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Author Topic: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10  (Read 86058 times)

Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #15 on: August 18, 2012, 08:56:45 AM »
Hi tinypoodle
Quote
"Created with GIMP" ??
Sounds like he may have used  netpbm.

Yes, I originally used netpbm.
However Tinypoodle (who must be a detective in real life :) ) quoted a tag in the header of the png I posted, so I explained why it is there.

Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #16 on: August 18, 2012, 02:14:06 PM »
I packed a much more complete port of Micro Core, not even an alpha, though.
I am uploading it right now:
caminati.net.tf
or, equivalently:
https://sites.google.com/site/marcocaminati/
It is a tar.bz2 with the separate components to be installed manually, if anybody wants a whole media image for simplicity, I can provide it.

Anyhow: now Core scripts are all there, even though actually tc-config is not completing yet.
Refer to the included README.
There I also explain the approach I adopted to port, somehow more streamlined than before, after seeing Robert's Rpi kit.
Still no text display on my Mele. Is it because I need hdmi output while you use lcd output for table?
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Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #17 on: August 18, 2012, 03:51:28 PM »
Still no text display on my Mele. Is it because I need hdmi output while you use lcd output for table?

On my hardware, video output is completely and solely determined by which script.bin I place in the first partition (root directory, along with uImage).
All the other distros I tried gave me either hdmi or builtin lcd output according to that.
I never tested the statement above wrt this release, however. I will try and let you know if I have hdmi output, since at the moment I am lucky enough to have hdmi tv around.

Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #18 on: August 18, 2012, 04:54:22 PM »
I just tested the mele-a1000.bin contained in:
http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/nightly/2012.07.23/mele-a1000_hwpack_2012.07.23.7z
replaced my script.bin with it (using the latter name), and successfully got hdmi output.
Is your kernel alive? I mean, usb pens flashing, keyboard leds responding...

Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #19 on: August 18, 2012, 05:08:12 PM »
I cp mele-a1000.bin /mnt/sdb1/script.bin.
Boot Mele, keyboard lights flash, mouse stays lighted.
But no signal to hdmi.
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Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #20 on: August 18, 2012, 05:11:42 PM »
Your code is specifically looking for script.bin?
I will try other bin files on the Ubuntu image.
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Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #21 on: August 18, 2012, 05:17:28 PM »
I cp mele-a1000.bin /mnt/sdb1/script.bin.
Boot Mele, keyboard lights flash, mouse stays lighted.
But no signal to hdmi.

Does writing something like /bin/busybox poweroff -fn work?
Sorry to bother you: have you tried Alt+SysRq+e or Alt+SysRq+i (the sooner during booting process the better)?
Does the whole reisub sequence actually reboot (supposing you could sense a reboot in these conditions)?
Maybe there is some problem due to tc-config not completing.
I stupidly forgot to add blkid utility, which crashes it.
Thanks for your report!

Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2012, 05:21:53 PM »
Your code is specifically looking for script.bin?
I will try other bin files on the Ubuntu image.

You can replace script.bin with the filename you like by editing boot.scr.
However, each time you have to do mkimage -C none -A arm -T script -d on the source of boot.scr, which is a nuisance.
Also, sticking with the standard is advisable: unforeseen consequences of small changes is what u-boot excels in :)

Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #23 on: August 18, 2012, 05:39:05 PM »
No response that I can detect when I try:
Does writing something like /bin/busybox poweroff -fn work?
Sorry to bother you: have you tried Alt+SysRq+e or Alt+SysRq+i (the sooner during booting process the better)?

I also tried renaming evb.bin, that is what Ubuntu and the miniand distros use, to script.bin and still no hdmi output.
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Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #24 on: August 18, 2012, 05:54:06 PM »
No response that I can detect when I try:
Does writing something like /bin/busybox poweroff -fn work?
Sorry to bother you: have you tried Alt+SysRq+e or Alt+SysRq+i (the sooner during booting process the better)?

I also tried renaming evb.bin, that is what Ubuntu and the miniand distros use, to script.bin and still no hdmi output.
Yes, during tests I kept both names with identical contents, to be on the safe side.
In the meantime I found out that the Mele script.bin that I suggested you disables the usb port on my tablet. Argh, matters are getting complex.

Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #25 on: August 18, 2012, 06:02:29 PM »
No response that I can detect when I try:

This is interesting, anyway. Sounds like the problem is not video output or framebuffer, but more serious.
I will try to summon some more mele owners on other allwinner forums as soon I fix some issues.

Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2012, 07:05:59 PM »
We have a second piece of hardware booting something on hdmi:
https://www.miniand.com/forums/forums/development/topics/minimal-textonly-linux-testers-wanted

A kind user on miniand forum gave me feedback using his 1Gb MK802, and a stripped-down version of console linux I posted there.
I can get a script.bin from the huge image he used, though it is not clear if he tried it with my kernel and u-boot.

EDIT: Here it is
« Last Edit: August 19, 2012, 07:43:38 PM by caminati »

Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #27 on: August 19, 2012, 10:14:55 PM »
Seeing that you posted a new image file: A10MinimalLinux.img.gz
I tried it with mele-a1000.bin renamed to script.bin.

Viola! I see text. Very LARGE text. It boots to login!

But this is not uCore, initramfs as was the first attempt.
This is why I am delaying initramfs on rpi until I get the basics, traditional rootfs working.

Anyway, you  have reached a first milestone. Awesome!
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Offline caminati

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #28 on: August 20, 2012, 03:27:04 AM »
Seeing that you posted a new image file: A10MinimalLinux.img.gz
I tried it with mele-a1000.bin renamed to script.bin.

Viola! I see text. Very LARGE text. It boots to login!

But this is not uCore, initramfs as was the first attempt.

You're right: it is just busybox, bterm and a very sleepy init, which just mounts devpts and respawns getty->bterm.
On the other hand, here I have full Micro Core working on the tablet, with only zcache kernel module missing, and tce-load -i working fine.
So, the real question now is why my previous file didn't work for you.
u-boot.bin, sun4i-spl.bin and the kernel are identical, and I have no control on script.bin. So it must necessarily be /init or /bin/busybox, which changed, or /etc/tc-config, which is here bypassed. Or something with initramfs.
And why the very first release also didn't work for you? That was VERY similar to this.
Only the boot loaders and script were left out there; maybe...
Mumble, very difficult to troubleshoot remotely :)

This is why I am delaying initramfs on rpi until I get the basics, traditional rootfs working.

Anyway, you  have reached a first milestone. Awesome!

Glad it works :)
« Last Edit: August 20, 2012, 03:47:42 AM by caminati »

Offline roberts

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Re: Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10
« Reply #29 on: August 20, 2012, 10:30:51 AM »
uCore now working.

Used the image file. Copied the boot.scr from first attempt together with uCore to first partition. Formatted the 2nd partition and left blank.

Boots and is working fine.
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