ArchLinux ARM for CubieTruck : any ideas ?

[soundcheck]

Hi.

Perhaps anybody can get me some advise.

I'm not experienced in kernel hacking for those embedded devices. I do compile kernels on other machines on my own
once in a while.

Story:

I just got myself a Cubietruck. Thought this would be an upgrade to my RPI. I'm running a RPI with ArchArm and 3.12 kernel.
I use these machines as audio streaming clients.


The first thing that struck me after installing latest NAND image, was that "pacman -Syu" came up with tons of warnings
related to /usr 755 vs. 755 permission issues. Then I saw that 3.3 data were also uploaded even though a 3.45+ kernel
was installed. However. After reboot everything came up fine and the newer kernel was still in place. That kept me going.

I compiled squeezelite streaming client and also installed MPD, set systemd up and hooked up my TEAC DAC.
So far so good. I couldn't have gone easier. Piece of cake. This setup worked flawless. I was playing music.

However.

Moving the device over to my main audio system, where I'm running an XMOS based USB audio interface, got me stuck.

The interface is not recognized. Even though it works on my ArchArm Raspberry (3.12) without any issues, on the Cubie (3.45) it won't. It did all typical checks. No chance.

My guess is that I need a more up2date Alsa driver. Dmesg on my installation is showing Alsa 1.0.25 and Alsa Packages are all 1.0.27. 1.0.25 for sure is not the latest driver.

Unfortunately I had to realize that Sunxi is still far behind on the kernel side. (I should have looked that up earlier.)


Now.

If there's any way to get latest Alsa drivers into that kernel?? Or if there's a way to rebuild Alsa modules please let me know.

I'd really appreciate any help.


Thx a lot.

SC

[soundcheck]

OK. Might not be the driver. I guess there's an issue related lower towards the HW level first.

I need to figure out what that means. Strange though that the same device works flawlessly on my Raspberry.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '

[ 33.259294] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 10 using sw-ohci
[ 33.437416] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 33.697359] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 33.958468] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 11 using sw-ohci
[ 34.117327] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 34.387326] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 34.648449] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 12 using sw-ohci
[ 35.078021] usb 2-1: device not accepting address 12, error -62
[ 35.258588] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 13 using sw-ohci
[ 35.532262] sunxi_gmac: probed
[ 35.563950] eth0: PHY ID 001cc915 at 0 IRQ 0 (sunxi_gmac-0:00) active
[ 35.610734] eth0: PHY ID 001cc915 at 1 IRQ 0 (sunxi_gmac-0:01)
[ 35.697952] usb 2-1: device not accepting address 13, error -62
[ 35.738169] hub 2-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
[ 41.106187] PHY: sunxi_gmac-0:00 - Link is Up - 1000/Full
[ 46.575918] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
[ 55.118479] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 14 using sw-ohci
[ 55.267332] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 55.527343] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 55.788470] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 15 using sw-ohci
[ 55.937323] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 56.197337] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -62
[ 56.458461] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 16 using sw-ohci
[ 56.887841] usb 2-1: device not accepting address 16, error -62
[ 57.044900] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 17 using sw-ohci
[ 57.467847] usb 2-1: device not accepting address 17, error -62
[ 57.479140] hub 2-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1

')

[soundcheck]

Hi.

If anybody is reading this.

lsusb -t

shows

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@cubier devices]# lsusb -t
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=musb-hdrc/1p, 480M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=sw-ohci/1p, 12M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=sw-ohci/1p, 12M
')

Does this mean USB port 1 and 2 runs at USB 1.1. fullspeed 12Mbit/s only?? And the OTG at highspeed 480Mbit??

[direx]

I've just pacstrap'ed a fresh and clean ALARM system to a SD card. The only thing I had to touch was the kernel (I've used the PKGBUILD provided by maribu with linux-sun7i-3.4.75). The old 3.3 kernel also boots, but without ethernet or wifi connectivity and only 1 gig of ram.

So I just wanted to let you know that with the linux-sun7i-3.4.75 Arch is running perfectly on the Cubietruck. So as soon as the kernel is updated in the Arch Repo I think the CT can be "officially" supported, just like the Cubieboard 2.

[sehraf]

i have tested maribus and moscars kernel on my CT and they both work like a charm (even when booting from nand ).

only thing worth mentioning is that maribus kernel detects nand as nand1, nand2, ... instead of nanda, nandb, ... so you have to edit your uEnv.txt to point your nand_root to the right nand partition and it's also missing the CPU trigger for the LEDs (CONFIG_LEDS_TRIGGER_CPU)

[gadou]

Guys,

is anyone using benn's recently published arch image (mentioned here earlier)?

https://plus.google.com/+HuangBenn/posts/VjmagkRjiA6
http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-cubietruck/archlinux/ct-arch-v2/

I Installed this onto the nand of a cubitruck, and it runs well, except one thing I fail to understand:

1) the nand seems to be partitioned in three: /dev/nand{a,b,c}; a is boot, b is root; but what is /dev/nandc?? if I try to mount this, it hangs indefinitely. Anyone knows if one can simply reformat this partition, and if yes, how?

2) this image seems to contain X; but I never managed to start it: startx and startxfce4 won't work. I guess this is because of the mali driver. I tried to recompile it using its git repo and benn's little patch (http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-cubietruck/archlinux/ct-arch/README), but in vain: it simply never compiles. Has anyone managed to to that.

3) apart from using Benn's image: are there other ways to install arch on cubietruck?

Thanks

gadou

http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-c ... t-arch-v2/ was the image i started with. it's fine beside some small things like wrong permissions for /usr

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gadou', '
')1) the nand seems to be partitioned in three: /dev/nand{a,b,c}; a is boot, b is root; but what is /dev/nandc?? if I try to mount this, it hangs indefinitely. Anyone knows if one can simply reformat this partition, and if yes, how?

[sehraf]

FYI: 3.4.79 is out
https://github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi/releases/tag/sunxi-v3.4.79-r0

[crazyben]

Hello,

does the latest build support DS18b20 temperature sensor?
Or can someone give Help me to to get the kernel compiled for this?

Thank you,
Ben

[gadou]

sehraf,

thanks, this was exactly the solution I was looking for, also the numbers are also correct (root length is the sum of the former nandb and nandc lenghts).

Here are a couple of additional links I found useful:
[url]
http://linux-sunxi.org/NAND
http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/topic,541.0.html
http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php?topic=1216.0
http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/to ... ml#msg7263
http://www.cubieforums.com/index.php/to ... ml#msg6783
[/url]

The rationale behind "nandc" and "UDISK" is explained here:
http://boards.dingoonity.org/android-devices/advanced-howto-upgrade-internal-nand-flash-on-any-device-%28up-to-64gb%29-%28advanced/


With regard to installing arch from scratch: I don't find it that simple as there is no dedicated arm installation document (there existed one for gentoo though, but outdated now); especially the whole X setup remains, to me, shrouded in mystery: what exactly are the drivers needed, do I have to compile them from git or does arch provide packages (which ones), what is is with the proprietary-ness of the mali drivers, are they installed like the nvidia blob under desktop linuxes? And by the way: the kernel itself: what is the standard procedure to compile a A20 linux kernel? All this is somewhat unclear, yet necessary to know in order to really control your installation.

If anyone has, an be it only parts of what is needed!, information, please post it here.

thanks

gadou