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  Hello and some general advice.
Posted by: vinylash - 02-17-2019, 10:58 AM - Forum: General Discussion on PINE A64(+) - Replies (2)

Hi guy's. I'm new to the forum. I'm an sbc enthusiast and currently own a raspberry pi 0,2,3 and 3b+ as well as an odroid XU4Q. But I've turned my attention to a pine A64 (512mb) variant, which I've been able to pick up for a really good price. 
 
Before it turns up in the post I have some general questions:
1. What would be the recommended Linux OS for this board? I know it's the lowest hardware version so after something lightweight but usable for light DE tasks and possibly packages to set up a Nas. What have other users found a good set up? 
2. I've read a few threads in regards to these boards being picky about being powered through micro usb and a workaround by powering through the EULA bus. Could I chop the end off one of my 5v2amp pi adapters and connect to the DC in pins? 
3. What micro SD cards are guys using on their boards? Any perticular brands that work well? 
4. And finally, what sort of heat does the SoC give off? Will I potentially need to apply a heatsink? My pi 3 makes some mega heat when under load. 

Any other advice or things to watch out for would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance?

Ash


  Mic Input
Posted by: Augusto Pine - 02-17-2019, 09:17 AM - Forum: General Discussion on ROCK64 - Replies (1)

Does the ROCK64 have any pins for microphone input?


Brick bionic debian on virtualbox
Posted by: Szwarceneger16 - 02-17-2019, 07:59 AM - Forum: Linux on RockPro64 - No Replies

Hi guys
How can I run image for rock pro 64 (i think about Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic LXDE Desktop aarch64 version) in the virtualbox?
I haven't rockpro64 yet and i want try os.
When i try add img file to floppy controller in Virtual Box i see only error.
[Image: NKt5NUk]

Thanks for help.


  Xfce 4.12 on Pine64LTS is possibly the best linux build!
Posted by: wombat - 02-17-2019, 07:47 AM - Forum: Linux on PINE A64-LTS / SOPINE - No Replies

Xfce4.12 anarsoul released this on 13 Jan 

YouTube videos and sound through hdmi playable directly after log in. 
Best quality @ 720P


  Defect board?
Posted by: buskmann - 02-16-2019, 08:40 AM - Forum: RockPro64 Hardware and Accessories - Replies (2)

Just got my first rockpro64 4gb. This is my first ever developer board, so I have no experience at all. 

I plug in the power supply, and a green light turns on near the plug. Then i try to push the power button, and nothing happens.

I am wondering if this is a faulty board or if im doing something wrong? Huh


  Where is my order?
Posted by: greenhobby - 02-15-2019, 04:13 PM - Forum: Shipment Related Discussion - Replies (5)

Hi,

I ordered the ROCKPro64 4GB SBC and a few options on 2/1 and 2/3. Order number 98499 and 98443. Can anyone tell me what the status is? I received a confirmation of the order but no other information (tracking, where to look, etc)

thanks in advance, 

gh


Rainbow Customised (encrypted) eMMC installation using Anarsoul's ArchLinux
Posted by: Blutkoete - 02-15-2019, 01:49 PM - Forum: Linux on Pinebook - Replies (24)

ArchLinux ARM is a very flexible base for a highly customised Linux experience on the Pinebook.

As I personally had some requirements towards my Pinebook that were not covered by any provided image, I decided to use Anarsoul's great ArchLinux image as a base for a custom ArchLinux installation. This process is very simple if you have already have experience with installing ArchLinux on a x64 system - it does not differ much from the normal way how ArchLinux is installed. The short todo list is

  1. flash Anarsoul's ArchLinux image to an SD card and boot it,
  2. connect to your local WiFi,
  3. install the arch-install-scripts package and
  4. follow the normal ArchLinux installation instructions, carefully merging them with what
  5. Anarsoul's shell scripts for creating the SD card image do.
Doing that yourself is the best way to get a real customised installation on your eMMC in the Pinebook, but as I know that many people will refrain from reading through lenghty manuals and prefer mindless copying of commands into shell*, I'll share the steps here that I used to install ArchLinux ARM into an encrypted LVM on my Pinebook. Just do me a favour and if you encounter any problems, try to understand any error messages or symptoms that you get before asking anyone for support; in addition to the great flexibility & simplicity of ArchLinux, learning how everything works under the hood is one of the great advantages of the ArchLinux installation process & of using ArchLinux, don't throw that opportunity away.

I DO NOT TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY IF TRYING TO FOLLOW THESE STEPS LEAD TO ANY PROBLEMS, INCLUDING BROKEN HARDWARE OR SERIOUS INJURY AND/OR DEATH.

Still here? Let's go Smile . These steps will lead to an encrypted installation on your eMMC card (that was my usecase because I tend to forget hardware in trains, buses and so on).

