Rabian (Debian 8) distribution on UT3S

[bragma]

Hi,
just wanted to let you know that Radxa's "Rabian" Debian based distribution works pretty well on UT3S (which seems to be compatible to Rock2 Square). I'm still testing all features, but seems to be a good alternative to Ugoos' Ubuntu.

More informations on Rabian:

http://radxa.com/Rabian

Emmc images can be written directly to internal flash. Here is the link to Rabian images:

http://dl.radxa.com/rock2_square/images/rabian/

[mo123]

Hi,
just wanted to let you know that Radxa's "Rabian" Debian based distribution works pretty well on UT3S (which seems to be compatible to Rock2 Square). I'm still testing all features, but seems to be a good alternative to Ugoos' Ubuntu.

More informations on Rabian:

http://radxa.com/Rabian

Emmc images can be written directly to internal flash. Here is the link to Rabian images:

http://dl.radxa.com/rock2_square/images/rabian/

Does everything work, wifi,bt,ethernet,USB?
Have you tried this older Rabian but with Kodi support?

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rk3288-devices/512974-xbmc-kodi-on-linux-rk3288

http://www.mac-l1.com/

Have you tried swapping UT3S linux kernel with the Rabian one and test if it also boots?

[bragma]

Lots of questions. Let's go in order:

1. Wi-Fi: works
2. Ethernet: works
3. BT: Still have to test
4. USB: Keyboard and mouse both work
5. Didn't try the other Rabian, I am not interested in Kodi
6. Didn't swap the kernel yet. I'm a bit new with RK3288 related tools, I need to understand how to extract parts from the single image provided by Radxo.

Just wanted to tell that it boots and it seems to be stable (no crashes up to now), all devices I've tried worked. Maybe I've been a bit too optimistic regarding the "works well" part, but I just wanted to trigger other people on trying it and reporting. Sorry about that. :-)
I'll continue to test it.

[mo123]

Lots of questions. Let's go in order:

1. Wi-Fi: works
2. Ethernet: works
3. BT: Still have to test
4. USB: Keyboard and mouse both work
5. Didn't try the other Rabian, I am not interested in Kodi
6. Didn't swap the kernel yet. I'm a bit new with RK3288 related tools, I need to understand how to extract parts from the single image provided by Radxo.

Just wanted to tell that it boots and it seems to be stable (no crashes up to now), all devices I've tried worked. Maybe I've been a bit too optimistic regarding the "works well" part, but I just wanted to trigger other people on trying it and reporting. Sorry about that. :-)
I'll continue to test it.

Thanks
I did try Rabian but it was when it was first released and it didn't boot, but I'll try the latest image as lots of things have changed.
Only thing not working might be the fan or HDMI-IN on UT3 model.

[bragma]

FYI, the image I'm using is: rock2_square_rabian_150720_5d53487_emmc.img
I don't know about the HDMI-IN (I'm using an UT3S, so no HDMI-IN), but read below.
Regarding the fan and leds, give a look to /opt/ugoos/usettings folder in Ugoos' Ubuntu. There is an interesting script called "uSettBoot.sh" which sets the fan mode, leds and more directly writing to "/sys/devices/":

/sys/devices/fff16000.ug_fan/mode
/sys/devices/fff16100.leds/leds/blueower/trigger
/sys/lt8641ex/channe

Of course those may not be present in Rabian due to the image containing a kernel for Rock2. Any idea how to extract the kernel and other partitions from the "emmc" image? And how to recreate one?
If anything fails, we can try to flash with the entire image, and then overwrite the kernel partition with Ugoos' kernel.

[mo123]

FYI, the image I'm using is: rock2_square_rabian_150720_5d53487_emmc.img
I don't know about the HDMI-IN (I'm using an UT3S, so no HDMI-IN), but read below.
Regarding the fan and leds, give a look to /opt/ugoos/usettings folder in Ugoos' Ubuntu. There is an interesting script called "uSettBoot.sh" which sets the fan mode, leds and more directly writing to "/sys/devices/":

/sys/devices/fff16000.ug_fan/mode
/sys/devices/fff16100.leds/leds/blueower/trigger
/sys/lt8641ex/channe

Of course those may not be present in Rabian due to the image containing a kernel for Rock2. Any idea how to extract the kernel and other partitions from the "emmc" image? And how to recreate one?
If anything fails, we can try to flash with the entire image, and then overwrite the kernel partition with Ugoos' kernel.

