Current issues with Armbian board support:

 

-U-Boot problems (various)

 

Solutions so far:

-   fix the method of generating idbloader.bin.  <--- update:  the "release" and "mainline-master" behave significantly differently.  Mainline-master behaves as it should as far as writing the bootloader.  Release does not.

According to http://opensource.rock-chips.com/wiki_Boot_option:

 

Spoiler

The ddr binary files for ARM64 platforms from Rockchip, likes RK3399 and RK3328 should not skip first 4 bytes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
tools/mkimage -n rkxxxx -T rksd -d rkxx_ddr_vx.xx.bin idbloader.img
rm ddr.bin
cat rkxx_miniloader_vx.xx.bin >> idbloader.img
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Flash the idbloader.img to offset 0x40 which including stage 2, and you will need a uboot.img for boot stage 3. 

 

eliminated the 4-byte skip and u-boot is alive and well, however it now can't do some various things and freezes:

 

Spoiler

U-Boot 2018.01-rc2-armbian (Feb 02 2018 - 14:26:45 -0500)

Model: Pine64 Rock64
DRAM:  4 GiB
MMC:   rksdmmc@ff520000: 0, rksdmmc@ff500000: 1
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial@ff130000
Out:   serial@ff130000
Err:   serial@ff130000
Model: Pine64 Rock64
Net:   eth0: ethernet@ff540000
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
Card did not respond to voltage select!
mmc_init: -95, time 10
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1 is current device
Scanning mmc 1:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
2923 bytes read in 46 ms (61.5 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 00500000
Boot script loaded from mmc 1
215 bytes read in 37 ms (4.9 KiB/s)
## Error: Can't overwrite "ethaddr"
himport_r: can't insert "ethaddr=02:38:a0:82:2d:c0" into hash table
## Error: Can't overwrite "eth1addr"
himport_r: can't insert "eth1addr=02:38:a0:82:2e:c1" into hash table
5363725 bytes read in 723 ms (7.1 MiB/s)
11561472 bytes read in 1481 ms (7.4 MiB/s)
33725 bytes read in 54 ms (609.4 KiB/s)
** File not found /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay/rk3328-fixup.scr **

 

 

As opposed to the older image:

 

Spoiler

U-Boot 2017.05-armbian (Nov 20 2017 - 03:24:09 +0100)

Model: Rockchip RK3328 Rock64
DRAM:  rockchip_sdram_size ff1005d0 cca0
rank 2 col 11 bk 3 cs0_row 15 bw 2 row_3_4 0
size 100000000
SDRAM base=0, size=100000000
4 GiB
MMC:   rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:32rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rksdmmc@ff500000:1,rksdmmc@ff520000: 0
rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div <= 127,con_id:30*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial@ff130000
Out:   serial@ff130000
Err:   serial@ff130000
Net:   Net Initialization Skipped
No ethernet found.
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:32rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:32Card did not respond to voltage select!
mmc_init: -95, time 13
MMC Device 0 not found
no mmc device at slot 0
rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div <= 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div > 127,con_id:30rk3328_mmc_set_clk src_clk_div <= 127,con_id:30switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1 is current device
Scanning mmc 1:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
2923 bytes read in 20 ms (142.6 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 00500000
Boot script loaded from mmc 1
215 bytes read in 15 ms (13.7 KiB/s)
4434736 bytes read in 389 ms (10.9 MiB/s)
17977352 bytes read in 1485 ms (11.5 MiB/s)
42745 bytes read in 28 ms (1.5 MiB/s)
** File not found /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay/rk3328-fixup.scr **
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 04000000 ...
   Image Name:   uInitrd
   Image Type:   AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    4434672 Bytes = 4.2 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 01f00000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x1f00000
   Loading Ramdisk to fcb10000, end fcf4aaf0 ... OK
   reserving fdt memory region: addr=1f00000 size=70000
   Loading Device Tree to 00000000fca9d000, end 00000000fcb0ffff ... OK