<xdarklight>
S905 is the Hardkernel 3.14 kernel based on Amlogic's GPL kernel sources
<xdarklight>
"ARMv8 AArch64 Multi-platform" is simply mainline
<aep2>
aah
<aep2>
how well does mainline work btw?
<xdarklight>
depends on what you need :)
<xdarklight>
I have a GXM box which I use as little home server (file storage, VPN, ...) and it's doing fine
<aep2>
tv box. i.e. video decoding
<aep2>
which sounds like a hassle to get working
<xdarklight>
neither sound nor HW video decoding are supported upstream yet
<xdarklight>
video decoding is work in progress though (thanks to mjourdan)
<aep2>
aye
<aep2>
i'll try amlogics ugly kernel then. sad
<xdarklight>
and Jerome started working on an audio driver a while ago, but work on that has paused AFAIK because he was working on AXG audio (different audio hardware than GXBB/GXL/GXM)
<aep2>
i can do without audio
<aep2>
do happen to know any kernel sources for the S912 around? or is it always the same for all amlogic chips?
<xdarklight>
do you mean mainline kernel sources or Amlogic kernel sources?
<aep2>
well, i'd ideally want to try both
<aep2>
mainline seems to be one-for-all right?
<xdarklight>
yep, mainline is one-for-all
<xdarklight>
and I believe it's the same for the Amlogic kernel sources, but there's different versions (based on 3.14, based on 4.9, ...) and I'm not sure about those
<aep2>
gotcha
<aep2>
i'm going to try building a mainline kernel first without buildroot
<chewitt>
using 3.14 kernel and Android libmali + libhybris
<chewitt>
from 'wrxtasy' via the LE forums
<aep2>
errr, so there are blobs for 3.14 but not for 4.18?
<chewitt>
there are no Linux blobs for any version
<aep2>
right. hybris then
<chewitt>
but under the older kernel it's possible to frankenstein something with libhybris and the Android blobs
<aep2>
and mainline can do without all of that
<aep2>
so basically the only 2 sane options are mainline and android
<chewitt>
it's not possible on mainline
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<chewitt>
hybris needs to work with a kernel that broadly matches an equivalent 'Android' kernel version
<aep2>
by mainline i mean the Elyotna tree
<aep2>
which seems to be a complete reimplementation rather than the android stuff
<chewitt>
it's a complete foss rewrite of the video decoder
<aep2>
narmstrong: that dtb is bringing up some completely different phy thats not attached on my board
<aep2>
why did they decide to add a different chip if this thing has a phy already oO
<aep2>
chewitt: thanks alot for the info
<aep2>
sounds like i need to android or mainline D:
<chewitt>
so hybris needs Android 8 support .. which is only partially done and requires a rewrite of all the graphics stuff
<chewitt>
and it's still a hack
<aep2>
yeah
<narmstrong>
aep2: the internal phy is not gigabit
<aep2>
ah!
<chewitt>
if you want Kodi .. you are stuck with 3.14 and the image in the mega share ^ I posted until some future date when a foss alternative to mali blobs is available
<chewitt>
or Android
<aep2>
yeah
<chewitt>
and alternative is being written .. but it's early days
<aep2>
xdarklight: your path worked. external phy is up now with dwmac_meson8b
<aep2>
chewitt: i wonder, isnt hybris just glibc preloading?
<aep2>
i mean, what if i just had bionic
<chewitt>
no idea .. I do distro packaging not 'proper' coding
<aep2>
i didnt know its that easy to use libmali. i was assuming its tied into the kernel somehow
<chewitt>
i'm not sure it is .. always seems to be unnecessarily complicated to work with
<chewitt>
too much license complexity for anyone with foss tastes
<lissyx>
aep2, the guy demonstrating earlier at embedded recipes said it was mostly mainline kernel
<aep2>
lissyx: yeah i'm trying the Elyotna tree now
<aep2>
thats probably the thing
<chewitt>
if you build off mainline stable (4.18.9) with the patchset and defconfig from my git repo applied you'll get the basics
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<chewitt>
there are Armbian images that are based off of the same
<aep2>
chewitt: thanks, but these will never do hw decoding right?
