ODroid N2+ Support

This is for ARMv8 based devices

Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:17 pm

What's the issue with running headless while using SPI? My USB drive installations are headless, and they are usually very robust.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby karog » Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:11 pm

woody, I guess it is mainly me as I haven't really played much with SPI. How do you configure SPI without a monitor to configure petitboot?
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:37 am

If I remember, by default, petitboot will try to boot into the first partition on the disk. So, generally, it will count down 10 seconds, then attempt to boot. You would need a monitor to configure petitboot, but, in most cases, it would work without needing to be configured.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby karog » Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:10 am

But I have two 4TB hard disks, an SSD with two bootable root partitions, and the SD card with a boot partition and a root partition. And I want to boot with any of the three root partitions for different reasons. So there is no default boot that would work for me. And I don't want to have a monitor to make the choice. Instead I just execute an alias that switches the boot.ini file on the SD card /boot dir to choose which root to boot from.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:43 pm

The same thing would work with petitboot, I think. It uses the same boot.ini file. Switching the file would have the same effect.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:15 pm

Update:
I started working on this again, and I've made some progress. I was able to update my kernel 4.9 installation (which is on a microsd card) to kernel 6.2.
Here are the issues I'm having:

1. I could not get this installation to boot successfully using the default dtb file: meson-g12b-odroid-n2.dtb. I did get it to boot using this file that I copied from another installation: meson64_odroidn2.dtb.

2. The main problem I'm having is that I can boot from the sdcard slot with the switch set to 'MMC' but I can't boot from a USB port using Petitboot. I don't know why it's working one way, but not the other.

When you boot using Petitboot and boot from a USB port, you have to change the way you address the partitions. Instead of the sdcard partition names, you have to put the 'root=' directive using the UUID number.

So, with Petitboot:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'setenv bootargs "root=UUID=e4074991-79c7-420c-b103-095246c0f43b rootwait rw ${condev} ${amlogic} no_console_suspend fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0 elevator=noop hdmimode=${hdmimode} cvbsmode=576cvbs max_freq_a53=${max_freq_a53} max_freq_a73=${max_freq_a73} maxcpus=${maxcpus} voutmode=${voutmode} ${cmode} disablehpd=${disablehpd} cvbscable=${cvbscable} overscan=${overscan} ${hid_quirks} monitor_onoff=${monitor_onoff} logo=osd0,loaded ${cec_enable}"')

But when booting using the sdcard slot with MMC:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'setenv bootargs "root=/dev/mmcblk${devno}p2 rootwait rw ${condev} ${amlogic} no_console_suspend fsck.repair=yes net.ifnames=0 elevator=noop hdmimode=${hdmimode} cvbsmode=576cvbs max_freq_a53=${max_freq_a53} max_freq_a73=${max_freq_a73} maxcpus=${maxcpus} voutmode=${voutmode} ${cmode} disablehpd=${disablehpd} cvbscable=${cvbscable} overscan=${overscan} ${hid_quirks} monitor_onoff=${monitor_onoff} logo=osd0,loaded ${cec_enable}"')

This has been working for me with kernel 5.19, but doesn't seem to work with kernel >6.0. Has anybody got a working installation booting from a USB drive with Petitboot and kernel >6.0?
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby karog » Thu Mar 30, 2023 2:41 am

For dtb you should be using meson-g12b-odroid-n2-plus.dtb. That is what I am using on my new N2+.

The latest arch n2 u-boot.bin did not work for me (fails very early on training DDR) and is apparently different than what is in SPI. I finally succeeded by downloading a minimal ubuntu img from odroid, dd-ing that onto my microSD card to get its uboot at the start of the card, and then repartitioning and formatting for arch. That worked for me and addresses the DDR problem the same way SPI does, namely trying the DDR training twice where the first try always fails and the second try always succeeds.

I have my /boot on a microSD card but root in on a USB 3.0 attached SSD.

I use PARTUUID for root= in boot.ini dir but in fstab to mount /boot I use /dev/mmcblk0p1.

I don't have experience with petitboot so cannot help there.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Tue Apr 04, 2023 1:55 pm

Hmm.. I tried to use a UART device that I already had to monitor the boot process, but it seems that the UART killed my microSD card. The card didn't just get corrupted; it was unusable afterwards. Did you connect your UART to the 4-pin console connector, or to the 40-pin connector?
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby karog » Tue Apr 04, 2023 2:18 pm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('woody', 'H')mm.. I tried to use a UART device that I already had to monitor the boot process, but it seems that the UART killed my microSD card. The card didn't just get corrupted; it was unusable afterwards. Did you connect your UART to the 4-pin console connector, or to the 40-pin connector?

The 4 pin connector. The UART that ameridroid provides is made for that.

I have a UART permanently attached to both of my odroids as well as different UARTs for an old pogoplug and my EdgeRouter Lite. The pogoplug is the monitoring end for the odroids, the N2+ for the pogoplug, and a RPi Zero W for the EdgeRouter. I run ser2net on all of those to provide telent access to the serial connections and then have a text editor that can open telnet connections so I can view the serial connections to any of the four devices from any of my macs. So I can, for example, upgrade the kernel of an odroid from my MacBook Air and then reboot watching the serial connection. It's great.
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Re: ODroid N2+ Support

Postby woody » Tue Apr 04, 2023 10:01 pm

Hah, I have several old Pogoplugs around, too. They were originally running Arch, but now I run Debian on the rare occasion I need to use one for something
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