(pre-Alpha 0.2 released) (RK3066) - Ubuntu Linux/Android DualBoot - 1080p - New Kernel & More!!

[vampirex]

11/29/12 UPDATE: get the pre-alpha release here:

http://www.armtvtech.com/armtvtechforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=738

Hi everybody,
I am creating this separate thread to answer questions relative to my work on developing a version of Ubuntu Linux for RK3066 devices. All questions specifically related to the RK3066 kernel should go in the MK808 development thread.
EDIT: I have just released pre-Alpha 0.2, more details here:http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/41453-p ... mk802-iii/

Ubuntu for the UG802 and other RK3066 devices is made up of two parts:
1) The kernel + initramfs that has to be flashed in ROM.
2) The rootfs that goes on an SD card or possibly (if I manage to do it right) on any mass storage medium recognized by the kernel.

The rootfs is basically the same that I have already published for the ElfII (see my Slatedroid thread), updated with the latest Quantal packages and with minor changes to rc.local to remove any ElfII stuff.

The kernel + initramfs I am still working on, but it is based on the kernel source code I received from Andy Kirby (Rikomagic) and that I have made available on Github.

As soon as I am satisfied that I have something at least bootable and usable, I'll publish a pre-Alpha version (for developers and risk-takers) with basic installation instructions.

These are the planned features for the pre-Alpha release:

• Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal armhf based.
• Easy to install and dual-boot (does not erase your Android installation).
• HDMI 1920x1080 60Hz aka 1080p.
• XFCE desktop.
• Linux framebuffer consoles.
• HDMI sound support.
• Full array of cpufreq governors (I suggest the interactive governor).
• 1.6GHz max. clock frequency.
• USB mouse, keyboard and USB storage tested. If I have enough time I'll also test a webcam.
• Kernel source code and full compiler suite included, so the RK3066 device becomes an autonomous mini development system.
• Obviously, internal Wifi, if I can get it to work. Otherwise, you'll need a $4 Realtek or Ralink USB Wifi dongle or a $5 USB 2.0 10/100 ASIX or SR9700 Ethernet dongle to connect to your network.

AndrewDB

CREDITS: Ubuntu Linux for RK3066 devices wouldn't be possible without the upstream work by quite a few people:

• deadhp1 who created the ArmTvTech forum among other things.
• fun who has been developing for many ARM devices for quite a long time and wrote some fundamental utilities for developers.
• Omegamoon who first compiled and booted a kernel on the RK3066, among other contributions.
• Andy Kirby from Rikomagic who released a version of the RK3066 kernel source tree and sent me a sample MK802 III for development.
• mosfet for his work on the WiFi drivers.
• many others who have contributed in the kernel thread.
• Bob Finless for his excellent Android ROM images.
• Christian Troy for his equally excellent CM9 / CM10 ROM images.

Please note that this pre-Alpha release is not for beginners and Linux newbies. There is no hand-holding at this stage, you are on your own.
There are bugs both known and unknown, it may destroy your PC stick, it won't play any movies, etc.
That is exactly why it's a pre-Alpha, this is not even Alpha grade software: it is guaranteed to break, and you get to keep the pieces.

Hey guys,
Got Some Great news!

AndrewDB just got handed the RK3066 Kernel Source by andykirby, and is working hard to produce a port of Ubuntu Linux 12.10 for MK802 III & RK3066 Based devices.
Read Below from the man himself.

Follow the threads here:

http://www.rikomagic.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2723

http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/40717-ubuntu-linux-for-the-ug802/

http://armtvtech.com/armtvtechforum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=212&sid=720ceb00b9e6908532eef7efc175daa6

andykirby
Guys,

I am happy to announce we are now working on a port of Ubuntu Linux 12.10 for the MK802III.

We are extremely lucky to have the very talented AndrewDB working on this and all developments will be posted here, as and when they happen. This is very exciting as we have already determined that the SOC used in the MK802III (the Rockchip RK3066) is an extremely powerful processor and it is much more suited to run a full desktop version of Ubuntu than the Allwinner A10.

I have copied AndrewDB's earlier post below:

AndrewDB
Cheers,

Andy

Hi everybody,
I am the developer of Ubuntu Linux on the RK3066. I was contacted by Andy Kirby and he is kindly sending me a sample of the MK 802 III for development work. I expect to have an Alpha version of Ubuntu Linux 12.10 Quantal running on it in a few days and I'll publish a dual boot Android / Ubuntu Linux ROM as soon as possible (yes it's possible to dual boot Android and Linux on the RK3066).
Andy also sent me the kernel source for the RK3066. I had previously been working on a leaked version of the RK3066 kernel source (the "Edison" kernel) that was based on earlier code from Rockchip.

