Hello.

I failed to switch from legacy to mainline kernel on my OPi 2 mini (it's an OPi 2 without onboard wifi). I installed the packages:

linux-image-dev-sun8i

linux-headers-dev-sun8i

linux-firmware-image-dev-sun8i

and rebooted, but the system hangs at "Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel." (from serial console), green led solid on and ethernet port leds both solid on, no output on HDMI.

 

Then I found this thread and tried to set the clock, but boot fails the same.

Spoiler

U-Boot SPL 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
Trying to boot from MMC

U-Boot 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51 +0100) Allwinner Technology

CPU:   Allwinner H3 (SUN8I)
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   No ethernet found.
starting USB...
No controllers found
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
=> <INTERRUPT>
=> setenv bootargs init=/bin/bash root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootwait console=ttyS0,115200
=>
=>
=>
=> ext4load mmc 0 0x49000000 /boot/dtb/${fdtfile}
31066 bytes read in 864 ms (34.2 KiB/s)
=>
=> ext4load mmc 0 0x46000000 /boot/zImage
5704984 bytes read in 5817 ms (957 KiB/s)
=>
=> env set fdt_high ffffffff
=>
=> bootz 0x46000000 - 0x49000000
Kernel image @ 0x46000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x570d18 ]
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 49000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x49000000
   Using Device Tree in place at 49000000, end 4900a959

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
[    4.774564] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p1): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
[    4.783492] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p1): couldn't mount as ext2 due to feature incompatibilities
bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device
bash: no job control in this shell
root@(none):/# date
Thu Jan  1 01:00:23 CET 1970
root@(none):/#
root@(none):/# date -s "2017-05-05 12:51:00"
Fri May  5 12:51:00 CEST 2017
root@(none):/#
root@(none):/# hwclock -w
hwclock: Could not open file with the clock adjustment parameters in it (/etc/adjtime) for writing: Read-only file system
hwclock: Drift adjustment parameters not updated.
root@(none):/#
root@(none):/# hwclock -r
Fri May  5 12:51:24 2017  -1.616051 seconds
root@(none):/#
root@(none):/# reboot -f
Failed to read /proc/cmdline. Ignoring: No such file or director[  103.058270] reboot: Restarting system
y
Rebooting.

U-Boot SPL 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
Trying to boot from MMC

U-Boot 2016.03-rc2-armbian (Mar 08 2016 - 20:18:51 +0100) Allwinner Technology

CPU:   Allwinner H3 (SUN8I)
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   No ethernet found.
starting USB...
No controllers found
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
2096 bytes read in 204 ms (9.8 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 43100000
gpio: pin PA15 (gpio 15) value is 1
gpio: pin PG11 (gpio 203) value is 1
** File not found /boot/.verbose **
0 bytes read in 241 ms (0 Bytes/s)
31066 bytes read in 858 ms (35.2 KiB/s)
5704984 bytes read in 5836 ms (954.1 KiB/s)
Kernel image @ 0x46000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x570d18 ]
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 49000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x49000000
   Using Device Tree in place at 49000000, end 4900a959
Using machid 0x1029 from environment

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

 

Now i deleted /boot/.next and relinked zImage to the old kernel, the system booted fine.

 

Please, someone could tell me if I have done something wrong?

Many thanks.

Christian

Bump.

Can anybody help me?

With development kernels there are too many possible problems that we decide not to provide any end user support. It's usually changing too fast and that means solving such "support ticket" is horrible waste of time and pointless. During the time needed to collect some information it could already be completely changed or solved. I hope you understand that.

 

I can only give you two general hints - you need to manually upgrade boot script and exchange u-boot but I am not sure if this is all. If you want to be more up to date, start following development process: https://github.com/armbian/build

Many thanks. Looking at this page I have been wondering if I can use linux-image-next-sunxi/linux-headers-next-sunxi image on a H3 device, as both legacy and dev image are specific for H3 (sun8i). Is this possible?

 

BR

Christian

No, it wont work. H3 / sun8i support in mainline kernel branc (NEXT) is minimal. This sun8i-dev will once be merged with this branch, but not soon.