1. Flash Anarsoul's ArchLinux image to an SD card and boot it. It's available via the official PineBook installer utility, but the last time I checked the version available via the PineBook installer utility was out of date.

2. Boot it & log-in.

3. Fire up a terminal.

4. Get a root shell (using sudo for everything is possible, too).


Code:
$ su

5. Connect to your wifi (either via the NetworkManager gui or from within the terminal using wifi-menu).

6. Install arch-install-scripts. Updating everything else on the SD card while we're here doesn't hurt, either.


Code:
# pacman -Syu arch-install-scripts

7. Make sure you take the right device for partioning. The SD card should normally be mmcblk1, the eMMC should normally be mmcblk2.

Code:
# lsblk

8. Start partioning. The following commands come basically directly from Anarsoul's scripts. You can adapt sizes, types & everything here if you want to. If step 7 lead to a different result than /dev/mmcblk2, adapt the command below.


Code:
fdisk /dev/mmcblk2


9. Create a new empty partition table.


Code:
Command (m for help): o

10. Create a boot partition. This partition should start at position 40960 and have a size of (at least) 100M. As I have 64GB eMMC, I like to be more generous and use 1GB.


Code:
n
p
1
40960
+1G

11. Change the type of the partition to "W95 FAT32 (LBA)".

Code:
t
c

12. Create the main partition that we'll use for the encryption. I use all remaiming space for mine, so this step is easier. This partition should start were the previous partition ends; you can find out that position by either calculating it (starting position of the previous partition plus two-times its size) or by looking it up (use p to print the current partion layout).


Code:
n
p
2
[CALCULATED STARTING POSITION]
<ENTER>

13. Give it type 83 ("Linux").

Code:
t
2
83

14. Anarsoul sets a boot flag on one of his partitions, but it was not necessary on my Pinebook. Simply write the changes to disk.


Code:
w

15. Let's create the FAT32 file system on our boot partition. Check with lsblk beforehand what device names/parition names to use.


Code:
# mkfs.fat -n ARCHBOOT -F 32 /dev/mmcblk2p1

16. Let's create the encrypted partition.


Code:
# cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/mmcblk2p2

17. Mount it with the password that you created in step 16.


Code:
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/mmcblk2p2 archcrypt

18. Create an LVM in it. I actually use quite a large swap partition, but as I said, my eMMC is large enough. The previous version contained a typo; the command should be pvcreate.


Code:
# pvcreate /dev/mapper/archcrypt
# vgcreate archlvm /dev/mapper/archcrypt
# lvcreate -L 4G archlvm -n swap
# lvcreate -l 100%FREE archlvm -n root

19. Create the swap.


Code:
# mkswap -L archswap /dev/archlvm/swap


20. Create whatever filesystem you want for your root partition.


Code:
# mkfs.ext4 -L archroot /dev/archlvm/root

21. Mount root to /mnt, boot to /mnt/boot.


Code:
# mount /dev/archlvm/root /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt/boot

22. Install (at least) the base system. Add the packages from Anarsoul's scripts here. You can already add a desktop environment and other stuff here if you want to. The Arch Wiki's advice for most DEs works flawlessly on ARM, too. Incomplete list of DEs (using only a window manager might be a nice idea on the Pinebook): KDE LXDE LXQt Xfce


Code:
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel dosfstools curl xz iw rfkill netctl dialog wpa_supplicant alsa-utils pv linux-pine64 linux-pine64-headers networkmanager \
dkms-rtl8723cs uboot-pine64-git rtl8723bt-firmware uboot-tools

23. Generate the fstab for the new system.


Code:
# genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

24. Switch to the new system.


Code:
# arch-chroot /mnt


25. Set your timezone.


Code:
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/<Continent>/<City> /etc/localtime

26. Generate your locale. Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment all the locales you want to use. After that, generate them.


Code:
# locale-gen

27. Set one of the languages you just generated in /etc/locale.conf. Here's an example.


Code:
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

28. If you want a special keyboard layout, that it in /etc/vconsole.conf. Here's an example.

Code:
KEYMAP=de-latin1

29. Set a hostname for the computer in /etc/hostname. Here's an example.

Code:
averageusers-pinebook

28. Set a password for root.


Code:
# passwd

29. Add Anarsoul's repository to /etc/pacman.conf.

Code:
[pine64-mainline]
SigLevel = Never
Server = https://github.com/anarsoul/PKGBUILDs/releases/download/mainline

30. Now for the fun part: Getting this thingie to boot from our encrypted partition! First we'll need some additional hooks in the initial kernel. So edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, look for the HOOKS line and add some hooks (for keymap support, for encryption support, for lvm support). The order is important.

