Running Linux From SD Card or USB Flash Drive - Using Balbes150 Method And Files.

[ajiratech]

Thanks balbes! I appreciate your response.

Understood about the Partitions. I won't worry about fdisk output now.

For the graphics side of it - I thought Amlogic website published source code for Buildroot (kernel 3.14.29) included MALI drivers. Is my understanding incorrect ?

I've tried the script you suggested and executing it does change fb osd canvas values etc, but I still did not get a display. I've tried 1080p and 720p both.

I don't mind the hard work in researching and trying, but is there a version out there that provides Video and audio though HDMI for 1080p, even if that is without GPU acceleration for the now ?

Second issue I see with this buildroot is that it detects my ethernet as 100 full and will not accept an IP address - via dhcp or via static. My ethernet is Gigabit, I've tried the DTB file for gxbb_p200 and gxbb_p201 both (my board is p201).

Please advice on any other resources I can look through.

[Nofan Tasi]

I don't mind the hard work in researching and trying, but is there a version out there that provides Video and audio though HDMI for 1080p, even if that is without GPU acceleration for the now ?

Not sure if it helps. Do you have in .config
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y
or
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=m
In last case you may need to ssh into TV Box and do
# modprobe fbcon

[ajiratech]

Thanks Nofan_Tasi.

In my buildroot I could not find any file called .config Can you please tell where to look ?
I've even tried "find / -name .config" and found none.

When I type command "modprobe fbcon" I get the following:
modprobe: module fbcon not found in modules.dep

FYI .. My ethernet on Buildroot has not picked up an IP via DHCP or via Static, so that is an open issue I'm troubleshooting as well. However I do have UART access that allows me to try commands.

[ajiratech]

Nofan_Tasi.

I'm going through the Source files, and I see a lot of config files (config.in mostly) and none so far have CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE in them.

[balbes150]

1. On the website Amlogic minimum configuration of the kernel, which is designed for video output (not for normal Linux).
2. For the script to work you need to have all the necessary components in the system (kernel with support for output, the utility fbset).
3. Normal displays the image in Linux and videoscoralie (via mali) are two different things.
4. For the network need support in the kernel and the presence of all the components (tools) in the system.


What you want to build BUILDROOT from your system ? What problem are you trying to solve ?

[Nofan Tasi]

Thanks Nofan_Tasi.

In my buildroot I could not find any file called .config Can you please tell where to look ?
I've even tried "find / -name .config" and found none.

When I type command "modprobe fbcon" I get the following:
modprobe: module fbcon not found in modules.dep

FYI .. My ethernet on Buildroot has not picked up an IP via DHCP or via Static, so that is an open issue I'm troubleshooting as well. However I do have UART access that allows me to try commands.

Not sure how this is possible. Normally when one builds its own kernel (which is what I suppose you did) eventually there must be a .config file left in linux source root defining what one wants to be present or not and what one wants to be present as module.
Once I built vanilla buildroot 20170310 and saved config. It had:

$ grep CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE buildroot-openlinux-20170310-aml-4.9.config
# CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE is not set

[ajiratech]

balbes150 .

My interest in these TV Boxes is due to the fact that they are quite powerful, come with eMMC and are quite cheap when compared to Rpi and other SBCs. Granted these TV boxes won't have the GPIO's but for many of my use cases.

The requirements for many of my different use cases is :
Powerful CPU,
onboard eMMC,
Gigabit ethernet,
Good read/write performance with USB,
GPU acceleration optional (that can come in due time).
as cheap as possible.

I'd want the ability to install tools like Node, Python, QT apps testing etc and play Videos..

I've tried a few different Images - Ubuntu, Arch linux, Armbians. They all worked to a certain degree but they all had one or the other issue.
- Ubuntu was very large - I don't remember if Video and Audio played through HDMI on that
- Armbian had some issues with booting.
- Arch linux was nice and compact - Network is detected at Gigabit and read write speeds are reasonable good on USB drives. I can play Video (not accelerated) but there is no audio with Video. I'm troubleshooting that on a second box.

Since I've tried many different distributions - and I end up troubleshooting one thing or the other on them. I figured I should also get hands on how to build a bare minimum BUILDROOT and just have the modules I would want using the source code that has been released by Amlogic themselves.

I've been reading up a lot on the efforts that are going into bringing Amlogic to support mainline kernel and that is awesome. I'd love to help out there too, although I don't think I have enough skills on that yet.

I believe my board is a p201 (couple of ENY EM95), I also have couple of MXQ Pro and a mini MX plus.

When making BUILDROOT, I chose the board P201. Shouldn't that include all the components like Network, GPU, USB etc ? My ethernet port does get detected, incorrectly so far (100 full instead of Gigabit).

I've been to several websites like CNX-software, here, Githubs etc and I do see that you are heavily involved in development of this. I very much appreciate your contributions and help in this area, In fact the first couple of images that I successfully ran were the ones that you had uploaded.