Can use http://vondroid.com/threads/rk3xxx-f.../#.VbD5ArUplX4
It unpacks single image into different parts and back again.
Then you can mount the linuxroot.img in Ubuntu as root user to edit/copy files in the image.
You can then also extract the linux_boot.img that contain the linux kernel(with boot or recovery extract option in the tool, not sure which one but think it's recovery in single tools) with the tool and replace the kernel with UGOOS one and repack.
Maybe compare the extracted folder of linux_boot of UGOOS and Radxa Rabian and see if there are differences in the linux_boot image files.
Can use a tool like Meld in Windows/Linux or Beyond Compare.

[bragma]

Thanks, I'll give it a look.

[gffmac]

mo123 I managed to get kodi running on this with MAC_L1's instructions but I have no audio.

[mo123]

mo123 I managed to get kodi running on this with MAC_L1's instructions but I have no audio.

Luckily I know how to fix the audio.

Can you play video in 720p/1080p?
Do you only have Rabian installed or also booting it with Android?
Mac_L1 patches - Did you only install the 2 Debian patches or followed other instructions also?
The problem will be to make a new kernel since the UT3 and other RK3288 have had several firmware improvements, code that the Radxa firmware doesn't contain.
Have to try to combine things and hope it doesn't brake Kodi compatibility.
Will do some tests in the next 2 days.

[gffmac]

Luckily I know how to fix the audio.

Can you play video in 720p/1080p?
Do you only have Rabian installed or also booting it with Android?
Mac_L1 patches - Did you only install the 2 Debian patches or followed other instructions also?
The problem will be to make a new kernel since the UT3 and other RK3288 have had several firmware improvements, code that the Radxa firmware doesn't contain.
Have to try to combine things and hope it doesn't brake Kodi compatibility.
Will do some tests in the next 2 days.

Playback seems very smooth indeed in 720/1080p, more than happy with it, couple of skips but very smooth if we could get audio working too
I flashed this image http://dl.radxa.com/rock2_square/ima...87_emmc.img.xz didn't bother trying to get android working.
I flashed an edited parameter file, installed machybris-0.1.0_armhf.deb and mackodi-jessie-0.1.0_armhf.deb as per instructions.

Noticed rock2_square_linaro-trusty-desktop_150706_7a5e051_emmc.img.xz also out might give that a whirl and see what performance is like.

[mo123]

Playback seems very smooth indeed in 720/1080p, more than happy with it, couple of skips but very smooth if we could get audio working too
I flashed this image http://dl.radxa.com/rock2_square/ima...87_emmc.img.xz didn't bother trying to get android working.
I flashed an edited parameter file, installed machybris-0.1.0_armhf.deb and mackodi-jessie-0.1.0_armhf.deb as per instructions.

Noticed rock2_square_linaro-trusty-desktop_150706_7a5e051_emmc.img.xz also out might give that a whirl and see what performance is like.

Yes, please test Linaro.
Maybe point to some screenshots or post some, would be nice to see how it compares.
Then I can fix the audio on either Linaro or Rabian, whichever is best.

[bragma]

mo123, do you have access to UT3S kernel source code with specific configuration and patches from Ugoos?

[mo123]

mo123, do you have access to UT3S kernel source code with specific configuration and patches from Ugoos?

I have kernel source code for the board.
But no patches from UGOOS(eg. things they modify for Android), I ask other companies about patches then they send to me if I need or I combine patches from other sources.
But Firefly kernel is very identical and boots on UT3S, can also extract UT3S dts file from resource.img from UT3S firmware.
https://bitbucket.org/T-Firefly/fire...el/commits/all

[bragma]

Mayve we could ping Ugoos. I'd like to fix that duplicated MAC address problem for ethernet and wifi.

[mo123]

Mayve we could ping Ugoos. I'd like to fix that duplicated MAC address problem for ethernet and wifi.

It has been fixed in new UGOOS firmware for Android, but not sure how to do it for Linux.
http://ugoos.net/blog/ugoos-rk3288-u...droid-firmware
You can also send me the patch(if you know) by PM if possible then I can include it in my new firmware/kernel if not too difficult to implement.