04:00 <buzzmarshall> mace... he is making a reference to the parts of the makers bootloader that get assembled into a FIP package and used as the bootloader

04:01 <buzzmarshall> usually the SoC's masked in bl1 code will authenticate and load the next part which is the bl2 and so on

04:01 <buzzmarshall> that all gets build into a fip package/uboot that brings everything up

04:02 <buzzmarshall> some of the SoC's that have speed and memory settings setup for the chips there using make it hard to construct the bootloader without knowing what those settings are

04:02 <buzzmarshall> they are usually part of the bl2

04:03 <buzzmarshall> so having that info from the maker is the best way to know how to construct the fip

04:04 <buzzmarshall> if you've got a working board with something like Android on it you can fish it out but having the sources just make things easier

04:05 <buzzmarshall> theres a few pieces that need to be stitched together depending on the hardware and how secure they are making it

04:06 <buzzmarshall> i think thats what chewitt was making a reference to... if not hopefully he will correct what i just said

04:11 <buzzmarshall> the fip reference comes from the Arm Trusted Firmware platform

14:15 <gavlee> :)

14:16 <gavlee> was trying to "fish out" things yesterday

14:18 <gavlee> think i need better fishing tackle

14:21 <gavlee> bought a s905x3? on amazon random buy, looks nice but still no idea how to boot anything other than the default firmware or recovery. having fun with toothpicks

14:24 <gavlee> cross compile kernel and u-boot but I guess there are missing things I have in the bootloader mention earlier in this chat, maybe I should have checked this chat while I was trying it :D

16:52 <chewitt> gavlee: what box (make/model) did you get?

16:52 <chewitt> and what kind of alternative OS would you like to boot? - what's the use case?

16:58 <gavlee> It's an X96 Air? Would like to get Gentoo on it so general purpose but anything would be a start. made backups of the firmware on there and loaded twrp from the stock recovery but cannot seem to boot anything else so there must be something I'm missing. I guess should order another usb to ttl adapter...

17:00 <gavlee> also don't have a windows install for the flash tool. still trying to find the things I need..

17:03 <chewitt> https://github.com/chewitt/linux/commit/fa65bcc3a591036f2fe7f0cce46063bcd0ccd4e4

17:04 <chewitt> ^ this is complete guess (mildly educated) but I'd be interested in working with someone to test and get it right

17:05 <chewitt> https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing/9.80/LibreELEC-AMLG12.arm-9.80.0-box.img.gz

17:05 <chewitt> ^ set the dtb name in uEnv.ini

17:06 <gavlee> that's super!!! thanks so much

17:06 <chewitt> if that boots, you should be able to experiment with "balbes150" images for Armbian, and from there you can probably figure out gentoo

17:07 <gavlee> that's made my day so much happier lol

17:07 <chewitt> see if it works first :)

17:08 <chewitt> LE packaging is a little different to most desktop distros but our boot scripts and Oleg's (balbes150) have common origins so should be stealable

17:09 <chewitt> put the image on an SD card, don't put on emmc

17:10 <chewitt> some of the S905X2/X3 devices can be tricky to get into update mode, it's a little easier to guess the timing with a TTL/UART cable as you can see what's going on

17:16 <gavlee> Yes I recognise from the code I was reading but unsure which images because of changes in the way the images set up multi-boot or something. got used to fiddly update mode with a old rockchip tablet :) Happy to test am getting the bits and will have a go. Thanks again

17:30 <chewitt> If it appears to boot but then doesn't complete due to device-tree, have a go with the SEI610 dtb

17:31 <chewitt> I've had reports it worked on A95X-F3 which is another S905X3 device, and box devices tend to be similar

17:32 <chewitt> if both boot and "work" .. let me know which one has more bits working (Ethernet, WiFi, BT, etc.)

17:32 <chewitt> is your box 10/100 or 10/100/1000 Ethernet?

17:34 <gavlee> was advertised as 1000 but not checked fully

17:36 <gavlee> I dd the libreelec image and got a blue/black screens this so something happened, not sure what :)

17:38 <chewitt> this is normal .. sec

17:38 <chewitt> drop https://www.dropbox.com/s/gy294iyl0ff0wsi/u-boot.ext?dl=0 in the root of the SD card and reboot, and it might/should hopefully solve that

17:39 <chewitt> u-boot.ext is mainline u-boot, so we chainload it from vendor u-boot

17:40 <gavlee> ok. i run libreelec on a couple of rpi3b so it installed and does some things to the sd like resize the partition?

17:41 <chewitt> yes, exact same install process

17:41 <gavlee> let me try it again after a coffee i'm parched

17:41 <chewitt> np

17:50 <gavlee> meson-sm1-sei610.dtb booted, the colours look a little funny

17:51 <gavlee> now at the libreelec welcome screen :D

17:52 <gavlee> cheers

18:00 <gavlee> at least I know have working example to look at need to do some thing but will be having another look later

18:00 <gavlee> thanks so much for the help

18:06 <gavlee> btw this is the one .. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZL11CNZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

18:09 <gavlee> I notice there are x96 air with different remote? i dunno lol.. anyway back bit later

18:18 <chewitt> If you can share "dmesg | paste" output that would be useful