UART2 on PI header (pin 8 and 10)

[martinayotte]

If you wish to interact with UART2 on PI header (pin 8 and 10), you will maybe find soon that /dev/ttyS2 that isn't available.
The problem is only that it is not enabled into the DTB.

You can fix that by doing (along with backups)

Code:

mv /boot/pine64/sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dtb /boot/pine64/sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dtb-ORIG
dtc -I dtb -O dts -o sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dts /boot/pine64/sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dtb-ORIG

Then edit the "sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dts" and change "disable" to "okay" in the "status" of the "uart@01c28800" paragraph !

Push the change back into binary :

Code:

dtc -I dts -O dtb -o /boot/pine64/sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dtb sun50i-a64-pine64-plus.dts

Then, reboot !
you should now have the /dev/ttyS2 working !

[tkaiser]

Martin, please don't waste your time by writing to this forum. Your posts are already lost since the Pine64 folks don't care about this stuff. Better collect the improvements and open an issue at longsleep's Github account: https://github.com/longsleep/build-pine64-image

Since all the Linux OS images will rely on his work the most simple way to improve the situation is to let him adopt changes.

[rahlquist]

Martin, please don't waste your time by writing to this forum. Your posts are already lost since the Pine64 folks don't care about this stuff. Better collect the improvements and open an issue at longsleep's Github account: https://github.com/longsleep/build-pine64-image

Since all the Linux OS images will rely on his work the most simple way to improve the situation is to let him adopt changes.

tkaiser,

please dont try to fragment the community. Not every project runs smoothly in the world. This one still isnt but nay saying and pushing people away is not going to make a single thing better.

[tkaiser]

please dont try to fragment the community.

Just for your information: The developer community is known as linux-sunxi: http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page

This here is a rather useless forum where the same questions arise again and again since no one collects the stuff and makes the knowledge spread useable. Read as: It's unbelievable that the Pine64 folks don't provide a quickstart guide that contains the stuff we collected here already, eg. my list of common boot problems.

@Martin: Nothing against posting stuff here. But who will find it between the 20 threads that complain about DVI not working and the 100 about Ethernet not working or the 300 about boot issues caused by bad SD cards or insufficient power supplies (without taking notice)?

When you want to improve software/settings please still collect stuff and open an issue @ longsleep since you can be assured that he doesn't read this forum. And all Linux OS images rely on his basic work so everyone will benefit from unlike a forum post that gets lost between that much whining here.

[rahlquist]

please dont try to fragment the community.

Just for your information: The developer community is known as linux-sunxi: http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page

This here is a rather useless forum where the same questions arise again and again since no one collects the stuff and makes the knowledge spread useable. Read as: It's unbelievable that the Pine64 folks don't provide a quickstart guide that contains the stuff we collected here already, eg. my list of common boot problems.

@tkaiser
I've seen the linux-sunxi pages. 

You may consider it useless but it is the first stop for probably 80% of the people looking for a hand. Does that mean its easy to find answers, nope not at all. Look I know you know your stuff. I have seen your posts here and elsewhere. Lots of dislike for this project. I get it, the core hardware is a largely not overtly friendly to OSS piece. I get that the marketing for the pine made it sound like a microcontroller combination of Mary Poppins and Some hot stripper driving a tank through your needs. Now the time is here for damage control, the end users who bought thinking they were getting something as refined as a Tivo and powerful as a desktop are asking questions. Sometimes its better to answer the question more than once on the forum vs sending them out to 10 other sites because the Pine management hasnt figured out how the hell to do support. I agree there should be a quickstart guide. I mean ffs people are still confused as to what os has what problem on what hardware with what Ethernet.  It's asinine I get it. Just trying to get people to focus a bit more on getting the answer here before sending people off into the ether.

[tkaiser]

Feel free to do the unpaid support job here. I want software to improve. I know Martin since we're both working together on H3 support @armbian. The whole thing is a developer issue. None of the newbies does know what /dev/ttyS2 is or where device trees grow.

All available Linux OS images rely (fortunately!) on longsleep's work. But he's not present here. So all I asked Martin was to collect the improvements he makes and send them to the right place (and this is NOT here). This is not support stuff, this is development. And development doesn't happen here.

So it's all about improving software/settings and send it to the right place (in case you've an hour read through this -- none of this happened here or would be even understood by some but since it happened there now everyone here can benefit from).

In case anyone wants to waste his time answering the same questions again and again since the Pine folks absolutely fail (or don't want) to provide a quickstart guide... feel free to do their support job.

In case anyone posts relevant development stuff to this useless forum I will again ask him to send it better to the right place and also to think about not wasting his time posting stuff in a forum where it simply gets lost.

BTW: I would call this here fragmentation http://elinux.org/Pine64 or that http://www.pine64.pro/resources/ -- but you should keep in mind that all relevant development for Pine64 still happens at linux-sunxi.

[martinayotte]

Better collect the improvements and open an issue at longsleep's Github account: https://github.com/longsleep/build-pine64-image

Hi TKaiser,

Yes, I've already sent email to Simon (longsleep) yesterday, and he answered me this morning. We will stay in touch !

I've now need to dig out stuff in this aarch64 tree, the I2C-dev are not working yet ...

[umiddelb]

Just filed PR#10.

And I agree with tkaiser. Having one or two forum moderators/editors doing their job right would be very beneficial:
- write down important things in a way that they will be found easily (->wiki)
- refer to wiki articles instead of repeating the same answer again and again
- direct unexperienced forum members to 1. read first the wiki articles and 2. search the forum for similar threads before 3. raise a question the n+1 time
- keep the wiki articles up to date
- do some housekeeping (e.g. watch if issues are marked as closed if they are solved (& decide if something is worth to be mentioned in the wiki), stop x-posting, move mislead posts into the right category, stop highjacking posts, ...).
- ...

[tkaiser]

Yes, I've already sent email to Simon (longsleep) yesterday, and he answered me this morning. We will stay in touch !

I've now need to dig out stuff in this aarch64 tree, the I2C-dev are not working yet ...

Great, let's stay calm, improve things, ignore the noise

---

Having one or two forum moderators/editors doing their job

That's not enough. Please have in mind that newbies backed these boards on KS without having any experiences with this stuff. So if they didn't received a bent board they produce a DOA on the few meters between unpacking the board on the kitchen table and their TV since the carpet is the enemy (electrostatics).

And the most frustrating part: ALL, and really ALL reasons why the boards won't boot or seem to not boot are known in the meantime. And the Pine64 folks don't care. They really like to get a bad reputation instead of fixing this. Or they're just another example of hardware guys who think about customers in the very same way. People that buy hardware and not people who want to use their hardware.

There exist(ed) a few different real issues that affected the ability to boot this or that OS image. All well known and understood. And instead of pointing users to a central location where they could check what's wrong they allow that the forums are full of nonsense. For example: there exist 2 different Ethernet issues that are not related at all but are confused all the times a user asks and another user answers. Provide a simple and short quickstart guide and you enable everyone to get past this point. What do they? Don't care. Such a mess.