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Next Thing Co. CHIP (ntc-chip): Difference between revisions

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* [https://github.com/Thore-Krug/CHIP-tools Tools for flashing the CHIP]
* [https://github.com/Thore-Krug/CHIP-tools Tools for flashing the CHIP]
* [https://byteporter.com/ntc-chip-micro-sd-slot/ CHIP microSD slot mod]
* [https://byteporter.com/ntc-chip-micro-sd-slot/ CHIP microSD slot mod]
* [https://github.com/umiddelb/armhf/wiki/Get-more-out-of-%22Das-U-Boot%22 Good U-Boot guide]
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Revision as of 16:21, 25 March 2020

Next Thing Co. CHIP
Next Thing Co. CHIP
Next Thing Co. CHIP
Manufacturer Next Thing Co.
Name CHIP
Codename ntc-chip
Released 2015
Hardware
Chipset Allwinner R8
CPU 1x 1.0 GHz Cortex-A8
GPU Mali-400 MP1
Display Composite video
Storage 8GB MLC NAND
Memory 512 MB DDR3
Architecture armv7
Software
Original software Debian on Linux 4.4
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Features
Flashing
No data
USB Networking
No data
Internal storage
No data
SD card
No data
Battery
No data
Screen
No data
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
No data
Audio
No data
Camera Flash
No data
Connectivity
WiFi
No data
Bluetooth
No data
NFC
No data
Miscellaneous
FDE
No data
USB OTG
No data
HDMI/DP
No data
Sensors
Accelerometer
No data
Magnetometer
No data
Ambient Light
No data
Proximity
No data
Hall Effect
No data
Haptics
No data
Barometer
No data


Contributors

  • Symmetrist

Maintainer(s)

  • Symmetrist

Users owning this device


How to enter flash mode

The CHIP has two different flashing modes:

  • FEL mode: used to flash bootloader and rootfs
  • Fastboot mode: used to flash rootfs


To enter FEL mode:

  • Connect the FEL and GND pins with a jumper cable
  • Power on the CHIP

To enter Fastboot mode:

  • Connect an serial (UART) USB adapter to UART1-TX, UART1-RX and GND
  • Power on the CHIP
  • Press enter during boot up to access the U-Boot console
  • On the console type `fastboot 0`

Configure U-Boot

PostmarketOS loads an initramfs together with the kernel, while original Debian installation only used the kernel.

To boot PostmarketOS we need to change the U-Boot configuration to support the initramfs.

From the U-boot serial console issue the following commands

> setenv bootcmd "gpio set PB2; ${bootcmd_fel}; ${boot_initrd};"
> saveenv

Create the UBIfs image

  • Configure the installation and build the system
$ pmbootstrap init
$ pmbootstrap install

In `workdir/chroot_rootfs_ntc-chip` there is the rootfs for your ntc-chip

The following commands needs to be launched from your pmbootstrap workdir

  • Copy dtb from linux-ntc-chip
$ sudo cp cache_git/pmaports/device/testing/linux-ntc-chip/sun5i-r8-chip.dtb chroot_rootfs_ntc-chip/boot/

Install mtd-utils from your distro repositories e.g. `pacman -S mtd-utils`

  • Create the UBIfs image
$ mkdir ubi
$ sudo mkfs.ubifs -m 16384 -e 0x1f8000 -c 2000 -r chroot_rootfs_ntc-chip ubi/ubifs.img
$ sudo chown youruser:youruser ubi/ubifs.img
$ ubinize -o ubi/ubi.img -m 16384 -p 2MiB -s 16384 cache_git/pmaports/device/testing/device-ntc-chip/ubinize.cfg
$ img2simg ubi/ubi.img ubi/ubi.img.sparse 2097152

Flash the UBIfs image

  • Enter fastboot mode as described above
  • On your computer
$ sudo fastboot erase UBI
$ sudo fastboot flash UBI ubi/ubi.img.sparse
$ sudo fastboot reboot

See also