<aep2>
since no hybris and no meson yet
<chewitt>
my repo has hardware decoding to 1080p and 2.0 audio working nicely
<chewitt>
(not on S912 tho)
<chewitt>
multi-channel audio and 4k bits are still wip
<aep2>
nice, how so? with the meson patches?
<chewitt>
plain kernel will give you basic console output, ethernet and maybe wifi/bt depending on the chips and dts used
<chewitt>
everything else is wip
<chewitt>
so you need patches
<aep2>
looks like these are the meson patches
<chewitt>
two places to find them are my repo and the yocto/oe repo which normally lags a little
<chewitt>
narmstrong has a repo with the DRM driver
<chewitt>
mjourdan has a repo with the vdec bits
<chewitt>
there is some overlap .. as some bits are already headed upstream and others and still fluid
<chewitt>
the patch-set in my repo is curated and normally in a working state
<aep2>
nice
<chewitt>
the only challenge you'd have is that I rebase frequently so you won't be able to easily track changes
<aep2>
perfect for testing current state tho :)
<chewitt>
for an S912 board you need to create a working X11/swrast GL environment .. if running Kodi is the objective
<chewitt>
so GUI performance will be 'okay' as there is no GL acceleration (as no mali)
<chewitt>
but video should play decoded .. that bit works
<aep2>
goal is chromium on fbdev actually
<aep2>
or X11, if thats all that works
<aep2>
not sure if chromium even has working v4l oO
<gdeverlant>
I had problems with docker-machine ssh manager "docker network create --driver=overlay traefik-net
<gdeverlant>
with overlay networks because old kernel was not built with all docker kernel opts
<aep2>
yeah 3.10 is pretty old
<gdeverlant>
the problem was with overlay networks
<gdeverlant>
xdarklight
<xdarklight>
if you want to use that Arch Linux ARM ARMv7 Multi-platform download you can follow the installation instructions from https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/arm/versatile-express (installation tab, you only need the part from "Install to a SD card")
<narmstrong>
gdeverlant: well, since xdarklight is the main Meson8 developer and says so, I think so
<xdarklight>
if it doesn't work then I probably broke something ;)
<gdeverlant>
lol that's funny
<gdeverlant>
so can i just flash my sdcard with Win32DiskImager with that distro
<narmstrong>
gdeverlant:you will need to create a partition map, flash the hardkernel u-boot binary and untar the filesystem in your root partition, then yes
<gdeverlant>
I've learned only that way sorry If I sound noobs
<aep2>
assuming the win thing can keep linux file permissions while extracting. i dont think so
<gdeverlant>
the Win32DiskImager accept only *.IMG files
<gdeverlant>
Is that distro built with all the Docker necessary kernel options ?
<aep2>
you'll need something that can create an ext partition out of a tarball
<aep2>
yes, very likely its what you want
<gdeverlant>
ok how do I create a ext partition out of that ?
<gdeverlant>
I have ext2Volume Manager
<gdeverlant>
so that I can browse inside of my SD card once it is flashed
<gdeverlant>
from Windows Explorer
<aep2>
i really dont think you're going to get anywhere with windows tools. they dont preserve linux permissions
<aep2>
find a specialized tool or boot linux in a vm
<narmstrong>
gdeverlant: you won't be able to do it from windows
<gdeverlant>
i have vbox
<gdeverlant>
with a linux installed
<aep2>
chewitt: do you have more info for these armbian images you linked? i cant find an uimage in there
<chewitt>
nope .. but it's .img so I'd write to an SD card and see what what happens when you power the box on
<gdeverlant>
when I flash an IMG file odroid c1 was booting well
<aep2>
chewitt: nothing :P the box doesnt boot from sd
<gdeverlant>
but it was via Windows and Win32DiskImager
<gdeverlant>
is it possible to transform those tar into IMG files ?
<aep2>
yes, on linux
<gdeverlant>
lol
<gdeverlant>
so how does it work with Virtual Box ?
<gdeverlant>
I create a shared folder
<gdeverlant>
for my VM and the run it
<gdeverlant>
and from linux which command I use to change the tar to IMG ?
<gdeverlant>
am I thinking right her e?
