Cubieboard2 - Almost there...

mashman

Hi Team,

I've semi-successfully ported Rune to the Cubieboard 2.

See my debug log here.

I'm still missing spotify and upnp/dlna as i don't really have interest in them but they shouldn't be too hard to complete.

I followed a mix of the rPi cookbook and the cookbook development from the git pages. Many of the binaries from the Cubox git page worked for me as the Cubieboard is the same armv7 architechure. Many others did not and I used various methods to get them working.

The system is up and running but it appears to be a little unstable. Skipping tracks seems to freak it out and it becomes all crackly. After that it freezes and i have to hit stop and play to get it going again. If anyone has any tips to iron our the bumps, that would be ace.

The next big step will be getting a Spdif output from this, anyone got any tips? I believe i have to build the module into it but i'm not sure about converting the i2s into a usable/stable PCM stream.

I'd be happy to share what i learnt if people are interested. Where is the cookbook development happening? i can see a lot of simplfication there.

Also, am i in the right subforum for this?

cheers,

mm

hondagx35

Hi mashman,

nice to hear that there is someone else working on a A20 image.
I'm working on a Cubietruck image and also would like to share my work with others.

Your debug log shows that "sunxi-CODEC" is your only sound output.
The stock driver only supports audio format "S16_LE". i think.
This may be the reason for the issues you run into while skipping tracks.

RuneAudio runs very smooth on my cubietruck.

Cubieboard 2 and Cubieboard 3 (Cubietruck) are nearly the same,
so my image should run on your device.
Cubietruck-Image
Don't forget to update from git with:

cd /srv/http/
git pull

or via the user interface.

Working features:

* audio
- sunxi-CODEC
- sunxi-sndspdif
- sunxi-sndhdmi
- sunxi-sndi2s

* infrared
* sata
* running from internal nand

Todo:

* update some packages

For more information please contact me via mail.

Frank

mashman

Awesome, thanks frank.

I suspect your image is more stable than mine, i'll give it a go. I guess we can confirm this works.

Your debug log shows that "sunxi-CODEC" is your only sound output.

Yes, i have only used the stock kernel from the arch site. There is more work to do there. I'll likely pinch your .config and see where i can go.

The Cubieboard does not have a plug for optical out so i'll have to make one or buy one.

Do you have any info about running on the internal NAND? i'm not sure of the advantages in this context.

Thanks for the reply.
mm

mashman

Hi Frank,

Just a quick question about your cubie Rune image. i've had a go at flashing it to the CB2 but something is not quite right.

Please let me know if i'm missing a step. i'm realtively new to the bootloader so i may have skipped a step.

First i extracted your image to
RuneAudio_cubie_0.3-dev_20141219_2GB.img

Then flashed it directly to my SD card.

dd if=RuneAudio_cubie_0.3-dev_20141219_2GB.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

Then downloaded the CB2 bootloader

wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/sunxi/boot/cubieboard2/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin

Then flashed the bootloader to the SD Card.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=1 count=2047 ; sync ; dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=1024 seek=8

The cubie seems to boot and lights flash a lot until they stop. From there i cannot get a nextwork or terminal connection to the device. So, i'm not sure if it's actually installed or worked.

Could there be a difference in the drivers between the cubieboard/truck? Or have i misunderstood the flashing process. should this be a NAND flash.

Cheers.

mm

hondagx35

Hi mashman,

my image already includes the boot loader.

The cubie seems to boot and lights flash a lot until they stop.

This is the expected behavior, because i'm turning them off at boot time.

If possible please plug in a monitor and keyboard, so we can debug.

Frank

mashman

aha, righto.

I tried that but it didn't work with just the image so i suspected it was the bootloader as other people have built images this way.

anyhow....

I could not get the HDMI video out to work but i do have a TTL cable so i've copied the output from that.

here http://pastebin.com/9ucxNv9L

It looks like the ethernet module is not available within this one. I belive the cubietruck has a gigabit ethernet where as the cubieboard2 only has 10/100. Perhaps they are different drivers. Suffice to say, this probably the same issue with the HDMI.

Interested to hear your thoughts/suggestions.

cheers,

mm

hondagx35

Hi mashman,

The gmac driver should work with all A20 devices.
From your output:

<6>sunxi_gmac: probed
<6>eth0: PHY ID 00008201 at 1 IRQ 0 (sunxi_gmac-0:01) active
<6>ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
<6>PHY: sunxi_gmac-0:01 - Link is Up<c> - 100/Full<c>
<6>ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

But there is something wrong with dhcp:

<30>systemd[1]: Started Network Name Resolution.
<6>PHY: sunxi_gmac-0:01 - Link is Up<c> - 100/Full<c>
<29>systemd[1]: dhcpcd@eth0.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
<27>systemd[1]: Failed to start dhcpcd on eth0.
<29>systemd[1]: Unit dhcpcd@eth0.service entered failed state.

Please try to edit /etc/netctl/eth0 to get a static ip.

Description='eth0 connection'
Interface=eth0
ForceConnect=yes
SkipNoCarrier=yes
Connection=ethernet
AutoWired=yes
IP=static
Address=('192.168.0.105/24')
Gateway='192.168.0.1'
DNS=('192.168.0.1')

For HDMI please compare the fex file from your image with mine.

Frank