Upgrade to Debian Jessie

[Roux]

Hi,

I have tried to upgrade my A20 to Debian Jessie (Support for some recent USB devices is needed). As a result i has stopped to boot since the kernel in the original SD card is installed in some non-standard way. The bootloader still picks up an old kernel in uImage from a special partition, and new booting system does not get proper kernel.

1. How to to make uBoot to pick up a kernel in zimage format from /boot directory?

2. Does the linux-image-3.16.0-4-armmp-lpae kernel from the distro include the patches that make I2C work?

Thank you!

BR,
Rostislav

[LubOlimex]

It would be hard to do it with a single command or a couple of commands. I'd recommend you to get a ready Debian Jessie image (our official images are Debian Jessie) and then copy any user data to the new card.

The images were updated last week and have I2C, SPI, UART support and much more. You didn't mention which A20 board exactly do you own, so I can't provide a link to the torrent with the image - just make sure to visit the wiki article of your board to find the link to the latest Jessie image.

The build description are common for all A20 boards: https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/blob/master/SOFTWARE/A20/A20-build-3.4.103-release-5/BUILD_DESCRIPTION_A20_Olimex_kernel_3.4.103%2B_Jessie_rel_5.txt

Same for this helpful document: https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/blob/master/SOFTWARE/A20/A20-build-3.4.103-release-5/USAGE-AND-COMMON-PRACTICEs-A20-Olimex_kernel_3.4.103%2B_Jessie_rel_3.txt

Best regards,
Lub/OLIMEX

[Roux]

Hi,

Thank you!

Did i get it right that out-of-the-box kernels are not suitable for Olinuxino?

The board is A20-Olinuxino-micro-4G, of 3 years ago. It boots with 4G microSD card.
I could not find any ftp/http link. Is it on purpose that only torrent links
are available, or i just missed something?

BR,
Rostislav

[LubOlimex]

>>> Did i get it right that out-of-the-box kernels are not suitable for Olinuxino?

They are suitable and some things would work fine. Yet, not everything would be properly supported nor everything would work with out-of-the-box u-boots or kernels. That is why we provide official images and step-by-step instructions.

This is the recommended image: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/images/8/8d/A20_OLinuxino_Micro_debian_Jessie_34_103_2G_NAND_release_14.torrent

>>> I could not find any ftp/http link. Is it on purpose that only torrent links are available, or i just missed something?

Yes, it is on purpose. We used the have direct downloads before but the problem was that a lot of bot programs abused the direct downloads (and these are large files 400Mb+). This triggered hidden download limits and ultimately lead to greater unavailability of the files (despite that we used the best hosting company available – Google). Most customers requested that we use a torrent system instead.

[Roux]

Thanks!

I have quite substantially tweaked setup (four serial ports, few custom libararies etc.), so adapting image might be troublesome. Instead, I have taken an uImage and modules from the filesystem image that you suggested, and it seem to work. New setup, however, lacks a  snd-pcm-oss module. I need it to use a soundcard as ADC-DAC wit a software written ~10 years ago.

Is there any way to make the snd-pcm-oss module for 3.4.103-00033-g9a1cd034181a-dirty kernel, or to make sunxi modules for 3.16.0-4-armmp-lpae kernel?

BR,
Rostislav

[Roux]

Hi,

May be helpful for someone.

I had a trouble with building the kernel and uboot with instructions from https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/blob/master/SOFTWARE/A20/A20-build-3.4.103-release-5/BUILD_DESCRIPTION_A20_Olimex_kernel_3.4.103%2B_Jessie_rel_5.txt due to buggy compiler in Ubuntu 14.04
(see https://a20.net/bert/2016/07/13/issue-with-ubuntu-16-04-cross-compiler-gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf-version-45-3-1-1ubuntu1/).

Finally, i have found a build description that does not depend on particular releases and custom patches and does not need extra DOS partition.
https://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/A20-OLinuXino-LIME

It worked fine for me and now i have got my Jessie setup with nicely working 4.4.63-armv7-lpae-x7 kernel with needed modules and a lot of bells and whistles,
e.g. blinkng a green led can be done with /sys/class/leds/a20-olinuxino-micro\:green\:usr, rather than with /sys/class/gpio/XXX

The down side is that USB power is off for the connectors that were free at the boot time, and i have not found a way to turn it on.  But it does not harm my application.

Thank for the help!

BR,
Rostislav