Install on a Lemaker Banana Pro

justwantin · 06-24-2015, 04:42 AM

I haven't had the time and maybe not the expertise to sort this out. it is not your problem, I'll work on it when I have time. If you are looking for a problem I'll be happy to post you a board if you so desire

justwantin · 07-02-2015, 12:34 PM

I have the BananaPro booting into a Slackwarearm installation now. The solution was staring me in the face and laughing all the way!

I had the zImage-armv7 kernel booting from a partition on an sd card using default settings in u-boot I had compiled and this for a boot.scp

Code:

setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootwait panic=10
load mmc 0:1 0x43000000 ${fdtfile} || load mmc 0:1 0x43000000 boot/${fdtfile}
load mmc 0:1 0x42000000 zImage-armv7 || load mmc 0:1 0x42000000 boot/zImage-armv7

The boot.scp came from a Debian install image. When I copied in the zImage-armv7 to see if if it would boot I noticed that the Debian zImage was marked executeabel but the Slackwarearm one was not (and would not boot). After a chmod +x the Slackwarearm kernel did boot.

I went back to the kernel in my /tftpboot/slackwarearm-current directory and checked the kernel. It was only read/write. After chmod +x it would boot as per INSTALL_BANANAPI.TXT and I could go into the slackware install routine.

Silly me! I'll check to confirm a boot using the "latest" u-boot as per the install instructions later today before marking this off as solved.

justwantin · 07-03-2015, 11:07 PM

I now have slackwarearm-current (Sat Jun 27) installed and booting from u-boot after an install as per INSTALL_BANANAPI.TXT.

I have a good 2.5" hdd, however, I believe my PS, or perhaps, my cabling is not up to snuff so I installed on a 8Gb micro sd card. Good enough for now. Partitioning as follows:

Code:

Device         Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1 *        2048 14428159 14426112  6.9G 83 Linux
/dev/mmcblk0p2      14428160 15351807   923648  451M 82 Linux swap

I don't know if the root partition needs to be set bootable or not.

Excepting for using an sd card, I followed INSTALL_BANANAPI.TXT including using /dtb/sun7i-a20-bananapi.dtb. I used sun7i-a20-bananapro.dtb when setting up my final boot variables as follows:

Code:

setenv bootcmd_dtb 'ext4load mmc 0:1 ${fdt_addr} /boot/dtb/sun7i-a20-bananapro.dtb ; fdt addr ${fdt_addr} 0x40000'
setenv bootcmd_slk 'run bootcmd_dtb ; ext4load mmc 0:1 ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/zImage-armv7 ; ext4load mmc 0:1 ${ramdisk_addr_r} /boot/initrd-armv7'
setenv bootargs "${slkconsole} ${bootcmd_generic} root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 waitforroot=3 rootfstype=ext4"
setenv bootcmd 'run bootcmd_slk ; bootz ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r}:${filesize} ${fdt_addr} ; reset'
saveenv ; reset

I must note once more that I could not get the kernel to boot for an install until I ran

Code:

chmod +x /tftpboot/slackwarearm-current/zImage-armv7

drmozes · 07-04-2015, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justwantin

I now have slackwarearm-current (Sat Jun 27) installed and booting from u-boot after an install as per INSTALL_BANANAPI.TXT.

Great! The persistence paid off :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by justwantin

I don't know if the root partition needs to be set bootable or not.

It doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justwantin

I must note once more that I could not get the kernel to boot for an install until I ran

Code:

chmod +x /tftpboot/slackwarearm-current/zImage-armv7

This doesn't make any sense to me. The TFTP service just provides the content. You would be able to TFTP the file from a Windows TFTP server where +x is impossible.

I have never had the kernels chmod +x.

justwantin · 07-04-2015, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Great! The persistence paid off :-)

....and my learning curve has flattened out a bit, an interesting ride!

Quote:

This doesn't make any sense to me.<snipped>I have never had the kernels chmod +x.

Yes, I would have expected you to have mentioned the necessity if there was one, however, this "seemed" to be the case for me, indeed I have a slackwarearm-current, slackware64-current and Igor's BannanaPi/Pro install all with the kernel chmod ugo+x.

I plan on having another go setting up an install from scratch and I'll look at this again. It may be that something else was preventing the kernel from booting

sinovoip · 09-07-2015, 03:07 AM

BPI-Github has been upgraded from kernel 4.1.X to kernel 4.2.and uboot 2015-7
In the future, we'll be focusing on maintaining kernel 4.2 for developing.

BPI-Github : https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-Mainline-kernel

drmozes · 09-07-2015, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinovoip

BPI-Github has been upgraded from kernel 4.1.X to kernel 4.2.and uboot 2015-7
In the future, we'll be focusing on maintaining kernel 4.2 for developing.

BPI-Github : https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-Mainline-kernel

Good to hear.
Slackware uses the kernel.org master tree with a couple of patches to fix broken stuff, so it'd be interesting to see what's coming down in the future.
Is there a list of what's going to be improved, or is currently missing from the kernel.org master with regards to the Banana Pi?

ricky_cardo · 10-07-2015, 06:04 AM

Just wanted to add BPI-M2 version seems to work on the same U-Boot image as "PRO".

Plus look at the last line that looks promising for WIFI

Copy https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-..._firmware/brcm to your rootfs /lib/firmware/ path to make BPI-M2 and BPI-M1-Plus WLAN available.

justwantin · 10-08-2015, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Just wanted to add BPI-M2 version seems to work on the same U-Boot image as "PRO".

Interesting, I now have a 2Ah PS (not switchmode) that can power both Pro and 2.5 hdd. Thought I'd install on the hdd and start having a play with the GPIO pins. Just out of curiosity I thought I'd try that Pro image on my M2 and the ground pin on the UART header pushed out the bottom. From what I can see with a magnifier, it looks like the solder pad has pulled off the board with it (dunno). Maybe I can re-solder or use a GPIO ground pin but it's not high priority ATM.

ricky_cardo · 01-09-2016, 06:57 PM

Yeah so to clarify ignore the above post about BPI-M2. I was confused...
using the BPI-M1 (normal banana pi).

(part of my confusion was I had to follow Stuart's install guide, but for whatever reason only the PRO files worked)

Hope I didn't muddy the waters...

justwantin · 01-09-2016, 08:26 PM

BPI-M1 is produced by Sinovoip, Banana-Pi is produced by Lemaker, same with the BPI-M2 and the Banana-Pro. There will be a triangular logo and www.lemaker.org visible on Lemaker boards. They are not quite the same. I was confused last year as well and now have a BPI-M2 sitting in the drawer, ot much support about for it so I picked up the bananapro. Might be your M1 with same SOC/CPU will work with PI or Pro dtb's and all will be ok