Code:
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)

31. Generate the new image.


Code:
# mkinitcpio -p linux-pine64

32. Modify /boot/boot.txt. We need to set kernel options for the cryptdevice. I also set one for the resume even though that is currently not working, but may work in the future. We need to modify the line with setenv bootargs in it. Personally, I use the UUID for the partition, but that's harder to write. Use blkid to find out the UUID of the encrypted partition and then use cryptdevice=UUID=... if you want that. Here's an non-UUID example:


Code:
setenv bootargs console=${console} console=tty0 cryptdevice=/dev/mmcblk2p2:archcrypt root=/dev/archlvm/root resume=/dev/archlvm/swap rw rootwait quiet

In the same file, adapt all the paths in the big if-fi block so that they point directly at e.g. /Image.gz as the parition will be mounted by u-boot without the prepending /boot/.

33. Compile the file.

Code:
# cd /boot
# ./mkscr


34. Leave the chroot.

Code:
# exit

35. Do the finetuning from Anarsoul's scripts. The last two lines only work if you already installed a desktop environment during step 22.


Code:
# cp /var/lib/alsa/asound.state /mnt/var/lib/alsa
# cp /etc/sysctl.d/sysrq.conf /mnt/etc/sysctl.d/
# cp /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/81-blueman.rules /mnt/etc/polkit-1/rules.d/

# cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/modesetting.conf /mnt/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
# cp /usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders.cache /mnt/usr/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/

36. Write uboot to the beginning of the eMMC.

Code:
# dd if=/mnt/boot/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl-pinebook.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2 bs=8k seek=1

37. Reboot without the SD card.

37. Enter your encryption password to boot.

38. Log in as root, add a normal user, configure your wifi with wifi-menu and install whatever DE you want.

I hope I didn't forget something. Please report any typos or missing steps. Thank you!

Thanks to e-minguez for pointing out errors and typos!

* I'm one of these many people myself often enough.


  CPU Bi-Endian support of RK3399
Posted by: mschulz - 02-15-2019, 07:12 AM - Forum: Linux on RockPro64 - Replies (2)

Hello!

According to ARM the Endian support of the ARMv8 CPUs may vary depending on architecture/model/manufacturer. Therefore I would like to learn whether the RK3399 does support big-endian mode of operation before I decide to order that board. I have written a small test code (32bit ARM!):

Code:
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char**argv)
{
   (void)argc; (void)argv;

   int tmp = 0;

   printf("Trying to switch endianess\n");

   asm volatile("setend be; str %0, %1; setend le"::"r"(0xdeadbeef),"m"(tmp));

   printf("Value in tmp is %08x, written was %08x\n", tmp, 0xdeadbeef);

   return 0;
}

The code does nothing extraordinary, it just switches the CPU mode to BE, stores variable in memory and switches back to LE, which is most likely the default mode on RK3399. I would like someone to compile this code in 32bit mode and test. There, three things can happen:
1. The "setend" instruction is obsolete and CPU is told to throw an exception on that instruction. In that case sigsegv is thrown and program ends without any output on the console.
2. The "setend" instruction is executed but the CPU does not support BE mode. In that case "Value in tmp is deadbeef, written was deadbeef" will show on the console
3. The "setend" instruction is executed and the CPU supports BE mode. In that case "Value in tmp is efbeadde, written was deadbeef" will show on the console.

Thanks for the help.


  Powering a portable HDD
Posted by: JambonLeVrai - 02-14-2019, 06:56 PM - Forum: Getting Started - Replies (3)

Hi there,
I've got a little project with my pine in which I need to use a portable HDD to it. The thing is that it seems that it's not working correctly. I'm not sure about the model of pine A64 I'm using, I'm using the one that got shipped at the release of the Kickstarter fundraising, and I'm trying to make it work with a Western Digital Portable Essentials 2To (WDBU6Y0020BBK). Actually the hard drives makes a clicking noise while my pine is trying to access it, and after a little research I've found out that it might not be receiving enough power from the usb port (since the hdd is working perfectly on my computer).
Now that I've identified the problem I'm not sure at all about how to tackle this issue. Is the easiest solution to use a powered USB hub, or is there something fancier that would take less space (or are there even single USB powered "hubs")?
Oh by the way I'm powering the Pine board with a Samsung Travel Adapter which outputs 5.0V 1.0A.


  ROCK64 Linux Development - Stalled?
Posted by: thewonderer - 02-14-2019, 05:16 PM - Forum: Linux on Rock64 - Replies (7)

I've been waiting for new builds to appear for the rock64, but looking at github (https://github.com/ayufan-rock64) over the last few months, development seems to have stalled.  I realise Ayufan is working by himself and is working on other projects like gitlab, but with the new rock64 rev 3 coming out soon and still issues with the current builds, it would be great to get some more progress on the rock64, like in 2018.

Does anyone know if Ayufan is going to ramp up his development or if anyone can help?


Really appreciate all the work he's done, but get the feeling development has stopped and considering retiring my rock 64 hardkernel n2 when it comes out.
Thanks.