Skip to content

README.armhf.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
115 lines (76 loc) · 4.12 KB

README.armhf.md

File metadata and controls

115 lines (76 loc) · 4.12 KB

Debian on SolidRun Boards - 32-bit ARM with FPU

This page provides instructions for installing official Debian from debian.org on SolidRun 32-bit arm platforms.

Supported Devices

  • Armada 388 SoM:
    • Clearfog Base (since Debian 9)
    • Clearfog Pro (since Debian 9)
  • Armada 388 Clearfog GTR S4 (since Debian 10)
  • Armada 388 Clearfog GTR L8 (since Debian 10)
  • i.MX6 SoM:
    • Cubox-i
    • HummingBoard Base
    • HummingBoard Pro
    • HummingBoard Edge
    • HummingBoard Gate
    • SolidSense N6

Creating Installer Media

SolidRun provides prebuilt installer disk images:

Download an image above, decompress and write it to a suitable installation media such as USB flash drive or SD-Card, e.g. using dd or etcher.io The installer media can not be used as installation destination: E.g. when installing Debian to SD-Card, Installer must be on USB Drive.

Latest versions can always be prepared using the scripts in this project.

Install SoC Bootloader

Armada 38x Clearfog Base / Pro / GTR

Most boards shipped without a suitable version of U-Boot preinstalled.

Armada 38x has several options for boot sources - for best Debian experience installation is recommended to either SPI Flash or eMMC hardware boot partition:

i.MX6 HummingBoard / SolidSense N6

Recommendations for Bootloader vary between products:

  • Cubox-i / HummingBoard Base / Pro:

    By default the SoC starts from microSD, unless efuses have been programmed. Changing efuses is not recommended due to risk of bricking the device.

    Therefore proceed below with installing u-boot to microSD.

  • HummingBoard Edge / Gate / CBi / SolidSense N6 - revision 1.2 or earlier:

    Same as Cubox-i.

  • HummingBoard Edge / Gate / CBi / SolidSense N6 - revision 1.3 or later:

    These boards can configure the boot media using boot jumpers, options are microSD, eMMC and SATA.

    If eMMC is available on the SoM, U-Boot should be installed to the hardware boot partition.

    Otherwise: First install U-Boot to the most convenient media; Then after Debian installation has completed (re-) install to the same media where the Operating System resides.

For instructions see SolidRun i.MX6 U-Boot Documentation.

Boot Installer

  • connect installation media
  • connect serial console
  • connect ethernet

Then power on. U-Boot will start - showing a timeout prompt before cycling through known boot targets:

U-Boot 2024.04 (Jul 17 2024 - 07:26:18 +0000)

SoC:   MV88F6828-A0 at 1600 MHz
DRAM:  1 GiB (800 MHz, 32-bit, ECC not enabled)
Core:  38 devices, 22 uclasses, devicetree: separate
MMC:   mv_sdh: 0
Loading Environment from SPIFlash... SF: Detected w25q32 with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 4 KiB, total 4 MiB
OK
Model: SolidRun Clearfog A1
Board: SolidRun Clearfog Base
Net:   eth1: ethernet@70000, eth2: ethernet@30000, eth3: ethernet@34000
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  3

Boot targets can be inspected by printing the boot_targets variable from u-boot console:

=> print boot_targets
boot_targets=mmc0 usb0 scsi0 pxe dhcp

New units without an operating system on integrated storage will automatically boot into the debian installer media. Boot of a specific media can be forced by combining a boot-target with bootcmd_*, e.g.:

# select fdtfile (for i.MX6 only)
run findfdt

# boot from USB drive
run bootcmd_usb0

Known Issues / Workarounds

i.MX6 HummingBoard / SolidSense N6

EHCI timed out on TD

Some USB-3.0 flash drives produce timeouts when u-boot tries loading the installer. Please revert to an old USB-2.0 only flash drive instead.