[Blend-tinker-devel] [REPORT] Successful image generation for a minimally modified Debian to run on Sinovoip Banana Pi M2+EDU (H3 SOC, armhf)

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Linux-Fan (2020-02-23 22:23:15)
> Hello Debian tinkerers,

Hi and welcome, Debian tinkerer, I am pleased to have you join the team.


> I am writing this as a follow-up on an existing debian-user thread 
> <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/02/msg00603.html> and some 
> private replies which suggested that the recommended place for 
> questions related to ARM SBCs would be here.
> 
> The goal behind the original question linked above was to get an 
> unmodified Debian 10 onto the SBC without any external sources 
> whatsoever.

Excellent goal.

Since Debian 10 (buster) is stable now, the best path to getting there 
is, in my opinion, to first make it work with Debian sid, then Debian 
testing, and then with Debian buster + backports.

By then (or possibly before the last step) you will know exactly which 
pieces are missing in stable Debian Buster, and can file bugreports e.g. 
against u-boot and kernel to fix it - and then your goal is reached 
(assuming the patches are small and isolated enough that both package 
maintainers and Debian release managers will accept them into the stable 
distribution, of course).


> Unfortunately, the result is (still) not entirely “unmodified“. For 
> now, the following changes wrt. a “proper“ Debian exist:
> 
>  * u-boot (file `u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin`) is still taken from
>    armbian. I could not get it to work with either “mainline“ u-boot
>    which hangs at “Starting kernel...” or Debian's u-boot which
>    turns on the display, but does not do any output and does not boot --
>    no error message available...

Try look at the source of Armbian which branch of u-boot the working 
code is based on, and with which patches applied.  Try cherry-pick parts 
over to either mainline u-boot or Debian u-boot (which is mainline 
u-boot with few patches applied).

If you are new to Allwinner-based boards, then it might also be helpful 
to compare with code for other similar boards - in particular A64-based 
boards - which works already in Debian.  My favorite (if you consider 
shopping) is the Olimex A64 board that was created as a prototype for 
the Olimex TERES-I laptop.  Or the TERES-I laptop itself ;-)


>  * The kernel-upgrade process needs an additional script to generate
>    `uInitrd` and `boot.scr` files required by u-boot. I wrote that
>    script as a sort of “heuristics“ for kernel upgrading. Currently,
>    it lacks the Debian amd64's convenience of providing multiple
>    bootable kernel versions at the same time.

Again, I recommend comparing with thigs already working in Debian. 
Concretely, I can suggest you to look at u-boot-menu.


> Additionally, I can tell that the new `mmdebstrap` really pays off in 
> terms of speed and less workarounds needed. It is, however, a little 
> difficult to get started (cf. linked debian-user thread) and I might 
> manage to reproduce the a bug regarding the use of mode `fakechroot` 
> on Debian stable (to be continued...)

I dearly recommend getting in touch with the author of mmdebstrap, 
ideally by framing issues you have as bugs (if nothing else then 
documentation deficiencies) so that the conversation is public, for the 
benefit of us all.


> In case you are interested in my scripts, they are all published on 
> [GitHub](https://github.com/m7a/lo-banana-pi-m2p-edu).
> 
> To read the documentation, check the (updated) article on my website: 
> [banana_pi_m2_plus_edu(37)](https://masysma.lima-city.de/37/banana_pi_m2_plus_edu.xhtml).

Thanks.  I will sure have a look at those, later: Now is bed-time :-)


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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