Based on my work on the kernel, I can already explain some of the issues users have encountered with the RK3066 devices:

Some TVs not supported / blank screen: this is due to poor coding of the EDID detection code in the HDMI driver in the RK3066 kernel. As soon as possible I am going to work on this.

1080p not fully supported / screen stretching issues: this is due to incorrect memory allocation and incorrect scaling parameters in the HDMI code. This I have already solved. The RK3066 is perfectly capable of full HD resolution (1080p) for normal Android/Linux use and movie playback.

Wifi issues (apart from antenna issues): the RTL8188 chip used in the MK802 III has many different options that can be set when the driver is loaded at runtime and these affect the stability of the wifi connections and the speed. There is work to be done to find the perfect combination of parameters.

Heat vs. max speed issues: the RK3066 has both clock and voltage scaling capabilities and the kernel has various cpufreq governors available, each one with parameters that can be changed to obtain the best results i.e. the best compromise between speed and heat. Again here some work is required but the code is there.

Soon... We'll finally have the device we thought we bought... lol

[userx]

THIS IS HUGH !

[ApocalypseSticks]

Very exciting news on the development front.

Some questions for the end-user, Will the upcoming changes affect Android as well as the Linux port? Is this device specific to the MK802 III or will other Rockchip 3066 devices be able to take advantage?

[vampirex]

Very exciting news on the development front.

Some questions for the end-user, Will the upcoming changes affect Android as well as the Linux port? Is this device specific to the MK802 III or will other Rockchip 3066 devices be able to take advantage?

Those are good questions.. I'm assuming it will work on Android, as AndrewDB stated that it should.
Also the only reason why it was annouced for the MK802 III, is because AndrewDB was approached with the RK3066 Kernel Source and a MK802 III sample to work with.

I think that AndrewDB owns a MK808, and I think he was initially developing the kernel on that.

And i'm sure, once the RK3066 kernel and linux releases, a bunch of developers are gonna jump on the bandwagon and port it to other RK3066 bases devices... UG802,MK808 etc...

[bbjayo]

Very exciting news on the development front.

Some questions for the end-user, Will the upcoming changes affect Android as well as the Linux port? Is this device specific to the MK802 III or will other Rockchip 3066 devices be able to take advantage?

It looks as if this will offer a dual boot solution and won't be a Linux image mounted in Android.

This is the original thread

bb

[jason1]

Hey guys,
Got Some Great news!

AndrewDB just got handed the RK3066 Kernel Source by andykirby, and is working hard to produce a port of Ubuntu Linux 12.10 for MK802 III & RK3066 Based devices.
Read Below from the man himself.

Follow the thread here:

http://www.rikomagic.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2723

Soon... We'll finally have the device we thought we bought... lol

any possible 2 write the guildeline how to do it,Thxs

[slevint7]

Does this mean we might be able to get hardware acceleration for xbmc?

[vampirex]

any possible 2 write the guildeline how to do it,Thxs

Does this mean we might be able to get hardware acceleration for xbmc?

I don't know.

[bbjayo]

Does this mean we might be able to get hardware acceleration for xbmc?

The linux kernel being used / tested supprts hw accel. for mali in xbmc so yes, this is very good news

[vampirex]

Update!

Hey guys, here is the latest updates from AndrewDB, in case you missed it or havn't been following any of the threads posted above.

Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:42 am
Guys, I just got back to my office, I am restarting my development work on Ubuntu Linux on RK3066 devices today.

As I suspected, the new kernel source tree (which I'll call the "Riko kernel" from now on, as opposed to the "Edison kernel" which I was using previously) is more complete and should solve quite a few problems that I was having with the older kernel source tree. I have already compiled it this morning and this afternoon I should be testing it out.

In any case, if anybody wants to compile the kernel for any RK3066 device I suggest to use the "Riko kernel" source tree from now on.

Thu Nov 22, 2012 8:46 am
Hi everybody,
Just a short update on what I have been working on:
1) The slow USB transfers I was observing last week seem to be solved.
2) I am working on getting the ALSA HDMI sound driver going. That shouldn't be too hard.
3) I have started investigating the NAND driver.
4) Still using a wifi dongle because it works well enough for now. As soon as 2) and 3) are done I'll work on getting the internal RTL8188 chip going.
5) Last but not least is a simplified boot / dual boot / install procedure. Haven't really gotten down to working on this but have some ideas already.

