[IMAGE] A13(-WIFI) Debian (now Ubuntu) + xfce flashable (Updated: 08 Mar: R18)

[Fluxxy]

Hi jwischka,

will it be a image-version with TFT and Touchsrcreen (Olimex-TS7-TFT) support in future?

Best regards
Fluxxy

[SlyCom]

Hi,

I'm still trying to work with uart ports. David above mentioned about UART0 and UART1. I'm having a problem with UART1. How I can start using this port as a standard UART? If it's possible I'd like to avoid usb-uart conventers. The UART1 what is the baud rate: 115200?

[David Goadby]

Assuming you have a REV-B board then UART1 is NOT RS232 levels but 3.3v with TX data on pin 2 and RX data on pin 3. If you use an FTDI serial/USB adaptor then make sure it is 3.3v version and not 5V.

Something you also need to check is /etc/inittab settings. As standard I think that UART1 is /dev/ttyS0. The default baud rate is usually 115200.

David Goadby

[SlyCom]

Hi,

I checked the version and there is "rev. E".
I simply connect the pins TX,RX to my FTDI converter and it works ok (It's ttyS0 I guess, 115200). You mentioned that UART1 is ttyS0. I use it when booting the board. My questions is about UART0. Is it possible use other serial ports on board (not UART1!)? If yes, then where are the pins?

[David Goadby]

Assuming the UART0 you are using is the one provided by the group of pins next to the GPIO-1 connector then UART1 is on the opposite side of the PCB next to the UEXT connector. Also, the UART1 connections are available on the UEXT connector on pins 3 (TX) and 4 (RX) with Pin 2 as 0V return.

UART3 is also available on the chip but it uses multi-function pins and I think that they are configured for USB use. Alternate pin configurations are possible but you really need to know what you are doing before making changes.

David Goadby

[bobdole]

Is it possible to run Java on this.
What do i download.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/embedded/downloads/javase/index.html

Also I am having problems with UK keyboard.
lots of wrong chars.

[SlyCom]

Hi,

I use R19 image and noticed that in high usage network communication very often the board stops working. It's not rebooting just stopped (network restart???).

For example I use wget and trying download the file approx. 3MB during the wget is working the network restarts.

Any one have similar problem?

I checked the /var/log/syslog file. There is an information:

Oct 23 15:40:46 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:8e:f2:b9:87:2e reason=0
Oct 23 15:40:53 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: Trying to associate with 00:8e:f2:b9:87:2e (SSID='slycommedia' freq=2437 MHz)
Oct 23 15:40:53 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: Association request to the driver failed
Oct 23 15:40:53 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: Associated with 00:8e:f2:b9:87:2e
Oct 23 15:40:54 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:8e:f2:b9:87:2e [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
Oct 23 15:40:54 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[400]: wlan3: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:8e:f2:b9:87:2e completed (reauth) [id=0 id_str=]

I use two boards A13 with WiFi. The first one has installed R18 and second one R19. There are similar issue when using large amount of data thru network.

[EDIT]
the network is disconnecting without reason. It not depend on the traffic.

[EDIT]
Connected WiFi dongle via USB and the same situation after several minutes.

[UPDATE]
P.S. My board is used to send and receive rest full services every second.

I think that I need implement watchdog as a separate electronic component

[SlyCom]

jwischka,
Is the ipv6 support enabled/disabled in R18 or in R19?

[jwischka]

jwischka,
Is the ipv6 support enabled/disabled in R18 or in R19?

Sorry for the late reply. I believe it should be enabled. I don't run IPv6 on my local router anymore, so I'm not entirely sure. Do you need me to check?

[SlyCom]

Yes, please. Is it possible to disable the ipv6 support? or it must be done in kernel?

[jwischka]

Yes, please. Is it possible to disable the ipv6 support? or it must be done in kernel?

No - you don't have to pull an IPv6 address, even if it is enabled in the kernel. You can configure things to be IPv4, even if IPv6 is supported in kernel.

Why is it important that it be disabled?

[SlyCom]

If your read my previous post. I have a problem with drop connection, slow connection in R18 and R19 I thought that it can be problem with ipv6. I still don't know if this is a problem but I'm trying to find it out.

Another question. Is it possible to enable board watchdog? Sometimes my board just hangs and I can reset it manually. To enable the watchdog do I need recompile the kernel or maybe there is simplest solution?

[jwischka]

If your read my previous post. I have a problem with drop connection, slow connection in R18 and R19 I thought that it can be problem with ipv6. I still don't know if this is a problem but I'm trying to find it out.

Another question. Is it possible to enable board watchdog? Sometimes my board just hangs and I can reset it manually. To enable the watchdog do I need recompile the kernel or maybe there is simplest solution?

I suspect your connection issues are related to hardware, not software. In every screenshot I've seen on an A13 wifi (including the ones Olimex have posted), there are a lot of dropped packets. In general, the board has a slow wifi connection, and can experience drops. I've disabled powersave in the kernel, which seems to help, and my board maintains a fairly solid connection. At any rate, I don't think IPv6 is going to be the issue.

There is a hardware watchdog that can be enabled in the kernel, but any time I've tried to enable it, it basically results in the board restarting every 5 minutes.

Are you trying to run a process when your board is hanging? If so, it sounds like you might have some sort of problem with the applications you are running on the board. What happens if you have a "clean" image, that isn't running anything?

[SlyCom]

I installed fresh R19 beta image set the wlan, tried use wget method and the speed is decreasing and stops after few seconds. Very often the board hangs (or drop the connection). Currently I uploaded fresh R18 image and my java application works (over 3 hours now). I have no idea where is the problem.
In my application I use connection to get information from server every 2 seconds but it's not huge amount of data (approx. 50 bytes). I don't think that it's related to my application as the fresh image also drop the connection (sometimes). I have two boards running close to each other maybe there is some kind of interference? I need more investigation but good information is that only I have similar problem.
So, the power safe mode is off in image R18?

P.S.
Some time ago you released image R19 beta. There is support for ttl converters based on Cx2103. How I can add support for Cx2103 in R18?

[jwischka]

I installed fresh R19 beta image set the wlan, tried use wget method and the speed is decreasing and stops after few seconds. Very often the board hangs (or drop the connection). Currently I uploaded fresh R18 image and my java application works (over 3 hours now). I have no idea where is the problem.
In my application I use connection to get information from server every 2 seconds but it's not huge amount of data (approx. 50 bytes). I don't think that it's related to my application as the fresh image also drop the connection (sometimes). I have two boards running close to each other maybe there is some kind of interference? I need more investigation but good information is that only I have similar problem.
So, the power safe mode is off in image R18?

P.S.
Some time ago you released image R19 beta. There is support for ttl converters based on Cx2103. How I can add support for Cx2103 in R18?

You'd need to recompile the kernel.

The main issue between R18 and R19 is that the sunxi repository "updated" a lot of code, which simultaneously broke a lot of things - I probably need to try to make a brand new image from scratch based on the most up-to-date sources, but that's going to take more time than I have at the moment. Also I'm trying to do something similar for the A20, though we'll see how well that works

Can you confirm that you don't have any memory or handle leaks in your application? Does the board lose connectivity if absolutely nothing is running? (just ping google.com)