Conference talk - Radxa Rock Pi4 mainline u-boot and mainline kernel

Operating system distributions Debian/Ubuntu
1

Hello together,

at the conference I explain howto install Debian with mainline u-boot and mainline kernel. The talk is in German.

mainline is only working with eMMC or micro sd card and usb ssd.

Can you provide us with a dts file which enables pcie and spi flash?

Kind Regards
Dondon

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2

This is nice. For those who are interested, slides in Germany.

https://media.ccc.de/v/2019-209-challenge-blob-free-mainline-open-source-software-on-a-single-board-computer-sbc-arm64-foss-efi-

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Hello Jack,

I need a dts which includes pcie for mainline kernel 5.3.1 .
Can you provide please this dts file to the community?

Kind Regards
Dondon

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4

Hi, Dondon

We will start to work on the mainline kernel after the Chinese National Holiday(Oct 1st to Oct 7th).

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5

Hi Jack,
how are You?
Hope You had great holidays.
Have You made any progress? Can I support You?
Kind Regards
Dondon

6

Hi, Dondon

We have tested the v5.4-rc2 tag kernel, NVMe works out of box. Can you try that?

7

Hello jack, the latest Kernel I have is 4.4.179-6 from here. Where would I get newer Kernels such as 5.3 or 5.4 for testing?

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On Armbian:

armbian-config → system → alternative kernels

Test images with modern kernel:
https://dl.armbian.com/rockpi-4b/nightly/

9

Thank you for the quick response, however I’m currently using Debian 9.11 with some software. I was wondering if I could upgrade the Kernel directly instead of having to use an entirely different image.

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Anything is possible, but I am not familiar with this custom Debian. I am only sure that its not this simple. Also this, the one and only alternative 5.3.y → kernel, is still for testing only. Its fragile and you might end up with board not booting. What then? Do you know how to go back manually? I would advise you to download nightly Armbian images now and then, install on some spare SD, and check how good support is … Are (hardware related) features you need, working properly.

Armbian is far more polished Debian than any Debian out there. On all levels so. Its not just easy kernel changing.

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Hi otte,
Linus provides the mainline kernel and the “official” kernels on this address
https://www.kernel.org/
The command “make bindeb-pkg”
makes debian-packages.
Kind Regards
Dondon

12

Hello Jack,
Thank you for your respond.
I will try the kernel 5.4 at weekend.
Kind Regards
Dondon

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Dear Jack,
I tried 5.4-rc3 (not rc2)
This kernel does not work out of the box.
I understand “out of the box”:
download, untar then
make defconfig
make bindeb-pkg

If I do this no pci or nvme driver is compiled in.

What do you understand under “out of the box”?

I compiled all the drivers but no device under dev or dmesg gives information about nvme.

Best Regards
Dondon

15

Everything out of the box from mainstream sources? Perhaps a little too optimistic for ARM/RK3399 boards.

5.3.y + few patches and correct config or this simple command:
./compile.sh BOARD=rockpro64 BRANCH=current RELEASE=buster BUILD_MINIMAL=yes BUILD_DESKTOP=no KERNEL_ONLY=no KERNEL_CONFIGURE=yes

and here it works as you wanted. dpkg -i *.deb + reboot

http://ix.io/1Zh2

lspci

00:00.0 PCI bridge: Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3399 PCI Express Root Port
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. AQC107 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3bz Ethernet Controller [AQtion] (rev 02)

I don’t have possibility to check on Rockpi4 at this moment, but I assume PCI works unless there is some error in the DT.

Edit: I have to note that I didn’t use master build branch so this command above will not work on standard. But on development. This whole stuff is there and troubles are expected.

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16

Hi all,
nvme with mainline linux kernel 5.4.0 is now working.
Details shortly.
A modified Device tree source did the trick.
Now working on spi flashing.
Perhaps someone can provide me with the modified dts file.