_NAME="NanoPiA64"
BOARDFAMILY="sun50iw1"
BOOTCONFIG_DEFAULT="sun50iw1p1_config"
BOOTCONFIG="nanopi_a64_defconfig"
#
MODULES="sunxi_codec sunxi_i2s sunxi_sndcodec 8723bs"
MODULES_NEXT=""
#
KERNEL_TARGET="default,next,dev"
CLI_TARGET="bionic,stretch:next"
DESKTOP_TARGET="xenial:default"
#
CLI_BETA_TARGET=""
DESKTOP_BETA_TARGET=""

and did compile for the NanoPi A64 with

./compile.sh EXPERT="yes"

in ./build/

 

Now I could select the NanoPi A64 (falsely) as supported board and did select DEV (armbian 5.71 with Kernel 4.20)

I did build the console and the Desktop-version.

 

In the console-version I was happy to see eth0 & wlan0 working, but the HDMI and analog soundsystem is missing (which was visible in Pine64 next 4.19.13)

So there was no need for a RTL8211E-driver (because its only a PHY) like I did read before at

http://linux-sunxi.org/Ethernet#Realtek_RTL8211E

Quote

Realtek RTL8211E

The Realtek RTL8211E is a RGMII 10/100/1000 Ethernet PHY, which is gigabit capable. It is commonly paired with GMAC for gigabit speeds.

Generic PHY support is enough to make it work.

 

In the Desktop-version the GUI did start without problems (not fast, but useable) - like on a older pinebook (a64) build

 

Maybe DEV was "too much"? I will try the NEXT for my NanoPi A64 File

 

Or maybe the nanopi A64 dtb isnt correct on the "sound-part"?

 

[Igor 1296]

15 minutes ago, guidol said:

Maybe DEV was "too much"? I will try the NEXT for my NanoPi A64 File

Yes. DEV is probably too fragile atm - 4.19.y has good enough support for A64 in general and probably with the correct DTB everything should work. (but temperature sensor IIRC)

[guidol Topic author 106]

1 hour ago, Igor said:

Yes. DEV is probably too fragile atm - 4.19.y has good enough support for A64 in general and probably with the correct DTB everything should work. (but temperature sensor IIRC)

@Igor astonished  - with Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_dev_4.20.0 it does seem to work better....

I did compile

Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_next_4.19.13

Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_next_4.19.13_desktop

with my hijacked configuration

but with 4.19.13

- there is no WiFi wlan0

- MicroSDcard read/write is much slower

- black screen (No Signal) after starting kernel (while the system is running in the backgorund and accessable via SSH)

- also no HDMI or analog soundcard

 

With

Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_dev_4.20.0

Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_dev_4.20.0_desktop
+ got WiFi wlan0

+ better read/write rates on the MicroSDcard

+ no black screen after starting kernel - can see boot-messages AND the Desktop-GUI is coming up

+ /sys/class/leds/nanopi-a64:blue:status/trigger is available as heartbeat-led

+ temperature sensor seems to give a correct output

root@npi-a64(192.168.6.64):~# armbianmonitor -m
Stop monitoring using [ctrl]-[c]
Time      CPU n/a    load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq   CPU

22:58:03:   ---      2.07   7%   0%   2%   0%   3%   0% 42.9°C
22:58:08:   ---      2.06  19%   0%   0%   0%  17%   0% 43.1°C
22:58:13:   ---      1.98  21%   0%   0%   0%  19%   0% 42.2°C
22:58:18:   ---      1.98  11%   0%   0%   0%  10%   0% 43.1°C

 

- BUT also no soundcard (HDMI or analog) which seems to be available in the Pine64-image when started on NanoPi A64

root@pine64:~# uname -a
Linux pine64 4.19.13-sunxi64 #5.69 SMP Wed Jan 9 18:10:00 CET 2019 aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@pine64:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sun50ia64audio [sun50i-a64-audio], device 0: 1c22c00.dai-sun8i sun8i-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: allwinnerhdmi [allwinner,hdmi], device 0: 1c22800.i2s-i2s-hifi i2s-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

console boot-/system-information for Armbian_5.71_Nanopia64_Debian_stretch_dev_4.20.0 

root@npi-a64(192.168.6.64):~# armbianmonitor -u
System diagnosis information will now be uploaded to http://ix.io/1ylE
 

[yam1 10]

25 minutes ago, guidol said:

+- BUT also no soundcard (HDMI or analog) which seems to be available in the Pine64-image when started on NanoPi A64
 

That's right analog sound seems available (as shown by /proc/asound/cards) when using  a pine64 5.70 next image with nanopi a64 but no sound ever comes out of the connection, wifi does work.