From pablo at parobalth.org Tue Jun 16 09:44:47 2020 From: pablo at parobalth.org (Pablo Rath) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2020 10:44:47 +0200 Subject: [Arm-netbook] 2.7.4 preproduction sample, 1.7 MD, Questions Message-ID: <20200616084447.zq25ovnqbfotyb5h@pabbook> I have recieved an EOMA68-A20 2.7.4 preproduction computer card and the 1.7 micro desktop (MD) last week. Just for clarification these boards are nothing new and have been discussed on this mailing list. If some of you already have their preproduction boards ready, I would appreciate any help, hints and suggestions to help me getting started. Altough I have some experience with handling arm-boards I am now afraid to do something **stupid** and break/fry the boards. After some digging in the list-archives I found this thread ([1]) where Richard and Luke discuss how to connect the bare computer card with the bare micro desktop. I have many questions: 1. Connecting computer card and micro desktop: I am aware of the photos attached to [2]. Does the mentioned video exist? Richard, did you send photos to Luke? (If yes, can I have them?) Luke, do you want me to send you photos too before apllying power? 2. PSU for micro desktop: According to the mentioned thread ([1]): "5.5mm jack with a 2.1mm centre hole, middle is +ve (aka "pin positive")", "Anywhere between 7 and 21v is fine, minimum 1A, 1 5A is better" So I searched for a DC PSU in my household and read Wikipedia where it is mentioned that OD 5.5 mm / ID 2.1 mm is common on guitar effect pedals but my multi guitar effect pedal PSU did not fit (ID too small). Finally I found a matching DC PSU from a low volatage guitar amp. It says O / P: DC 15V, 2A and a symbol (positive polarity): L. P. S. - -(.- + So I think this should be good to go. Can anyone please confirm. Thank you. Should we document this somewhere on rhombus-tech.net? 3. Soldering iron ready: I have my soldering iron ready. Richard, did you solder UART pins to the micro desktop ([3])? 4. SD-card ready / U-Boot Tried to compile u-boot-sunxi [4] and make exits with "System not configured". So Luke, what did you use as config or has something changed over the years? I also tried mainline U-Boot but could not find "EOMA68-A20-foo_defconfig" and "sun7i-eoma68-a20-foo.dts". What kind of defconfig and *.dts was used for the mainline U-Boot demos? My search of the mailing list archives and rhombus-tech was not futile. I could only dig up an old thread from 2014 where wookey was "assigned" to work on a minimal dts/dtb. 5. Git, notes and documentation Finally I am wondering where to put my notes. A subpage on rhombus-tech seems like a good idea good to me and indicates a work in progress in contrast to the various wikis out there. Where do you want me to push my work in progress git branches if I manage to hack something useful together? Pablo References: [1] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2019-July/016149.html [2] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2019-July/016154.html [3] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/attachments/20190722/914a3283/attachment-0007.jpg [4] http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner/a20/boot/ From paul at boddie.org.uk Wed Jun 17 00:09:42 2020 From: paul at boddie.org.uk (Paul Boddie) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 01:09:42 +0200 Subject: [Arm-netbook] 2.7.4 preproduction sample, 1.7 MD, Questions In-Reply-To: <20200616084447.zq25ovnqbfotyb5h@pabbook> References: <20200616084447.zq25ovnqbfotyb5h@pabbook> Message-ID: <4214810.6asa3Lq2br@jason> On Tuesday, 16 June 2020 10:44:47 CEST Pablo Rath wrote: > I have recieved an EOMA68-A20 2.7.4 preproduction computer card and the 1.7 > micro desktop (MD) last week. Just for clarification these boards are > nothing new and have been discussed on this mailing list. > If some of you already have their preproduction boards ready, I would > appreciate any help, hints and suggestions to help me getting started. I certainly don't have one, nor are there likely to be many in circulation, but maybe there are some people assisting Luke who have some experience with them. Without reviewing the previous threads, I can't give you any quick and/ or reliable answers to your questions. However, I did summarise the state of certain things on the wiki at one point: http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/status/ > 5. Git, notes and documentation > Finally I am wondering where to put my notes. A subpage on rhombus-tech > seems like a good idea good to me and indicates a work in progress in > contrast to the various wikis out there. Where do you want me to push my > work in progress git branches if I manage to hack something useful > together? You could probably make a wiki page on the rhombus-tech site with your notes, maybe linking to it from the one mentioned above. One thing I can imagine is that some kernel issues are likely to be much easier than when Luke was trying to get a kernel together, mostly because quite a bit of mainlining has since taken place, although I can't guarantee that the notorious Linux 4.7 bug mentioned on that page is still there or not. Still, it will be interesting to follow your investigations. Paul From lkcl at lkcl.net Tue Jun 23 20:01:43 2020 From: lkcl at lkcl.net (Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:01:43 +0100 Subject: [Arm-netbook] https://slashdot.org/story/20/06/23/1548205/amazon-unveils-2-billion-fund-to-invest-in-startups-building-sustainable-technology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tuesday, June 23, 2020, Yehowshua wrote: > Sorry - meant to say I **just reached out. As in I sent them an email very cool. here, i am tempted to suggest riding on EOMA68 (and the much smaller miniature version, EOMA50) and that LibreSOC simply be put into Card form as part of a *range* of eco-conscious products. the reason for that is that the long-term environmental justification and e-waste savings for EOMA-compliant products is pretty clear cut and well understood, and the cost savings and benefits for endusers are also clear and easy to understand. http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/ LibreSOC *on its own* is just one component (a tiny one) that is below 5 percent of the BOM of any given eco-conscious product, and, in addition, LibreSOC processors can equally be used in eco-oblivious products. therefore as a minority component it has very little actual reduction in e-waste per-se.... *unless included in eco-conscious products*. and that's where the EOMA strategy comes in. l. (note: EOMA50 because it is based on re-use of 3.3mm CompactFlash Cards is much smaller and can fit into smartphones. EOMA68 which is creditcard size is just that little bit too big) -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68