Meson 8* Lives!

    The device nodes for the sd card are just not created I think. I found some references to mmc in sysfs on the debugging shell, but I have no clue why the device nodes are not created. The dmesg looks like the drivers are loaded. I guess I will try out with another sd card or an emmc.

    Martin threatening to do kernel work sounds awesome! If there is stuff to test I am happy to do it.

    Quote from chewitt

    Martin pushed an updated kernel branch: https://github.com/xdarklight/lin…n-6.7-20231203/ - I'm not seeing anything obviously new in terms of commits, but it's an excuse to do a rebase for AMLGX sometime soon.

    Have been actively back and forward porting Martin's work for some time now to keep Armbian working on the S8x2 (Matricom) boxes to facilitate native 'armhf' builds of tools and applications instead of using cross-compilations on a slow ASUS x64 tablet. As a note, some fixes may need to be considered since the recent change that used to work in initialization due to the the 'composite-connector' quirk being present in the DTB within the "meson_drm" module has changed and left out the references to some S8x2 boards for the HDMI initialization. While Martin had been notified about it, not sure if you will work with this specified drop or whatever comes next. Your January 11 build of the AMLMX package had generated lima errors thus failing to start KODI, as a number of forum members had also reported.

    Some tidbits for reference.

    dmesg.jan11.txt

    s8x2.logs.txt

    s8x2.patch.txt

    Quote from chewitt

    Martin pushed an updated kernel branch: https://github.com/xdarklight/lin…n-6.7-20231203/ - I'm not seeing anything obviously new in terms of commits, but it's an excuse to do a rebase for AMLGX sometime soon.

    Martin has posted a recent AMLMX branch GitHub - xdarklight/linux at meson-mx-integration-6.7-20231221, with several changes, however, the display initialization at boot still fails without the fix to the latest 6.7.0-rcx branch. The compatible targets appear to include AMLGX devices but has left the Meson8x out as specified in their DTS. Perhaps, if you plan to generate a future cut of LibreElec for Amlogic S8xx boxes, check the patch to bring up the display.

    fixes.patch.txt

    So I built an image with martins latest branch and this one boots! At least when I use an emmc. But it crashes when kodi starts. Thats some nice progress though.

    kodi_crash.log:

    kodi_crashlog_20240102153558.log

    dmesg.txt

    Code
    [    3.437584] meson-drm d0100000.vpu: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "1920x1080": 60 173106 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 0x20 0x6

    The Kodi log shows it starts and reaches the point where it detects the DRM devices available and then attempts to select a usable surface for rendering output to. This results in the "mode not supported" (as above) being written into the sysytem log.

    Can you run "modetest | paste" and share the URL so we can see what DRM things are available?

    The ix.io service used by paste was down, so i put it here:

    External Content pastebin.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Code
      #0 1920x1200 59.95 1920 1968 2000 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 154000 flags: phsync, nvsync; type: preferred, driver
  #1 1600x1200 60.00 1600 1664 1856 2160 1200 1201 1204 1250 162000 flags: phsync, pvsync; type: driver
  #2 1680x1050 59.88 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080 119000 flags: phsync, nvsync; type: driver
  #3 1280x1024 60.02 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 108000 flags: phsync, pvsync; type: driver
  #4 1280x960 60.00 1280 1376 1488 1800 960 961 964 1000 108000 flags: phsync, pvsync; type: driver
  #5 1024x768 60.00 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 65000 flags: nhsync, nvsync; type: driver
  #6 800x600 60.32 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 40000 flags: phsync, pvsync; type: driver

    ^ Those are the modes EDID shows as supported on the monitor, so the "1920x1080: 60" mode Kodi is looking for is indeed not in the list and .. something behaves badly. The only place I can think of where we hardcode something about 1920x1080 is the default screen resolution to use, which is "<setting id="videoscreen.screenmode" default="true">0192001080060.00000pstd</setting>" in /storage/.kodi/userdata/guisettings.xml, so perhaps stop Kodi and edit it to be "0192001200059.95000pstd" and see if that makes any difference? .. If that does have some effect it's a little odd as Kodi should handle things more gracefully. The other way to test around that would be to connect the board to a TV that has 1920x1080 modes.

    Hi, I am trying to boot any ROM or linux image on this TV BOX. I can't get it to take the MicroSD. The CPU is an Amlogic S802-B.
    I understand it is 32bits.

    RME0924V116800001G(S802-B EMMC)
    GENIATECH RM0924 VER1.16
    2015-07-01

    UBUT: 20150701
    SYSTEM: 20151103
    161110-03721

    I have access to the UART and this is what I got from the output of the ttyUSB0.

    Any hints?
    How do I bakup this system?

    Since you do not overwrite the contents of the EMMC when booting from the SD card, you will not need to do a backup of the existing dated firmware, as illustrated in your log posting. To launch LibreELEC or Armbian from the SD card, you will need to follow the toothpick method discussed in these forums, once you have any image put on a SD card. You can obtain Christian Hewitt's LibreELEC images using his AMLMX builds, Gabor Dee's excellent legacy LibreELEC build, found in these forums, or grab SLAzurin's build of S8xx Armbian from GitHub, which also has a sample image for download that can be used. Once you have something coming up, I can go at length into getting things up to the latest 2024 releases.

