A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 for low-power NAS/media server

[baba]

Hello,

I'm considering buying a A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 to build a low-power NAS/media server system for home use.

I'd love some confirmation before buying.

Here are my expectations

* painless debian installation (looks fine according to https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner and https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Hardware/A20-OLinuXino-Lime2)
* media storage on a 3.5" hard drive (which I already have) through SATA.
* file sharing (NFS or SAMBA) though ethernet
* audio playback (typically using pulseaudio & mpd) through HDMI and an HDMI to VGA+audio adapter
* family DSLR pictures (6000x4000 JPEG) slideshows (typically using x-screensaver) through HDMI and an HDMI to VGA+audio adapter
* if powerful enough, some video playback as well (although not a show stopper, video could be played by a more powerful laptop through NFS/samba).

Does is sound reasonable?

I'm unsure about some specific points

* the HDMI audio output. Does A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 support it?

* the audio/video support when using stock debian kernel. The LIME2 user manual
  (https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2/resources/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2-UM.pdf) suggest it won't work:
  > Q: Can I use mainline kernel instead of Sunxi kernel?
  > A: You can. However, most kernels are headless – no audio or video output are supported.(...)

  but maybe it is now working?

* the HDMI to VGA conversion. This seems shady territory (although I already had some success using such an adapter with a raspberry pi in the past). I also have a DVI that could be used. But nothing with an HDMI input yet.

* the power supply. I'll need 12V DC for the hard drive. Maybe I'll be able to re-use some external hard-drive enclosure to drive both the 3.5" hard drive and the LIME2. I have not digged into that matter yet.

any advices welcome.

[LubOlimex]

Most of the things are alright. Not sure whether changing the pictures would be fluent, the total size and the format of the photos might matter. Video playback is possible.

There is HDMI audio as long as the software supports it.

HDMI<->VGA adapters might not work. Avoid it if possible. We have tested a number of combinations
- A20 and A64 boards with different adapters with different monitors. Some combinations just don't work.

The LIME2 requires 5V DC of voltage on the power jack. If you use 12V power supply you would need to bring it down to 5V.

We have an official mainline image based on Armbian available here and it has audio and video working alright: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/images/a/a0/Armbian_5.52_Olinuxino-a20_Ubuntu_xenial_next_4.17.19_desktop.img.torrent

[baba]

hello,

thank you for your prompt reply!

And sorry for being so late myself: I ordered the board (lime2, 16 GiB eMMC flavor) just after you answered, but had little time to play with it until recently (and little success at the beginning too).

Some feedback (from a probably naive noob):

* I've lost a lot of time because of powering issues.
  I bought the USB-UART adapter together with board.
  That was a great idea, which could have saved me a lot of time if only I had used it from day one!
  I also should have read the armbian doc earlier.
  It turns out 2 of the 3 (oldish) power supplies I own are not powerful enough for the lime. Maybe they degraded over time?
  The board did not work either when powered from USB OTG (with nothing connected besided the UART). Is powering from an USB-host expected to work or not?
  That would be very handy when working on the go (eg. with just one laptop and the lime2, an maybe some powerbank).


* The documention mentions "Official debian image". I'm a bit confused by the wording: it could mean a vanilla (unmodified) debian image, or an Olimex-provided (and tweaked) debian image, which is officially supported by Olimex.

* using the Xenial image, I tested the video output, it worked nicely on the all the monitors I tested (one through HDMI, 4 with my HDMI-VGA adaptor).
  I also tried a slideshow (using mirage) with some of my DSLR pictures. It takes several second to switch from one picture to the next. But the switch itself is clean, so this is not an issue.

* HDMI-audio did not work, I'll need to dig deeper, but it is not of immediate interest.

* section "6.2 MicroSD card connector" of the user manual says

  | The micro SD card slot is primarily used for booting the operating system.
  | The board works with micro SDHC cards up to 32GB of storage.

  My board did successfully boot from a 32 GiB (SDHC) card and from a 128 GiB (SDXC) card (both from SanDisk).
  This is good news, do you confirm this is supported/dependable?

* the box is neat, but the package contained a single spacer. It felt like corner cutting.

* Using a SATA hard-drive works when I power the hard-drive from a big computer PSU. But the hard-drive makes scary noises and does not work when powered from my external enclosure's power-supply (which still seems to power the lime2 just fine at the same time).
  I don't know yet what is going on. I wish I had bought the SATA cable set (this particular drive is a 2.5")

* when using a freedombox image, the network does not work (it fails to get an IP from DHCP).
  It works when using Armbian.
  I'll probably try install debian fromm scratch to better understand the ins and outs.

I'm not done yet, but I learned a few things .

[lambda]

See http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort for what is/isn't supported by the mainline kernel.

I can't help you with the wiring/power issues, but for my A20-OLinuXino-Micro works fine with SATA and outputs directly via VGA (using the cable from Olimex). However VGA output ATM only is supported with simpleframebuffer not with display engine.

If you are running stock debian (like I do) I'd recommend to put /var (or the rootfs) on the hard drive or reduce logging and other write access to soften the wear of the SD-cards a bit. And mount any filesystem and the SD-card with noatime option!

HTH,
Harald