armhf not possible on cubietruck

hoschi · 2021-01-05 23:54:58

Hallo,

I'm not able to even start the installer armhf version on a Cubietruck.
I've tried ASCII as well as beowulf version. For both of them the pinned
instructions do not work at all.

The system boots up.
Beowulf reports starting the kernel. But the screen just goes black.
ASCII shows two tux symbols after starting the kernel. But it goes
black as well.
LEDs do not show any activity at all. Just the green led.

For beowulf i did:
zcat firmware.Cubietruck.beowulf.img.gz partition.img.gz > /dev/sdj

For ascii:
xzcat devuan_ascii_2.0.0_armhf_sunxi.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdj bs=2M
dd if=Cubietruck_defconfig.bin of=/dev/sdj bs=1024 seek=8 && sync

Am i missing something ?

Thanks,
Sascha

kuleszdl · 2021-01-06 04:38:54

Hi,

afaik this is a cubietruck-specific issue. Try the following in u-boot:

setenv bootargs console=tty1 fb=false
saveenv 
boot

Btw.: Welcome to the forums!

Last edited by kuleszdl (2021-01-06 04:40:03)

hoschi · 2021-01-06 07:09:09

Moin,

Thank you a lot !

I'm sorry ... Happy new year !!

I'd love to be able to go to the boot prompt and i tried two different keyboards
but neither of them worked. It looks like they'are simply not recognized at the
stage where one could interrupt the boot process.
I've read somewhere that a USB hub in between could possibly make a difference,
but it didn't.
Is it possible to change the - is it the boot.scr file ? - boot process somehow ?

tuxd3v · 2021-01-06 09:49:33

hoschi wrote:

Moin,
I've read somewhere that a USB hub in between could possibly make a difference,
but it didn't.

Hello,
In the README section, in the end, the method specified to install is via serial connection..
Using a usb-to-serial converter, exactly because it prevents that problem with displays

hoschi · 2021-01-06 13:43:05

Ok...
Just ordered an adapter.
Thank you so far !

kuleszdl · 2021-01-07 02:44:30

Sure, serial adapter is possible as well but this is cheating. ;-) No but it requires opening the case each time which can be annoying, and eventually you want to have working HDMI output in your installed system as well. With that being said, it is never a bad idea to have a serial console at hand anyways.

You are right about the USB issue, I completely forgot that. The boot.scr has some kind of binary format that is generated from boot.cmd. This can be done using the mkimage command as described in the sunxi wiki:

https://linux-sunxi.org/U-Boot

As an alternative, you could try to boot using extlinux.conf instead of boot.scr. I prefer this over the boot.scr method used by Debian.

Alternatively, you could also try to set the parameters using uEnv.txt.

Good luck, and maybe you get it working before your usb-serial-adapter arrives. :-)

tuxd3v · 2021-01-07 18:40:45

hello hoschi,
its well known that at least CubieBoard1 works very well at install time

You can try however to test the changes kuleszdl, proposed..
Have you tried the image here ?
http://deb.devuan.org/devuan/dists/beow … rd-images/

After the zcat process..
You can mount the image with:

apt-get install u-boot-tools
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -t vfat -o loop,offset=$((2048 * 512)) /path/to/Cubietruck.img /mnt/iso
cd /mnt/iso
# To see the boot.scr code..
strings boot.scr

create a boot.cmd file with the content you want..then generate the new boot.scr with:

mkimage -C none -A arm -T script -d boot.cmd boot.scr
sync
cd /
umount /mnt/iso

then try the changed boot script within the changed Cubietruck.img..
burn Cubietruck.img to sdcard, and test if you can access, otherwise you will need the adapter..

The problem of install via normal procedure, is that you need display working, and keyboard, and ethernet..
ethernet is the easy part, display is the most difficult one( and sometimes keyboard too )
Because of this factors, we choose the serial install that works always

Last edited by tuxd3v (2021-01-07 18:47:55)

kuleszdl · 2021-01-09 19:33:30

To add on that: Another thing you could try would be using a newer u-boot like the u-boot image from unstable paired with the partition.img from stable. I don't remember how this was exactly, but it could be that this keyboard issue was fixed in a newer u-boot release. Then, you could enter the setenv/saveenv commands directly using the attached keyboard without manipulating the boot.cmd/boot.scr.

Anyways, you should now have quite a few approaches to try. ;-) Good luck!

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#1 2021-01-05 23:54:58

armhf not possible on cubietruck

#2 2021-01-06 04:38:54

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#3 2021-01-06 07:09:09

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#4 2021-01-06 09:49:33

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#5 2021-01-06 13:43:05

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#6 2021-01-07 02:44:30

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#7 2021-01-07 18:40:45

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

#8 2021-01-09 19:33:30

Re: armhf not possible on cubietruck

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