<xdarklight>
I wouldn't bother with shared folders on Virtual Box
<gdeverlant_>
because I wanted to run the minimal 5mb in ram distro
<gdeverlant_>
and archilinux is huge
<gdeverlant_>
will the generic ARM package work on odroid c1 ?
<gdeverlant_>
it seems that it is using uboot latest
<gdeverlant_>
if you look inside of the D:\odroid\alpine-uboot-3.8.1-armhf.tar\.\boot\dtbs\
<gdeverlant_>
there are so many files
<gdeverlant_>
which one is for odroid c1 ?
<gdeverlant_>
I wanted Alpine instead of Archilinux sorry guys
<gdeverlant_>
I'm all the time confusing between both distro
<gdeverlant_>
is this distro from Alpine with odroid c1 or c2 compatible
<gdeverlant_>
and I would like to know if it is using the mainline kernel
<gdeverlant_>
well I'm on their channel now asking them
<gdeverlant_>
I'm so sorry for my mistake
<gdeverlant_>
I feel like the crocodile in Crocodile Dundee
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<rcasa>
something I'd like to know, I struggled quite a bit to boot 4.18.8 on my Wetek Hub, it was booting with an old device tree from 4.12, but not with the most recent one
<rcasa>
I managed to boot by modifying the latest device tree adding 1 MIb reserved-memory @ 0x05300000
<rcasa>
looks like the firmware is loading a blob there: Load bl32 from eMMC, src: 0x0003c000, des: 0x05300000, size: 0x0002ead0
<rcasa>
As others may encounter same issue, so I wonder how what's the process to have this added to linux-amlogic?
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<gdeverlant>
sorry guys
<gdeverlant>
I got rebooted
<xdarklight>
rcasa: "most recent one" being v4.18 or newer?
<xdarklight>
(I'm not sure if the output from u-boot matches the physical addresses used in linux, so this may be related)
<rcasa>
xdarklight: it's 4.18.8 built with yocto using meta-meson from superna9999, aka narmstrong, which includes the vdec patches
<rcasa>
xdarklight: I saw that commit adding reserved memory 3 Mib at 0x05000000, the funny thing is if I remove that then it boots ok!
<xdarklight>
that is weird. maybe narmstrong has an idea why
<rcasa>
and that made no sense (how can removing reserve memory solve the issue?) so then I looked deeper and found the bl32 load at 0x05300000,
<xdarklight>
(my GXBB board died a while ago so I can't test it myself)
<narmstrong>
It’s weird because @chewitt uses the same kernel for the Hub with the same patches without any issues
<xdarklight>
u-boot version maybe?
<rcasa>
could be
<narmstrong>
rcasa: is it the original u-boot ?
<rcasa>
Yes, or one from an OTA update, let me get the date
<xdarklight>
the test-case for reserved memory regions (when they are used by some firmware blob) is: boot device, fill all memory (using stress-ng or similar). if it hangs: then there may be a missing reserved memory region. if it doesn't hang then the current set of reserved memory regions is probably fine
<rcasa>
narmstrong: I have "U-Boot 2015.01-g0d1a15d-dirty (Mar 21 2017 - 19:17:25)" but before that there seem to be another firmware that starts "BL2 Built : 09:01:42, Oct 11 2016. gxb g88b04d6 - haixiang.bao@droid05"
<rcasa>
xdarklight: thanks for the info about stress-ng, something I should try
<gdeverlant>
hey guys I'm talking with mps from alpine-linux channel
<gdeverlant>
he says that he runs Alpine mainline kernel on Allwinners SOC
<gdeverlant>
I want to know if someone had success with Alpine on odroid c1 ?
