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Which linux image for cubietruck desktop?


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Guest Blisk

Greetz // Pozdrav vsem uporabnikom vsezmagovalcev!

 

I am planning to use my Cubietruck for a general-purpose desktop computer to surf the internet, write documents, watch movies (youtube, VLC, lan/dlna), etc. Basically I'd like to install a lightweight desktop image on it and connect it to my SmartTV in the living room via a short HDMI cable. I'll probably need video acceleration for a 1080p resolution. Thing is I'm currently in a bit of a dilemma because there are so many premade images out there, and most of them seem outdated. Can you recommend me which image to use for my goal (possibly a LTS release)?

 

I've been leaning towards Lubuntu, but I see debian has some images too. I hear it's recommended to use the old 3.4.x kernel from linux-sunxi github repository when media acceleration is needed (I'll be watching youtube). This I can compile myself, but I'm not too sure about compatibility with the newer linux releases due to some of them using systemd that might (?) be incompatible with older kernels? Finally, I'm planning to install the OS (rootfs) onto a 120GB SSD that is connected via the SATA port and boot the image from the NAND flash. I think a special uboot is needed for this as well?

 

 

Kind regards!

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Guest Blisk

I've compiled the stage/sunxi-3.4 (3.4.104+) kernel and a mainline u-boot (2015-07-rc2). I'm currently booting from a SD-card and the system seems to boot up fine. For the distro I tried to find an up-to-date rootfs image and chose ubuntu-mate. https://ubuntu-mate.org/armhf-rootfs/ I've put the rootfs on an ext4 partition on a SSD that's connected via the SATA port, and did some details like copying kernel modules over, set the rootfs in uboot to /dev/sda, edit fstab, etc. The system boots up fine and brings up the desktop welcome screen on my HDMI monitor, but it gets stuck after I complete the first-boot configuration.

 

Serial console gets stuck on this line: A start job is running for End-user...tallation (27min 28s / no limit)

 

EDIT: Seems like two messages are getting overwritten there. One of them is "Starting End-user configuration after initial OEM installation..." and the other "A start job is running for" something...

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If you are trying to glue kernel, uboot and some generic root-fs you are going few steps back. You need to fix default Debian / Ubuntu that things run smoothly, you won't be able to compile modules and upgrading will probably fail.

 

My work covers this. Get my latest (3.4.108 if you need audio video features + some hw acceleration, otherwise 4.x) kernel with many patches and latest stable u-boot. This is somehow a good start.

 

I am not working much on desktop but I successfully upgraded my distribution toward graphics environment, MATE (on Debian) included. Note that all graphics memory reservation is disabled by default since this is "server image".

 

Check Cubian X1, cubian.org or cubiuntu.com as reference. Unfortunately none of those are not supported any more so it would be better to work from my fairly updated basis.

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Haha bingo!

 

Now you see why I'm having so much trouble locating an appropriate *SUPPORTED* linux image. This ubuntu-mate distro seems like a recent one, but I'm having problems running it. Personally I don't care too much about upgrading the kernel/u-boot because the kernel I'm using is the sunxi one and it isn't being as actively developed any more, but it does have hardware acceleration unlike the current mainline. I've already cross-compiled it as well as the modules, and they seems to work fine (tried on arch linux arm). So yes, this is why I decided to stick with sunxi-3.4 for the time being.

 

Huh, there is kernel version 3.4.108? I thought the one in linux-sunxi github repo (stage/sunxi-3.4 branch, version 3.4.104+) was the most recent one...

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No, we are using alternative 3.4.x kernel which has all what has default sunxi community kernel + lemaker fixes + many 3rd party patches and also one known disadvantage - it's not possible to compile latest MALI drivers with it but eventually this will be fixed. Maybe this doesn't work with default kernel anyway? Haven't got a chance to test.

 

It was developed within Cubieboard community then Daniel and I continue to keep it up to date. 

 

https://github.com/dan-and/linux-sunxi

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Guest Blisk

Do you perhaps know, if there are any incompatibilities between a recent debian-based linux distro and an old kernel like 3.4?

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Guest Blisk

Thanks.

 

I took a look into that FEX file and compared it against my own. The files seem very similar apart from some additional comments, but one section that caught my eye was the dram section. In Igor's FEX why are certain parameters like dram_rank_num, dram_chip_density, dram_io_width, etc. set to negative one? Is this supposed to be used in some kind of autodetection or am I better off using the existing numbers?

 

Igor's cubietruck FEX:

[dram_para]
dram_baseaddr       = 0x40000000
dram_clk            = 432
dram_type           = 3
dram_rank_num       = 0xffffffff
dram_chip_density   = 0xffffffff
dram_io_width       = 0xffffffff
dram_bus_width      = 0xffffffff
dram_cas            = 9
dram_zq             = 0x7f
dram_odt_en         = 0
dram_size           = 0xffffffff
dram_tpr0           = 0x42d899b7
dram_tpr1           = 0xa090
dram_tpr2           = 0x22a00
dram_tpr3           = 0x0
dram_tpr4           = 0x1
dram_tpr5           = 0x0
dram_emr1           = 0x4
dram_emr2           = 0x10
dram_emr3           = 0x0
sunxi cubietruck FEX:

[dram_para]
dram_baseaddr = 0x40000000
dram_clk = 432
dram_type = 3
dram_rank_num = 1
dram_chip_density = 8192
dram_io_width = 16
dram_bus_width = 32
dram_cas = 9
dram_zq = 0x7f
dram_odt_en = 0
dram_size = 2048
dram_tpr0 = 0x42d899b7
dram_tpr1 = 0xa090
dram_tpr2 = 0x22a00
dram_tpr3 = 0x0
dram_tpr4 = 0x1
dram_tpr5 = 0x0
dram_emr1 = 0x4
dram_emr2 = 0x10
dram_emr3 = 0x0
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