Odroid-XU stuck at boot

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Re: Odroid-XU stuck at boot

Postby summers » Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:21 am

Great!

uboot options like fdt_high tend to be quite poorly documented, so it was good that you found the problem. Have to admit I only usually find options like that by browsing the uboot source code - which I wouldn't suggest anyone else does!

Usually there are updated uboot available for these boards, had a quick browse last night - and doesn't seem one done directly for the odroid-xu, there are for most other odroid boards, and its possible one of the others also works on the XU (probably needs same cpu and basic layout of the board).

Booting with the flattened device tree is the new way of describing hardware, its actually far better than the old way, far more flexable. So the change to that is good. Most uboot scripts can take both initramfs and dtb options, and both are needed at times (e.g. if you root filesystem is not known to the kernel). Anyway doing this with the old uboot enviroment variables was quite a hassle, its easier with more modern uboot when you can script.
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Re: Odroid-XU stuck at boot

Postby csoroiu » Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:27 pm

To install archlinux I followed the instructions from the archlinux arm web page for odroid-xu.
And one of the steps there is to write the uboot image which is located here: http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/exynos/xuboot.img
I don't remember this being ever changed.

I don't think hardkernel released a newer uboot for this device. I couldn't find any reference.
It might be that a newer uboot might work. I'll probably test it in a couple of weeks or so.

And the reference to fdt_high variable I found in the README file inside the uboot git repo.
I was lucky to find the issue quick.
I just tried, as you instructed me, to run boot the commands by hand. I filtered out all env variables except for the boot lines.
It booted from the first attempt, then after a couple of boot attempts it was easy to figure out what's wrong.

I'll probably cross post this into the u-boot section. I haven't found yet where to suggest a PR for changing this in the release.
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Re: Odroid-XU stuck at boot

Postby summers » Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:58 pm

reading: https://wiki.odroid.com/old_product/odroid-xu#boot_sequence and its clear that the board does secure boot. This is a hassle as first few stages have to be signed. Hardkernel usually gave a tool for signing of files. As I recall at least as far as SPL needs to be signed, and that already part of uboot. So thats probably why uboot has been updated. Haven't checked if there is a hardkernel signing tool, or how secure the samsung cpu secure boot sequence is (e.g. on my odroid-c2 you can sign a file with a checksum, that just shows that the file hasn't been modified - it doesn't need to be a full signature against whats in the cpu).

Getting things into the official distribution is tricky at times. AFAIK @WarheadsSE or @moonman if they have some hardware, and have the time free, they set up the distribution. Now odroid-xu is quite old, don't know if they have a functioning device from them (that said my beagleboard is from around then, and has been running 24/7/365); and this also means it isn't such a widely used board any more. Anyway if they browse round here - may say what the status is. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

This said though, several of us run arch on boards that aren't described as supported (e.g. my pocketbeagle, of TheSaint ASUS TBS) and we don't have problems - this is usually documented here on threads - if you can find them. Some threads aren't an easy read (e.g. the ASUS TBS think we went on for 20 odd pages, working out boot sequence, then getting a mainstream dtb, etc).
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