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<xdarklight>
gdeverlant: Allwinner != Amlogic, that's two different SoC manufacturers (the only thing they have in common are the ARM cores)
<xdarklight>
gdeverlant: but if they have an Allwinner mainline kernel then they can probably also build one which has support for the Amlogic SoCs
<xdarklight>
rcasa: I should also explain *why* filling the memory crashes the board: if there's only low memory usage in the kernel then <insert random memory region here> may never be overwritten even if not marked as reserved memory zone. however, if you fill all memory (for example with 0x00 or 0xff) then you'll overwrite the reserved memory region at some point and whatever expects <special data> to be in that memory area will crash because it
<xdarklight>
was overwritten
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<gdeverlant>
yeah mpg is telling me the process is the same
<gdeverlant>
it would work
<gdeverlant>
the dude's name is mps
<rcasa>
xdarklight: thanks for the explanation, makes sense
<gdeverlant>
now the dude from alpine linux channel told me
<gdeverlant>
that we can use the kernel from archlinux
<gdeverlant>
with alpine
<gdeverlant>
the mainline one
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<gdeverlant>
ok guys I installed Archlinux on my windows 10 via VBox
<gdeverlant_>
and put the sdcard in the board turned it on
<gdeverlant_>
nothing was blinking
<xdarklight>
ah sorry - that's how you prepare the rootfs and the boot partition. in addition to that you need to configure u-boot and so it knows how to boot correctly
<gdeverlant_>
dude I wasted one day on this crap
<gdeverlant_>
:(
<gdeverlant_>
now you tell me
<xdarklight>
sorry :/
<gdeverlant_>
xdarklight: how am I supposed to do uboot then ?
<xdarklight>
instead of making a complicated UI to install it you're basically supposed to do everything on your own (with lots of useful info on the Arch Linux wiki though)
<gdeverlant_>
can you update after step 9 with the correct steps ?
<gdeverlant_>
because step 10 is not working
<gdeverlant_>
or recorrect the tutorial so that it includes u-boot also
<xdarklight>
actually I haven't contributed anything to Arch Linux ARM yet - these steps are for the Versatile Express boards, not for <insert any other board here>. I always use them as reference because they are perfectly fine for setting up a rootfs
<xdarklight>
on most of my systems I only need a rootfs because I boot kernels via network (tftp) as this reduces the development time
<xdarklight>
(imaging: change one line in the kernel, remove SD card from <device>, insert SD card into computer, mount it, copy new kernel image over, remove Sd card from computer, insert into <device>, boot device again -> this becomes: change code, reboot device, enter command in u-boot, go)
<xdarklight>
ah, there's this strange boot.ini on Odroid-C1
<gdeverlant_>
woooohh this is to geek for me
<xdarklight>
I never used that because my Odroid-C1 came with eMMC and u-boot is stored there
<gdeverlant_>
you just lost me bro :D
<gdeverlant_>
which kernel are you running on odroid cc1
<gdeverlant_>
????
<xdarklight>
[ 0.000000] Linux version 4.19.0-rc5-00163-g5b9b8ee0e4df (xdarklight@blackbox) (gcc version 8.2.0 (Arch Repository)) #3087 SMP Tue Sep 25 23:42:02 CEST 2018
<gdeverlant_>
what ?
<xdarklight>
4.19-rc5 + like 30 patches that haven't made it into mainline yet
<gdeverlant_>
can't you make a IMG file from yours
<gdeverlant_>
so that I can just flash a working thing
<gdeverlant_>
this is bcoming too complicated
<xdarklight>
I just realized that my SD card setup on Odroid-C1 is incomplete:
<gdeverlant_>
blackbox is not odroid c1
<xdarklight>
blackbox is the machine I'm using to compile the kernel
<gdeverlant_>
it would be really amazing
<gdeverlant_>
to have an IMG file
<gdeverlant_>
that I can just flash and install
<gdeverlant_>
bro this is so complicated
<gdeverlant_>
I'm not a hacker
<gdeverlant_>
lol
<xdarklight>
I just realized that my SD card setup on Odroid-C1 is incomplete: I don't have a boot.ini there (because my Odroid-C1 also has eMMC flash, and u-boot and boot.ini are stored there)
<gdeverlant_>
I don't eMMC
<xdarklight>
even if I make a copy of my SD card and upload it somewhere I believe it won't work for you
<gdeverlant_>
I microSD card
<gdeverlant_>
It is too expensive emmc
<xdarklight>
I would need some time to make an "SD-card only" solution that works - but I don't have much time at the moment
<xdarklight>
maybe someone in the hardkernel forums has an image ready which he/she can share?
<gdeverlant_>
well i hope someone here is from the forum
<gdeverlant_>
because I don't find forum very organized
<gdeverlant_>
it's messy out there
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<gdeverlant_>
xdarklight
<gdeverlant_>
just let me know when you think having the time