balbes150 ethernet should be easy to fix once I get my box.
BTW, this and other H6 STBs seem to be made as cheap as possible. They lack some of features present on H6 SBCs, like proper power management, gigabit ethernet and better RAM (I think DDR3 is the cheapest supported RAM type). However, you get enclosure, remote and AC adapter.
SBCs also usually use WiFi modules which are better supported in Linux.
Interesting. I suspect this is some combination of Kodi and kernel issue. I guess I'll wait for box to arrive first before working on it.
One more thing I noticed was that the RAM in Kodi shows as 3gb. I remember you saying there was some limit on RAM, but there was a hack to get it to show/use 4gb RAM??
H6 is only capable to address 3GiB of RAM. It has 32-bit address space and lower 1 GiB is reserved for memory mapped peripherals. Take another look at serial output. SPL DRAM driver will correctly report 4 GiB of RAM, because so much of RAM is physically present. However, U-Boot will report 3 GiB of RAM, because so much can be really used.
No one really knows if there is a way to use that 1 GiB of RAM. It certainly can't be directly addressed.
ukmark62 please test this image: libreelec-h6.arm-9.1-devel-20190615175620-0b86f08-tanix_tx6.img.gz
It should have proper U-Boot already, so you just burn it on SD card and try right away. I also fixed resolution detection and HDMI audio. STB has additional pin which has to be enabled in order to correctly read EDID.
USB3 also doesn't work yet. Anyway, if this works as intended so far, I'll stop right here until I receive my box.
If you are curious, I uploaded LibreELEC changes here: Commits · jernejsk/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub
I would think that if a USB wifi adapter works then most people would be happy with that.
From experiences I can tell you it's quiet the opposite.
Do you need me to send you any files?
No need, thanks!
1 Display resolution is limited to 1024x768 and below. Only 60hz frequencies available
2 No sound (I notice on initial bootup that a "FAILED:Pulse Audio Driver not installed" message showed up. However it has not shown up since I've rebooted again. However, still no audio.
I'll fix this with next image, which will also have proper U-Boot included.
Image will have at least two issues - no wifi and no ethernet. I will fix ethernet after I receive my box, but wifi will be hard. Apparently, there are two variants of the box. One with Realtek SDIO wifi module with no open source drivers and another one with PCIE wifi module. PCIE on H6 is quirky and driver may never be properly included in mainline Linux.
ukmark62 Can you test this image?
libreelec-h6.arm-9.1-devel-20190615163837-0b86f08-tanix_tx6.img.gz
Correct DT is already included, but you still need to overwrite U-Boot. I disabled frequency scaling in GPU driver. It usually requires adjustable GPU voltage regulator, which is not present in this box.
It is, thanks! GPU driver is not correctly loaded for some reason. I'll take a look.
unfortuantely, that doesn't help much. Can you try using cat instead? I need full log.
You might also want to stop Kodi with systemctl stop kodi and check kodi logs for any issue in /storage/.kodi/temp
ukmark62 That seems fine.
Are following lines continuously being repeated or they stop after some time?
[ OK ] Started Kodi Media Center.
[ OK ] Stopped Kodi Media Center.
If not, are you sure you correctly identified TX pin?
One thing you can try at this point is to recreate SD card. Burn image again, overwrite U-Boot and fix DT before first boot. It's possible that something was stored at first boot which doesn't match anymore, like board name.
When I type dmesg, nothing happens.
Also remove quiet from extlinux/extlinux.conf. You should get more or less same output as with dmesg on serial console.
Couldn't execute dmesg. Where do I do that?
you just type it in on serial, unless SoC is halted.
Please test this:
ukmark62 Edit extlinux/extlinux.conf again and remove console=tty1 from append line. That way you will get terminal on serial console. Please copy and paste output of dmesg.
BTW, please use pastebin for it or at least use spoiler tag.
ukmark62 Can you please test attached sun50i-h6-tanix-tx6.dtb? Copy it in same folder where orangepi3 one is and edit extlinux/extlinux.conf and change DT file name.
For reference, there is also non-compiled version included.
attachment: tanix-tx6-dt.zip
Ok, then we really need appropriate DT. I try to come up with something quickly, just enough to boot and run Kodi.
Write the Orange Pi 3 image to sd card (using rufus), then "dd" only the u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin to same sd card?
In general, yes. How you write image to SD card is up to you. I use "dd" for everything, but that is not the best method.
Which dtb should I use or is that irrelevant? Thx
In this case you'll use orangepi3 DT, which of course is not optimal, but it should show some signs of life. Later, we should write Tanix TX6 specific DT.
ukmark62 Great! That means DDR3 initialization works! Still some work to do to put everything into appropriate form to be sent to U-Boot mailing list, but first Tanix TX6 LE image could be available next week.
BTW, you may experiment now by taking existing OrangePi 3 LE image and flash this U-Boot binary over. It won't work 100% correctly and there will be errors reported, but it may work.
