Pine64 Debian Stretch/mainline [4.14.7]

[CallMeFoxie]

Kernel 4.13.6 has been released, do apt-get update && apt-get install linux-image-pine64 && reboot and all should be working

New image with fixes (ssh keys generation on first bootup, unique machine-id etc) will be up later (bad upload speeds )

[ak_hepcat]

oooh, it's starting to feel like a real system again...

Thanks for all your work on this!

:-)

[semidog]

@Foxie, thank you so much for all your fantastic work. The box is beginning to shine!

Couple of issues I noticed, thought I'd check with ya:

1. The ethernet interface, even though it is linked up at 1Gbps, is **extremely** slow. I was getting about ~10kB/s with the 4.13.7 image and ~50kB/s with the 4.13.10 image. And this is from another device also connected at 1Gbps on the same switch. I rolled back to Ayufan's 3.10 kernel, and I saw respectable speeds of 80 MB/s. I noticed that the dwmac kernel module has a number of parameters. Some tweaking required?

2. Only the lower USB port works. No devices connected to the upper USB port are detected.

Thanks again.

[CallMeFoxie]

1. maybe some HW issue - there was some talk about it some time ago, there is a patch in kernel but it may not be applied, will look at it.
2. yep, the USB driver is not 100% working yet

Will do the 1st thing on the 4.14 kernel as it just came out.

Btw I always build updated latest kernels but before I have the chance to give them a try newer one is already released .

[Luke]

1. maybe some HW issue - there was some talk about it some time ago, there is a patch in kernel but it may not be applied, will look at it.
2. yep, the USB driver is not 100% working yet

Will do the 1st thing on the 4.14 kernel as it just came out.

Btw I always build updated latest kernels but before I have the chance to give them a try newer one is already released .

IIRC 4.14 even has HDMI out working correct ?

[ixoo]

Thanks CallMeFoxie for your work!

I used it myself adding some glue/automation to ease things.
First I created a vagrant vm to have a reproducible environment I can work with whatever my OS, then I replaced most scripts with a Makefile to handle dependencies. A lot of things can be improved but I felt the dep management is a helpful step, as well as the removal of the docker dependency as it had strong dependencies on the host OS (hence did not work on most of my laptops)

To get started:
# in your preferred shell with git & vagrant already installed
git clone https://github.com/ixoo/pine64-vagrant.git
cd pine64-vagrant
vagrant up
vagrant ssh
# now within the vagrant vm
git clone --recurse https://github.com/ixoo/pine64-mainline-project.git
cd pine64-mainline-project
make
# after a few minute your image is in output/pine64.img
# user pine / password julien1234

[CallMeFoxie]

@ixoo thanks! My bash scripts are only launching Docker containers that builds the stuff to avoid the tools being installed on the host instead of Vagrant as I've never used Vagrant (and have no use to tbh) - with the exception of building the rootfs
I am not overly good with Makefiles so cannot comment on that, I have a bit of a hate relationship with Makefiles after university .

Also 4.14.1 kernel is out on the APT repo, Docker-ce 17.11 will follow this week. Might do a newer base image release soon to fix some details as well.

[ixoo]

Vagrant should make it easier for anyone to contribute, in the end I rely on your repo for the kernel, rootfs and packaging.
You definitely don't need neither Vagrant nor docker if you are on a debian based linux already.

Excited to try the latest version soon!
My use case mostly involves getting the best IOs (network and USB) and good CPU scheduling from my 3 boards, so mainline is great in my case.

[semidog]

@Foxie, thanks again for the effort you've been putting in.

I upgraded to your latest 4.14.1 kernel, and my Ethernet issues are still plaguing me. I found a sort-of workaround on some forum: Set the speed to 100M instead of 1G, and the performance actually improves. But that's not a solution, I still want GigE.

So I was browsing longsleep's kernel tree here: https://github.com/longsleep/linux-pine6.../allwinner

The sunxi_gmac driver has not been mainlined, so it isn't included in your kernel. I am trying to build a kernel now, with your config, and with the sunxi driver thrown in. Let's see how that goes.

[CallMeFoxie]

Ethernet is fine for me, I think you have the revision with the bad <whatever I cannot remember> which should have been fixed already :/ Honestly no idea tbh.

The driver has been mainlined in 4.13 but removed from a64 compatibility due to naming collission or something else with naming, so I reverted the PR that removed the compatibility.