[Arm-netbook] EOMA68-A20, MD 1.7 severe Power Problems

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 9:51 PM Pablo Rath <pablo at parobalth.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 12:47:51PM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 12:35 PM Pablo Rath <pablo at parobalth.org> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 11:37:41AM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> >
> > > Ok. I have tried that now. Pressed "2" while applying power over USB-OTG
> > > but an Allwinner USB FEL device is not found with 'sunxi-fel version'.
> > > Also tried to boot with my known working µSD-Card but there is no output
> > > on UART.
> >
> > hm ok there is one more "trick" - actually uploading (and executing)
> > the spl bootloader followed by u-boot and everything else
> > https://linux-sunxi.org/FEL/USBBoot#Boot_the_system_over_USB
> >
> > the old version, fel-boot, you had to first "run" then "execute".  the
> > newer version (sunxi-fel) looks like it does run-and-execute.
> >
> > the first binary (the spl bootloader) fits into the 16k SRAM and until
> > that's executed (and it initialises the PLL and DDR3) there's flat-out
> > no chance of uploading anything at all into the upper areas of memory
> > (0x42000000) which are in the DDR3 RAM area.
> >
> > i have in the past set up a linux kernel to convert the USB-OTG into a
> > usbserial "gadget", and also a usbnet-compatible g_ether "gadget".
> > the first way was successful in showing early console logs, and the
> > second was enough to get a USB eth0 that i could ssh in over.
>
> So just to make sure, your advice now is to work with the standalone
> Computer Card and get usbserial or g_ether "gadget" working?

to check that there's actually "something" working, yes.

> I have used (but not set up) g_ether "gadget" with ssh before and I have already
> read about usbserial (seems well documented on linux-sunxi wiki) so I
> think I will manage.

you need the "gadget" serial kernel config enabled, and usbserial as
well, they need to be built-in, you can't use them as "module options"
(.ko) if you want early boot messages.

l.