    Quote from Synerworks

    Since you do not overwrite the contents of the EMMC when booting from the SD card, you will not need to do a backup of the existing dated firmware, as illustrated in your log posting. To launch LibreELEC or Armbian from the SD card, you will need to follow the toothpick method discussed in these forums, once you have any image put on a SD card. You can obtain Christian Hewitt's LibreELEC images using his AMLMX builds, Gabor Dee's excellent legacy LibreELEC build, found in these forums, or grab SLAzurin's build of S8xx Armbian from GitHub, which also has a sample image for download that can be used. Once you have something coming up, I can go at length into getting things up to the latest 2024 releases.

    Thank you very much for your reply.
    From what I understand, the toothpick method is to boot the TV BOX in "Android Recovery" mode, is that correct?
    I can do that, but I can't find a way to create a MICRO SD which will boot.
    Which model is more compatible with that CPU.
    The backup is in case I need to copy some firmware from the device to add it to an image.

    Quote from Thefinaldoom

    Thank you very much for your reply.
    From what I understand, the toothpick method is to boot the TV BOX in "Android Recovery" mode, is that correct?
    I can do that, but I can't find a way to create a MICRO SD which will boot.
    Which model is more compatible with that CPU.
    The backup is in case I need to copy some firmware from the device to add it to an image.

    Start with the details posted on Dtech's site, GitHub - dtechsrv/LibreELEC-AML: 'Just enough OS' for Kodi for some Amlogic TV boxes.

    The platform that matches the closest to your box would be found at Index of /images/3rdParty/ (dtech.hu), the image name specifically https://libreelec.dtech.hu/images/3rdPart…9.2.8.12.img.gz or https://libreelec.dtech.hu/images/3rdPart…9.2.8.12.img.gz but modifying the DTB to limit the actual memory to 1GB instead of 2GB. Another option would be to pull the actual DTB from your Android box using 'Android Image Kitchen' application to extract and use as the 'dtb.img' when booting either of these images.

    I tried the 2 images and there is no way to get it to boot. I have no button behind the audio connector. I do have an update button under the board. When I press and hold it and connect the power cable it leaves me in Android Recovery, but it doesn't go beyond that. I think I have to change the boot.img to allow me to load any other image from the MicroSD.

    I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

    Quote from Thefinaldoom

    I tried the 2 images and there is no way to get it to boot. I have no button behind the audio connector. I do have an update button under the board. When I press and hold it and connect the power cable it leaves me in Android Recovery, but it doesn't go beyond that. I think I have to change the boot.img to allow me to load any other image from the MicroSD.

    I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

    Pressing the button on the board instead of pushing the toothpick through the audio port is the same thing. The SD card with the image that you want to boot should already be inserted in the slot, with the power cord disconnected, press and hold the button, plug the power in, the boot logo should flicker once and then you should immediately release the button and let the boot proceed. Holding it too long will force the Android recovery mode to come up instead of launching the image from the SD card. The u-boot date code is not antiquated to the point where image loads from the SD card are not available, as far as I am concerned.

    Quote from Synerworks

    Pressing the button on the board instead of pushing the toothpick through the audio port is the same thing. The SD card with the image that you want to boot should already be inserted in the slot, with the power cord disconnected, press and hold the button, plug the power in, the boot logo should flicker once and then you should immediately release the button and let the boot proceed. Holding it too long will force the Android recovery mode to come up instead of launching the image from the SD card. The u-boot date code is not antiquated to the point where image loads from the SD card are not available, as far as I am concerned.

    Thank you very much, with your explanation and checking the TTY monitor (UART) I could see the moment when it waits for enter to be pressed to stop the boot. Now by UART I have ROOT console with M8BOX:
    It remains the logo of the brand stuck but by UART I have console.

    I attach the putty session.
    Hit Enter key to stop autoboot -- : 1 tstc enter
    usbboot - boot from USB device

    I understand that from here I could load the kernel I want or try to boot from USB?

    The current u-boot bootscripts in the AMLMX image are a mashup of various things i've seen/read and blind guessed at since I don't own any Meson 8 box devices that can be used for testing (only a C1+ which has a tweaked/customised u-boot environment and a WeTek Core that doesn't boot). In short: I'd be really surprised if they worked :)

    If you share the output from "printenv" we can see the internal boot flow for u-boot and perhaps figure out how to hook the boot process (as we do with AMLGX). In current state from UART you can probably switch to the SD card root partition and boot KERNEL etc. using the content in https://github.com/chewitt/LibreE…_autoscript.src

    I see there is a bit of confusion here, so I think it would be worth fixing some things.

    This topic is for the upstream AMLMX images, which works with the mainline kernel (6.x).
    But these are not compatible with legacy versions and requires completely different bootscripts.

    Thefinaldoom

    If you are trying to use the upstream version, you would be talking in the right place, but in the case of the legacy images I made, you are not doing this in the right topic. So if you were to try my legacy community builds, with kernel v3.10, then I would rather recommend this aml_autoscript.src boot script, and this topic for support-related communication:

    Thread

    Legacy v9.2 (LTS) builds for Amlogic S805/S8X2, S905/S912 and all WeTek boxes

    Latest version: LibreELEC 9.2.8.14 (Release date: 2024-04-06)

    Automatic updates are enabled on all devices except the WeTek Play, which had a bug preventing updates until version 9.2.8.6.

    There is a workaround below the device description to fix this. Automatic update for WeTek Play is only available from version 9.2.8.7.

    NOTICE: If the auto update is enabled, but the installed version is not the latest, then the supported devices will automatically download and install it after restarting. If…
    dtech
    February 7, 2021 at 2:33 PM

    This forum is quite big, so if possible, we try to communicate related things in their own place and not pollute other topics.

    Thanks and cheers.