Hello all :-) !

Just wondering - has anyone managed to get a debian distro running on the mk902II (rk3288) device at all? (All the ones I can see appear to be ubuntu only).

BTW for anyone who is wondering what the device looks like "in the flash" so to speak, here is a photo of the device.

The problem is that there dosen't seem to be any 'exact' information on how to do this at all -- all I can find are bits here and there, but nothing exactly concrete (either that or they just tell you to "flash ubuntu" :-( ).

The first thing I read that I had to do using the information from here is that I had to reflash the bootloader on the MK902II device itself so it could try to boot from micro sd card at all (i.e. on the flash memory in the device). I've already successfully done this and downloaded one of "those" ubuntu images successfully and booted it from a micro SD card so I know that this has worked.

This website contains some script and image files for creating a micro sd or sd card to boot from as well; all that is needed is a linux root filesystem named "linux-rfs.img" for it to work. Again I've tried this with a ubuntu "rfs" image, which worked.

Though the problem seems to be with these "rfs" (root file system) images. I did try to create my own by using debootstrap, but it did not work. To do this, I used the instructions here to create not a wheezy but jessie debootstrap install. I then created a blank .img file (at first, I used qemu-img create, then later tried plain old dd), formatted and copied the files across once complete, i.e.

Once the debootstrap procedure has finished, that procedure creates an image file which is formatted as ext4 and then the files are copied into that image file. I note that the ubuntu files found here under 'Creating a Bootable Ubuntu SD Card' appear to be the same -- the image file has no partition, but contains a linux root file system.

I used the files/script and instructions also from here to do this as well.

Only snag is that when I try to boot from my micro sd card unlike the ubuntu images it dosen't seem to work -- it just seems to go round in circles. I get an android-style booting screen, then a blank screen then after a few seconds it goes right back to the android-style booting screen, then a blank sreeen ad infinitum.

It is my guess that the ubuntu images are somehow different, but I'm not quite sure how. For example those ubuntu images have a directory called "boot" which on a normal x86 system is where the kernel would be found. But yet on these ubuntu images it is empty; indeed I can't even find the kernel anywhere(!). That's really confusing.

Here are some links btw which I've been looking over;

Script which creates a bootable sd/micro sd card (Ubuntu);
http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...y-to-dual-boot

Reflashing bootloader;
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/12/...k3288-devices/

Creating a debian rootfs;
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2014/07...-from-scratch/

Chinese forum discussing a similar issue;
https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...d-707-1-1.html
Original link : http://developer.t-firefly.com/thread-707-1-1.html

RK (Rockchip) wiki;
http://linux-rockchip.info/mw/index.php?title=Main_Page

Website containing flashing tools;
http://wiki.radxa.com/Rock/flash_the_image

Another website containing info about flashing the mk902 (android);
http://www.gaggl.com/2014/06/upgrade...c-from-ubuntu/

Note that I used that website to put my device into its special recover/bootloader mode - to do this, I did the following;

Ok, I know this is a bit of a confused mess but does anyone know or worked out quite how to create all of this for a "normal" debian image at all?

Thanks

ljones

I've made just a little progress here btw. Though I'm still not able to get debian jessie working.

So far I've tried the scripts that can be found on this website, though it only works with the supplied files.

I have managed to create an SD card using those scripts from that site that will at least boot and enter ubuntu (again downloaded from that site) but unfortunatly I need a different kernel. The one supplied from that website dosen't work with the network and wifi devices in my RK3288 based device. Also only 2 out of the 4 USB ports work. So I am guessing I'll need a different kernel for my device.

The intresting thing is that my RK3288 based device actually already has linux on its flash. Though I would like to be able to boot a different version from an sd card.

I have managed to extract several files from my devices' internal flash (which has ubuntu on it already!) - you can see it all here (everything I found out about my rk3288 device). Unfortunatly what I managed to extract from my device seems to differ greatly from what that script uses.

To give you an example if you download that script from that website and examine the file "kernel-linux.img" you'll see that it contains the letters 'KRNL' right at the start. The kernel I extracted from mine dosen't have that.

I should also note that my devices' internal flash has 4 partitions on it. These are:
So that's "resource","boot","misc" and "linuxroot". What I really don't understand is why resource is before boot - ! I also note that "misc" is completely empty - 4MB of nothing! That "boot" on /dev/mmcblk0p2 contains the kernel, which I managed to extract

Also the "resource-linux.img" from that script comes out at around 114.5K. The one I extracted from my device is much larger, coming in at 16MB.

I guess I just have a bunch of incompatible files here. I'm guessing somehow with dd you need to write the boot sector to the device and then other parts as well (though I'm not sure what it needs!).

Does anyone have any instructions on how to create bootable micro sd card for the rk3288 device (as that script does) but manually?

ljones

Does anyone have any news or information on RK3288 booting at all? Or has nothing been released?

ljones