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

[Linux-Fan]

Hello,

I am pleased to announce that with the help of this thread, I arrived at a  
Debian-only solution. Details below and in the updated blog-post.

Jonas Smedegaard writes:

> Quoting Linux-Fan (2020-02-23 22:23:15)

[...]

> > 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 ;-)

Thanks to the hints, especially from your other message, I went forward  
testing the u-boot from Debian stable for `orangepi_plus` and... it works!  
IIRC, I had tested with the files from
https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/armhf/daily/u-boot/ before and that did  
not work (hangs at "Starting kernel...").

The only downside so far: It does not do USB keyboard input on the Linux  
console anymore... I can live with that because I use the board as a (very  
small) server anyways, but still a little imperfect. Thinking that it did  
not do any HDMI output with the Debian 8 + Armbian solution from before  
(making the use of USB keyboard questionable), it is still a huge progress!

> >  * 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.

Thank you ever so much! That package solves the issue just as well and I  
have switched from my homegrown script to u-boot-menu without issues.

> > 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.

Yes. There, I will follow your advice from before and try to reproduce the  
issue with sid first to find out if it is already fixed etc.

> > 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 :-)

Thank you very much for your help, it is very much appreciated.
Linux-Fan

[...]
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