U-boot version question

[InterAct]

Hi,

 

I've just created a SD-card with Armbian Bionic (mainline kernel 4.19.y) for a Hummingboard Gate. I noticed during boot that it says it uses U-boot version 2013.10-rc4. This seems quite old compared to the 2018 version that was on the Debian Stretch image from SolidRun. I've tried to search the internet to see what the impact of something like this is and wasn't able to find something that made sense to me (could be entirely my fault). I therefore have the question:

 

Is the U-boot version intentional? (maybe it has some features that newer versions have dropped.)

 

[Igor]

1 hour ago, InterAct said:

Is the U-boot version intentional?

Yes. I tried several times to move on to new kernel u-boot, but out of my three Solidrun boards, only one could boot successfully. With the old kernel, they all boots. 

[mhuybrechts]

What SolidRun boards do you have and at which revision? I think I can help out.

[Igor]

Left one / single core:

U-Boot SPL 2018.01-armbian (Feb 06 2019 - 11:52:19)
SPL: Unsupported Boot Device!
Trying to boot from USB SDP
SDP: initialize...

Right one / quad core:

U-Boot 2018.01-armbian (Feb 06 2019 - 11:52:19 +0100)

CPU:   Freescale i.MX6Q rev1.5 996 MHz (running at 792 MHz)
CPU:   Extended Commercial temperature grade (-20C to 105C) at 23C
Reset cause: POR
Board: MX6 HummingBoard2
       Watchdog enabled
DRAM:  2 GiB
MMC:   FSL_SDHC: 0, FSL_SDHC: 1
MMC partition switch failed
*** Warning - MMC partition switch failed, using default environment

No panel detected: default to HDMI
Display: HDMI (1024x768)
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
MMC partition switch failed
!MMC partition switch failed

 

 

Cubox quad and Hummingboard v1 works.

[mhuybrechts]

I see those are old boards, but they should still work with the latest uBoot I think. Which version did you flash, the emmc or the sdhc (https://developer.solid-run.com/knowledge-base/i-mx6-u-boot/, https://images.solid-build.xyz/IMX6/U-Boot/), and what jumper config did you have/do you boot from SD card of from emmc?

 

We've successfully installed on both and for emmc we use this extlinux.conf:

cat /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf 
menu title Select the boot mode
TIMEOUT 30
DEFAULT default
LABEL default
  LINUX ../zImage
  INITRD ../uInitrd
  FDT ../imx6dl-hummingboard2.dtb
  APPEND root=/dev/mmcblk1p1 ro rootfstype=ext4 rootwait console=ttymxc0,115200 console=tty0 consoleblank=0 video=mxcfb0:dev=hdmi,1920x1080m60,if=RGB24,bpp=32 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.lvm=0 raid=noautodetect pci=nomsi vt.global_cursor_default=1 loglevel=5 usb-storage.quirks=0x2537:0x1066:u,0x2537:0x1068:u fsck.repair=yes
LABEL armbian
  LINUX ../zImage
  INITRD ../uInitrd
  FDT ../dtb/imx6dl-hummingboard2.dtb
  APPEND root=/dev/mmcblk1p1 ro rootfstype=ext4 rootwait console=tty1 console=ttymxc0,115200 consoleblank=0 video=mxcfb0:dev=hdmi,1920x1080m60,if=RGB24,bpp=32 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.lvm=0 raid=noautodetect pci=nomsi vt.global_cursor_default=0 loglevel=3 usb-storage.quirks=0x2537:0x1066:u,0x2537:0x1068:u fsck.repair=yes
LABEL recovery
  LINUX ../zImage
  INITRD ../uInitrd
  FDTDIR ../dtb/
  APPEND root=/dev/mmcblk1p1 ro rootfstype=auto rootwait init=/bin/bash

This is with an edited dtb for the extra serial port on J35

[amndan]

On 2/4/2019 at 6:10 PM, Igor said:

Yes. I tried several times to move on to new kernel u-boot, but out of my three Solidrun boards, only one could boot successfully. With the old kernel, they all boots. 

 

I am writing to confirm the behavior Igor has encountered. With my "old" hummingboard2 it is exactly the same. It is not running the u-boot image from SolidRun. It stops at "!MMC partition switch failed". I am loading u-boot from SD I think, because older images from SolidRun can be loaded correctly with the board, If flashing them on a SD card. I will follow this thread and contribute if there is something to check or test.

[amndan]

I am in contact with SR regarding this issue. Got the following Information: 

 

"You are using the older revision 1.2 of the Hummingboard2 carrier. This revision is known to have issues with its boot select headers. Boot select is not reliable unless you fuse the SoC itself. Have you fused the SoC boot select fuses?"

 

Probably this helps. I am not sure, if I fused my board. I Will check this next.