NanoPi Neo Core2 H5 (slarm64, aarch64)

shelldweller · 08-03-2021, 11:27 AM

After the success of the SOPine image creation, I thought I would try one more just to challenge myself. I found an old NanoPi Neo Core 2 sitting in my desk that I thought had died a long time ago. Well, it seems to boot fine with a recent Armbian image, so it must not be dead after all. I figured that since it is a sun50iw1 (not A64, but H5) it might be simple to support it in a similar way as the SOPine.

I supplied the defconfig and dts files in the right places, here are my additional files just for reference:

https://shelldweller.beauxbead.com/s...ineslarm/mods/

I put the nanopi_neo_core2 directory in config/boards/ (motd files are temporary, not finalized yet).

I put the dts file in build/source/u-boot/arch/arm/dts. However, that gets deleted when u-boot gets compiled, so I copy it back over there right after it cleans the dts directory and right before it starts compiling. It also complains about a missing dtb file as well, but does this mean it is not creating one from the supplied dts? So, I copy over one of those from my /boot/dtb directory (of all places) as well, and the compile at least goes on further.

The compile seems to go almost all the way to the end, but I am now getting this error message right as u-boot is finishing:

Code:

  AR      spl/lib/built-in.o
  LD      spl/u-boot-spl
  SYM     spl/u-boot-spl.sym
  OBJCOPY spl/u-boot-spl-nodtb.bin
  COPY    spl/u-boot-spl.bin
  MKIMAGE spl/sunxi-spl.bin
  BINMAN  all
binman: Device tree 'u-boot.dtb' does not have a 'binman' node
make: *** [Makefile:1084: all] Error 1

So, clearly I am doing something wrong, or this particular u-boot does not support this board, even though it seems that the kernel does. If I could get u-boot to compile, I am fairly confident that the kernel will work (as the dtb file is already present in my SOPine /boot directory, as mentioned).

It's a pretty simple board, I don't even have the baseboard for it anymore. I just hardwired an Ethernet cable to the appropriate pinouts and it works with Armbian like a charm, actually. I just thought it would be fun to see if I could get slarm64 on there, but I was not expecting the u-boot surprise.

Any ideas? This is not urgent at all, just a silly side-project.

Thanks.

sndwvs · 08-05-2021, 11:40 AM

Hi shelldweller,

Don't just copy the file, every time you build the directory is cleared, you need to make patches that are then placed in patch/u-boot/sun50iw1/

in u-boot everything is already there

Code:

cd u-boot; make nanopi_neo_core2_defconfig; make -j4

shelldweller · 08-11-2021, 11:33 AM

Thanks for the tip sndwvs, it sent me in the right direction. I did not know patches could be used to create non-existent files. I keep on learning...

I now have a working 5.13.8 image, here:

https://shelldweller.beauxbead.com/s...0210810.img.xz

https://shelldweller.beauxbead.com/s....img.xz.sha256

I got everything to work using two u-boot patches:

https://shelldweller.beauxbead.com/s...neocore2.patch
https://shelldweller.beauxbead.com/s...ewnanopi.patch

My first attempts to combine those into one patch have failed so far. I will try to clean them up later. I just wanted to thank you for the patch idea and to report a new working image.

much appreciated, as always.

sndwvs · 08-12-2021, 12:07 PM

Thanks shelldweller,

added patch for u-boot

shelldweller · 08-13-2021, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sndwvs

Thanks shelldweller,

added patch for u-boot

Cool, thank you. The u-boot patch seems to work as intended, kernel stuff notwithstanding....

Much appreciated. On to the next thing.

shelldweller · 10-04-2021, 07:08 PM

Well, I might be the only person to ever use this image on this board. I just realized that Allwinner stopped producing the H5 processors, and therefore all H5 based boards are EOL, regardless of vendor. I read the news here (already over a year old, sometimes I am slow to find things out):

http://www.friendlyarm.com/Forum/vie...it=core2#p8530

In any case, I have turned this into a little music box by wiring an ethernet cable and an audio jack to the GPIO pins. Next I will build a little case for it, and it will basically be an Internet radio device. As such, I plan to keep supporting this board as long as mine holds out. So, if anyone else still has one of these, the slarm64 images will be an option going forward, even if no new boards can be acquired anymore.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, only the next kernel boots on this. The legacy (5.4.y) kernel shuts the board completely off right after u-boot without any error messages. Next works fine though.

sndwvs · 10-05-2021, 11:58 AM

while there is something to test, we will support.

shelldweller · 10-05-2021, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sndwvs

while there is something to test, we will support.

Excellent, thank you sndwvs. I guess the Pinebook is the same story, now that I think about it. Those are no longer being made either. Collectors items now, at least in my view. Thankfully we have a build system to support them into the future.

shelldweller · 02-08-2022, 08:04 AM

Support thread moved here

(I started a new thread on the FriendlyARM forum to support this board. It makes sense to me to have board-specific threads on the vendors' forums. Just thought I would mention that here.)

Quick update, while I am at it:

I recently found a typo in the config files that was preventing the motd file from being set correctly. That has now been fixed, and the corrected config file and motd files can be found here:

https://slarmboards.3space.xyz/mods/

If you want to add these to the build script officially, they work fine, and there would be one Allwinner H5 CPU on the supported boards list. If not, I will just keep the config files where they are at now, no big deal. For anyone wanting to build an image for this board, you can just drop the nanopi_neo_core2 folder into images_build_kit/config/boards/ and then it builds just fine, no extra tweaks needed.

Tested images can always be found here:

https://slarmboards.3space.xyz/nanopi-neo-core2/

Thanks for reading. Now this thread can die.