Fri Nov 23, 2012 8:57 am
Hi everybody,
Just a very short update post: Rockchip HDMI Analog Stereo ALSA device (a.k.a. sound) is finally working in Ubuntu Linux on the UG802, thanks to the "riko kernel".
Anybody wanting to compile the kernel: use the "hotdog" config file as a base configuration for all the PC stick format RK3066 devices.

EDIT: and also I retested the USB transfer rates reading/writing to a USB key and the issues I was having last week with slow transfer rates seem to be solved (I am getting the USB key's rated speed on reads and writes).

[vampirex]

Pre-Alpha Coming Soon!

Great news guys!

AndrewDB wrote:
Here is my (long) list of TODO things for this kernel / Linux on the UG802:
1. Networking -> no Wifi networking right now, the Edison kernel doesn't have the correct driver for the Realtek chip in the UG802.
2. Bluetooth -> USB BT doesn't seem to work.
3. HDMI -> scaling is set at 95% (hard-coded in kernel, can you believe it!).
4. Using a USB hub causes strange issues, generating hundreds of kernel error messages.
5. No sound through HDMI -> should use hdmi-audio-codec but doesn't for some reason.
6. Have to check cpufreq governors.
7. Have to check kernel compilation with newer toolchain (still using 32-bit gcc-4.5.1 toolchain from Code Sourcery).
8. Clean up the kernel config as there are still many things remaining from the BQ Edison tablet coded in.
9. Implement dual boot as described in post above.

AndrewDB
OK everybody,
Revisiting my TODO list from two weeks ago:
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are all done.

2) USB BT not working yet: this may be due to my "el cheapo" USB Bluetooth dongles (I tried two different models), the error messages I am getting have already occurred on typical PC hardware running Linux, so it may be due to an incompatible hardware and nothing specific to the RK3066 kernel. Certainly needs more investigation and I intend to get it working, but not exactly a show-stopper.

1) Wifi (internal) not working yet. That's actually two different issues depending on whether we consider the UG802 or the MK808.

Wifi on the UG802: I still have to try the Power function I posted about. If it works, good, if it doesn't I am really out of ideas.

Wifi on the MK808: here the problem is much more complicated. Basically the RK901 module uses a BCM4330 chipset and we have the driver, but... somehow somebody (at Rockchip?) managed to make things very, very complicated, and then... they don't ship the source to the changes they made! Not even to their clients! Obviously a quick solution is to just reuse the module from the Android firmware. Ditto as for the UG802: if it works, good, if it doesn't I am really out of ideas.

So there you have it. I am giving myself another 24 hours to solve the Wifi issue and then I am publishing a pre-Alpha with whatever issues are still remaining to deal with.

[XinfinityoO]

i assume it will not work on the imito mx1 sticks ??
wifi surely wont work as the wifi drivers are a mess in imito mx1

[Finless]

i assume it will not work on the imito mx1 sticks ??
wifi surely wont work as the wifi drivers are a mess in imito mx1

Your assumption is right. Imito for whatever reason made CUSTOM WiFi drivers that cant be used on other kernels. I have tried to figure out what they are doing and it just wont work! So I can assure you that unless that changes, no chance of this working for you.

WE NEED Imito to follow GPL requirements and relese source code! All you MX1 users should EMail and hit them with this request!

Bob

[AndrewDB]

Hi guys,
Indeed the problem with the Imito MX1 is that it uses a new Wifi/Bluetooth combo chipset from Mediatek, originally designed for smartphone use and adapted for the RK3066.
Although Mediatek has merged with Ralink and Ralink has a long history of fully disclosing their wifi drivers to the Linux community, Mediatek themselves seem to have exactly the opposite philosophy and they have NEVER released a single driver source.

I already wrote two emails to Mediatek explaining that I was a Linux developer and requesting them to release the source code specifically for the MT5931 and MT6622 used in the Imito MX1 and guess what? They didn't even bother to answer!

So please follow Bob's advice and if you guys can start a MASSIVE campaign to have them release the source code, perhaps they'll take notice.

Please send emails to: Imito, Rockchip and Mediatek!

BTW: Ubuntu Linux is coming along, slowly but surely. I'll be releasing a preliminary Alpha (guaranteed to break and you get to keep the pieces) version this week that you can dual boot with any of Bob's excellent Android ROMs. It will include the RK3066 kernel source as well as the complete gcc compiler suite, making it into an autonomous development system.

Note: as far as I can tell, UG007 = Imito MX1 (hardware wise).

[lambstone]

What about for the UG007?