A20-SOM-EVB GMAC won't work

[hunterhu]

Hi,

I bought 2 A20-SOM-EVB boards with the Debian SD cards, the GMAC ethernet won't work.  After booting up the interface stays off, no leds blinking at all, but the lsmod showing "sunxi_gmac" kernel module loaded though.

According to this page: http://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a20-som-update/, it seems Olimex already figured it out how to make it work:

"The Gigabit Ethernet gave us a little bit of troubles at the beginning as the Gmac pinmux was quite different than Emac, but now it works."

Does the Olimex built Debian SD card has the gmac support?  if not, is there any instructions how to enable it on A20-SOM-EVB with its Debian SD card.

Thanks in advance,
-Hunter

[bruceuk]

Ethernet won't work, the official images are based on "sun7i-a20-olinuxino-micro", the boards are very close, but ethernet is one of the differences.

I think Hans patched sunxi-uboot so you can build uboot using A20-SOM as your board, then you can tftpboot/NFS boot.

Kernel: You'll need to rebuild and use a "dts" file that defines the correct ethernet, mine looks like this:

+      gmac: ethernet@01c50000 {
+         pinctrl-names = "default";
+         pinctrl-0 = <&gmac_pins_rgmii_a>;
+         phy = <&phy1>;
+         phy-mode = "rgmii";
+         status = "okay";
+
+         phy1: ethernet-phy@1 {
+            reg = <1>;
+         };
+      };

You may be able to simply compile a new dtb blob from an updated dts.


Bruce

[dnmeid]

Hi,
maybe you have found the solution yourself, but I want to post it for all because the approach from bruceuk isn't needed any more.

If you are using the official Debian image or SD-Card from Olimex for the A20-SOM, the GMAC of the EVB will be available out of the box.
BUT the ethernet adapter is disabled in the OS. So everything you've got to do to get it working is to bring it up.

1. Boot the SOM/EVB
2. Log in or get logged in automatically
3. Open a Terminal
4. Enter the command "sudo ifup eth0"
5. Enter your password or the default password "olimex" if you haven't changed it yet.

That's it. Now the Gigabit Ethernet is working and waiting for a dhcp configuration. You can further configure your IP-address if needed.