piCore-6.1alpha4

[bmarkus]

Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the availability of piCore-6.1 alpha4:

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/6.x/armv6/test_releases/

Changelog for 6.1 alpha4:

* kernel updated to 3.18.9


Changelog for 6.1 alpha2:

* kernel updated to 3.18.6


Changelog for 6.1 alpha1:

It is the first test release with the new Device Tree enabled 3.18.5 kernel. Except kernel change it is identical to piCore-6.0


Please note, it is for boards with armv6 processor, not for the Raspberry Pi 2.

Please read https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/overlays/README !

[jgrulich]

The dtoverlay=w1-gpio is not working at A+ board and booting hangs up at the first "rainbow" screen.
At the B+ board the same SD card works normally.
Strange is the new behavior of the RED status LED which is now OFF by default and need to be added the dtparam=pwr_led_activelow into the config.txt file to work normally.

[jgrulich]

I hoped that this release will support the Cirrus Logic Audio Card (Wolfson) as it was discussed some time ago.
Please provide info when this will be available, if ever, to know if I'll may use this one which I already have, or to move to Texas B-B DAC based sound cards like a hifibbery, iqaudio and others.

[bmarkus]

The dtoverlay=w1-gpio is not working at A+ board and booting hangs up at the first "rainbow" screen.
At the B+ board the same SD card works normally.

Please open a ticket at https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues

[bmarkus]

I hoped that this release will support the Cirrus Logic Audio Card (Wolfson) as it was discussed some time ago.
Please provide info when this will be available, if ever, to know if I'll may use this one which I already have, or to move to Texas B-B DAC based sound cards like a hifibbery, iqaudio and others.

No idea what is going with Wolfson card. Open a ticket at GitHub and ask.

[sbp]

Hi Bela.

I have now tested all my audio cards and the two wifi adapters on your new picore, and everything is working fine.
Thank you.

The only issue I had when porting piCorePlayer to this kernel was that you have changed the Httpd name from: usr/local/sbin/Httpd to usr/local/sbin/busybox-Httpd

It was not caused by the kernel but by the updated busybox-Httpd.tcz package I also installed.

So that broke all our scripts, but it is fixed now.

Regards
Steen

[bmarkus]

Hi Steen

thanks for the feedback on the kernel and the system.

Regarding busybox httpd, this name avoids conflict with Apache server.

Regards... Béla

[bestguy]

Is it possible for You to compile the actual kernelsources, because for several Hifiberry-DAC-Owners there is an important patch in hifiberry-dac.c which enables several old amplifiers to play the audio stream. I tried it and didn`t suceed. (see here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/pull/899)

[bmarkus]

Is it possible for You to compile the actual kernelsources, because for several Hifiberry-DAC-Owners there is an important patch in hifiberry-dac.c which enables several old amplifiers to play the audio stream. I tried it and didn`t suceed. (see here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/pull/899)

Well, it can be done a bit later. At the moment I'm busy with job. Maybe with 3.18.10

[jgrulich]

May be interesting info for others about the DT functionality and issues: https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/904 .

[jgrulich]

I've replaced the firmware with the one from 22.March and seems it to be more stable and overlay is working better too.
Due to much larger start.elf and start_x.elf it's necessary to create new SD partitions with larger primary FAT one, at least 18MB.

[sbp]

Is it possible for You to compile the actual kernelsources, because for several Hifiberry-DAC-Owners there is an important patch in hifiberry-dac.c which enables several old amplifiers to play the audio stream. I tried it and didn`t suceed. (see here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/pull/899)

Hi
I have build the 3.18.9 alsa modules with the most recent fixes - please try them:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qiz83lh192t30xd/alsa-modules-3.18.9-piCore%2B.tcz?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7pb65479lyu2uzy/alsa-modules-3.18.9-piCore%2B.tcz.md5.txt?dl=0

Regards
Steen

[jgrulich]

Yesterday was released new krnel 3.18.10 with a lot, lot of important patches.
Mainly the kernel panic when DT enabled at the A+ board may be probably solved too.
Be patient and wait some time until Béla will release the new piCore based on this kernel.

[bmarkus]

I'm compiling 3.18.10 If everything goes well new release will come in next days

[Mucke]

I hoped that this release will support the Cirrus Logic Audio Card (Wolfson) as it was discussed some time ago.
Please provide info when this will be available, if ever, to know if I'll may use this one which I already have, or to move to Texas B-B DAC based sound cards like a hifibbery, iqaudio and others.

No idea what is going with Wolfson card. Open a ticket at GitHub and ask.

In the meantime Cirrus Logic has updated their github with Pi2 drivers for the Cirrus Logic Audio Card. See https://github.com/CirrusLogic/rpi-linux/wiki/Building-the-code for instructions. I have followed them with a Rasbian kernel compilation and the driver works.

But I'm interested in getting the sound card running with piCore-6.1alpha4. Up to now I have not been successful.

So everything works along the instructions. The kernel is compiled and it boots. But the soundcard is not recognized.
As far as I have seen piCore-6.1alpha4 can load overlays. At least the files in the boot folder are there like with Rasbian.
The overlay logic also seems to start as lsmod shows a "partial" set of loaded modules. So some of them are missed.

Right now I guess that piCore does not handle the required /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf file correctly. Here the setting is

Code: [Select]

softdep arizona-spi pre: arizona-ldo1
softdep spi-bcm2708 pre: fixedwhich defines some dependency of modules loaded before another. I do not know if this is working correctly as dmesg reports failures with these modules.
Unfortunately it is beyond my skills, I do not understand the logic of modprobe.conf and modprobe.d and when/how they are interpreted.

Ok, we know that Rasbian is working with the driver but not piCore-6.1alpha4. I have compiled the kernel both on Pi2 and with cross-compilation. No difference in the result.

- Mucke

PS: WARNING: Before someone else tries to use the modules without device tree: it will definitely not work. This is confirmed by the contributors of the driver. So don't try it.