At the moment I seem to be stuck at two things - Ethernet detection / IP assignment and Monitor output (with Video and Audio). I should point out that when Buildroot starts booting, I do see the Amlogic logo on the monitor, but around 9 second mark when the vmode is reset, my display goes blank.

Any advice if much appreciated.

Thanks again,

[ajiratech]

Thanks Nofan.

Yes, I did build the kernel from source.

I have not found that file yet. The source package has a lot of config files and I did come across one file that had the following, but I don't think that is the configuration I used for compiling my buildroot:

CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y

I'll keep you posted once I find that configuration file.

[balbes150]

IMHO
1. For your optimal latest images Armbian. They can be free to put all the additional instruments (for these systems they already have in the form of ready packages). In the desktop versions of the images KODI has a built-in video HW (works full-screen video playback up to 4K). Working wired network, WiFi and BT. It is possible to install to internal memory (eMMC and NAND). Has its own (simple enough in mastering) build system images (git\lib\armbian\build).

2. If you are ready to compile the number of missing elements\packages\scripts and to collect it all manually, you can use ArchLinux. While it requires still much to do to get ready the system output.

ps

p201 - NAND

p200 - eMMC

[ajiratech]

Thanks Balbes.

I will certainly look into Armbian more closely now. To make sure I understood you correctly, are you saying that Armbian Desktop image has GPU acceleration and is capable of playing 4K videos? I see there is an image on Armbian for Odroid C2, I imagine, I'd need to do some tweaking on that to get it to work on P201 ?

I have Arch linux working with all the tools I need installed on it, the only issue with that at this time is no audio and no GPU acceleration for 1080P video. While I can live with no GPU acceleration for Video, I do however need audio over HDMI. I have a question posted on forum for Arch for this audio issue., here is a link for the same:

https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11940

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

[ajiratech]

Update - I tried Odroid image on Odroid C2 (Amlogic S905) and Kodi was able to play a video 1080p and audio (in impressive quality), but I don't think it was using GPU acceleration. The CPU usage increased quite a bit on more than one core.

VLC couldn't play Video (audio played through) , I was able to see a message that said VLC couldn't load drivers for MALI.

I will try to run this image on the P201.

Thanks.

[balbes150]

Thanks Balbes.

I will certainly look into Armbian more closely now. To make sure I understood you correctly, are you saying that Armbian Desktop image has GPU acceleration and is capable of playing 4K videos? I see there is an image on Armbian for Odroid C2, I imagine, I'd need to do some tweaking on that to get it to work on P201 ?

I have Arch linux working with all the tools I need installed on it, the only issue with that at this time is no audio and no GPU acceleration for 1080P video. While I can live with no GPU acceleration for Video, I do however need audio over HDMI. I have a question posted on forum for Arch for this audio issue., here is a link for the same:

https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11940

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

1. In the latest images Armbian with kernel "3.14" integrated working KODI that can play full screen 4K video (this information only applies to my builds).
2. In fact, DE while there is no GPU HW acceleration. For this you need either to collect a desired program with the support of MALI, or add acceleration at the level of X11.
3. Have you tried these options ArchLinux ?

https://yadi.sk/d/BbH_N6HFzvjhm

[ajiratech]

Thanks Balbes.

Answers to points:
1. I've tried Armbian on Odroid C2 and it seems to play everything well (without GPU acceleration I believe, one core spiked to 90%+). I have not tried 4K, will need to download some videos for that.
I've been looking for Armbian image that I can use with EM95 (p201) board or a multi dtb image, but have not found one yet. Here on this link, it looks like I can build one using the instructions provided:

https://github.com/150balbes/lib

But your note says that I should look for Armbian image built by you. Can you please share the link to it ? I'll keep searching on my end anyways.

2. I'm relatively new to Linux and need to figure out how to get source files from another location and merge/compile it with Kernel or application.
3. Arch Linux images - I don't think I've tried these yet. I'll give them a shot now. I really appreciate the link to Arch Linux images.

[ajiratech]

Looks like I found the link to Armbian built by you. I'm gonna try these tonight and update with my results.

https://yadi.sk/d/5_32km_EsCV2A/ARMBIAN

[ajiratech]

I installed this on SD card, added dtb.img from the dtb folder (gxbb_pr01.dtb) and booted into Armbian. Desktop looks pretty good, Im able to play test video files using default media player and get audio. I'm yet to try kodi, wanted to open an SSH session in parallel to keep an eye on cpu.

I see two issues on this one so far:

- My ethernet0 did not pick up an IP address, instead Avahi showed up with 169.x.x.x ip.
- In dmesg I see an error

CPU: 1 PID:3598 Comm: system Tainted: P 3.14.29-amlogics905x-gl504d63-dirty #14

It looks like I've downloaded and installed the image that was meant for S905X and not S905.

i'll try searching for other images.