I decided to learn something interesting and wanted to build an image for the Anbernic RG353P console. I checked that uboot has DTS files for my model in the main branch and that there is support in the Armbian kernel (vendor) for my hardware. Unfortunately, after building the image and uploading it to the console, nothing happens. The console has dual boot Linux/Android, Linux should boot from the SD card. Unfortunately, the system immediately loads Android and skips my card. I tried various options in board config, but to no avail.

 

Do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong with the configuration? The board configuration is copied from the existing one for nanopi-r3s-lts. I found two things that didn't seem right to me:

- by default, rootdev was configured to mmcblk0p1 in the bootscript, I think (I'm not 100% sure) that it should be mmcblk1p1 - no improvement

- my DTB file (/boot/dtb/rockchip) is missing from the /boot partition - I manually mounted the partition and uploaded the file, but that didn't help either (I set the permissions etc. the same as for the other DTBs).

 

I am pasting the configuration files.

 

Thank you very much for any help and advice


Board config:

Quote

# Rockchip RK3566 quad core 2GB RAM eMMC 2x GbE USB3 HDMI
BOARD_NAME="Anbernic RG353P"
BOARDFAMILY="rk35xx"
KERNELSOURCE='https://github.com/armbian/linux-rockchip.git'
KERNELBRANCH='branch:rk-6.1-rkr5.1'
KERNELPATCHDIR='rk35xx-vendor-6.1'
#KERNEL_BTF="no"
BOARD_MAINTAINER="IoToys"
BOOTCONFIG="anbernic-rgxx3-rk3566_defconfig"
KERNEL_TARGET="vendor"
KERNEL_TEST_TARGET="vendor"
BOOT_FDT_FILE="rockchip/rk3566-anbernic-rg353p.dtb"
IMAGE_PARTITION_TABLE="gpt"
BOOTFS_TYPE="fat" 
BOOT_SCENARIO="spl-blobs"

function post_family_config__use_mainline_uboot() {
	if [[ "$BRANCH" != "vendor" ]]; then
    	return 0
	fi
	#unset BOOTFS_TYPE   # mainline u-boot can boot ext4 directly
	BOOTCONFIG="anbernic-rgxx3-rk3566_defconfig"
	BOOTSOURCE="https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot"
	BOOTBRANCH="branch:master"
	BOOTPATCHDIR="master"
	UBOOT_TARGET_MAP="BL31=$RKBIN_DIR/$BL31_BLOB ROCKCHIP_TPL=$RKBIN_DIR/$DDR_BLOB;;u-boot-rockchip.bin"

	unset uboot_custom_postprocess write_uboot_platform write_uboot_platform_mtd

	function write_uboot_platform() {
		dd if=$1/u-boot-rockchip.bin of=$2 seek=64 conv=notrunc status=none
	}
}

 

armbianEnv.txt
 

verbosity=1
bootlogo=false
console=both
extraargs=cma=256M
overlay_prefix=rk35xx
fdtfile=rockchip/rk3566-anbernic-rg353p.dtb
rootdev=UUID=8f8aa17e-0953-4c6c-b7bf-8cf0ebbf2b14
rootfstype=ext4

 

moved to tvboxes for now. perhaps anyone has a clue how to get rid of Android before continuing.

Quote

moved to tvboxes for now. perhaps anyone has a clue how to get rid of Android before continuing.

 

From what I understand and can see from the behavior of the stock ROM, the device first checks whether there is a /boot partition on the SD card, and only then does it start Android.

You are going to need to connect a USB uart connector to capture the console log of the boot.  Without logs it is hard to know what is happening 

11 hours ago, tomacaster said:

I decided to learn something interesting and wanted to build an image for the Anbernic RG353P console.

I think this device already have a working linux on SD-card,
make a complete documentation of the boot method used by the current ambernic present in the SOC,
and how it makes the search for the SD-card

your work around will be only inside the rkbin and the u-boot.
you will need to match the needs for this rkbin to find armbian,
You may need to migrate armbian to mainline uboot or you may need something legacy,
only with a debugger connected to the TTL port will it be possible to distinguish

link
link
link

I got this folder with some examples:
https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/tree/main/RK356x/rkbin
https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/blob/main/RK356x/rkbin/ABOUT.md

also:

3 hours ago, SteeMan said:

You are going to need to connect a USB uart connector to capture the console log of the boot.

 

Ambernic use some custom rkbin and u-boot, please share your research

https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/tree/main/RK356x/u-boot/socfpga

https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/blob/main/RK356x/u-boot/socfpga/rk3568_common.h
 

On 10/13/2025 at 5:15 AM, Hqnicolas said:

Ambernic use some custom rkbin and u-boot, please share your research

https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/tree/main/RK356x/u-boot/socfpga

https://github.com/hqnicolas/Rockchip-Library/blob/main/RK356x/u-boot/socfpga/rk3568_common.h

@Hqnicolas how to build the current u-boot RK356x ?

Edited November 4, 2025Nov 4 by Energokom

On 11/4/2025 at 6:54 PM, Energokom said:

how to build the current u-boot RK356x ?

Just for fun?
for Vendor u-boot I like the ArmSom RK3568 SDK
https://github.com/gitacodes/armsom_rk3568_SDK

it works fine in all my boards...
for mainline U-boot, https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Overview/