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OLIMEX Teres-I (olimex-teres i)

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Revision as of 03:54, 28 January 2024 by Kreyren (talk | contribs) (Welcome back to the party Alexey!)
Note New device port in works by the community maintainer
OLIMEX Teres 1
The Odrysian King at FOSDEM2017
The Odrysian King at FOSDEM2017
Manufacturer OLIMEX
Name Teres 1
Codename teres_i
Model Rev.C
Released 12 Oct 2017
Type laptop
Hardware
Chipset Allwinner A64
CPU 4x 1152 MHz Cortex-A53
GPU 600Mhz Mali-400 MP2
Display 1366x768 IPS (N11BGE-EA2 Rev.C3)
Storage 16 GB eMMC (MTFC16GAKAENA-4M) + SDCard
Memory 2GB DDR3L RAM (2x Hynix H5TC8G63AMR-PBA)
Architecture aarch64
Software
Original software Android
FOSS bootloader yes
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Mainline yes
postmarketOS kernel linux-postmarketos-allwinner
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score Untested
Features
Flashing
Works
Internal storage
Works
SD card
Works
Battery
Works
Screen
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Keyboard
Works
Touchpad
Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Works
Audio
Works
Camera
Works
IR TX
Works
IR RX
Works
Connectivity
WiFi
Works
Bluetooth
Works
Ethernet
Works
GPS
Works
NFC
Works
Modem
Calls
Works
SMS
Works
Miscellaneous
FDE
Works
USB-A
Works
SATA/eSATA
No data
USB OTG
Works
HDMI/DP
Works
Sensors
Accelerometer
Works
Magnetometer
Works
Ambient Light
Works
Proximity
Works
Barometer
Works
Power Sensor
Works
U-Boot
Primary Bootloader
Works
Secondary Bootloader
Works
Mainline
Works
Internal Storage
Works
SD card
Works
USB Host
Works
USB Peripheral
Works
Display
Works
Keyboard
Works
Buttons
Works

Another unsuspecting wanderer graces these humble pages. Did you stumble upon this realm by accident, or did a cruel hand of destiny somehow decide you needed to witness the desolation within? Welcome, I suppose.. Do you dare to find a comfortable place to sit and prepare for a tale steeped in sorrow? click to listen to the tale..

Alright then, In a world sadly not distant enough, an insidious corporation, orchestrates a grandiose symphony of global strife. A heart-wrenching performance filled with the spilled blood, tears, and the unwitting sacrifices of minds too feeble or fearful to break free. Picture, if you will, a desolate expanse where individuality is a scarce relic, traded for the meager privilege of having a fragile ski helmet over one's head for the illusory escape into a utopia of the world that could have been.

Amid this grim reality, a band of warriors, led by my creator Master Usunov, surfaces. They send forth a grim warning across time—an offering of plans and instructions to construct the initial shard of a weapon. A flickering ember of hope in a world drowning in the shadows of despair.

Now, brace yourself, dear visitor, for the revelation of a companion on your journey. Will you muster the strength to endure its burdens and, perchance, be strong enough to guide this realm out of its woeful state?

Or will you retreat to the comforting shadows of indifference? The choice rests with you, my unwitting bearer of clicks.

Engineers, Maintainers and Contributors

Users owning this device

Installation

Use pmbootstrap to build your own image.

Insert your desired sdcard in the build system and note it's device identifier (e.g. /dev/mmcblk1)

$ pmbootstrap init  # vendor: olimex, device: teres_i
$ pmbootstrap install --fde --sdcard=/dev/your-sdcard-device

Disconnect the sdcard from your build system and insert it into a laptop, it's expected to boot.

Alternatively you can flash a pre-built images from ...

U-boot Updates

Warning WARNING: This process might result in a device that will not boot postmarketOS, make sure you understand how you might recover from this situation before proceeding!!
# update-u-boot --board=teres_i --device=/dev/your-device
Updating teres_i u-boot in /dev/your-device in 3 seconds...
Completed successfully.
# sync

Serial console

Teres has a serial port in the headphone connector.

The default UART is 115200n8

The pinout for the serial connector on the headphone jack is:

 TX  RX
  |   |    
 === == ====|||||||||---------
          |
         GND

The serial connection is 3.3V

You can also buy the debug cable from the supplier's web store or make one.

For instructions and firmware: https://github.com/d3v1c3nv11/teres1-debug

Storage

The SD card is /dev/mmcblk2 and the eMMC is /dev/mmcblk0

Booting

Teres boots using u-boot. The bootrom in the A64 soc will look for u-boot on the SPI flash chip, then the eMMC and then the SD card slot and It will boot the first functioning u-boot image it can find.

Booting from SD

To boot from the SD the SPI bootloader and eMMC bootloader need to be disabled. Then the SoC will fallback to a bootloader on the SD card so postmarketOS can be fully booted from SD.

Teres comes with an empty SPI chip from the factory so that doesn't need anything by default.

Booting from eMMC

To boot it from eMMC you have to overwrite the OS that's on the eMMC already. This is possible to do from an OS booted from SD with the steps above and then flashed on the eMMC using live system.

Fastboot mode is work-in-progress

Booting from SPI

TBD

Connecting to the WiFi

wpa_supplicant

Refet to the https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Wi-Fi#wpa_supplicant.

Kconfig

Reference only

# section
CONFIG=value # comment

Recommended Mods

Add VCC-in Fuse

In case the charging is too slow for you or you often change chargers, then consider adding a fuse to the VCC-in to protect the internal electronics:

The stock charger can provide 5VDC1A while with the fuse it's sane to use a 5VDC3A charger (at your own risk!).

Cut the power cable

To be able to charge teres from practically anything that provides the very common 5V 1~3A you can cut the power cable and use WAGO connectors for wire splicing or making a USB-A to Barrel Jack cable.

Known issues

Power connector wear

The power connector starts to expire after around 1000 insertions and needs to be serviced.

Phone signal might disrupt audio

The cell phone signal on a phone put close to the device might produce static noise.

Power-on power supply connection

The device powers on when connected to the power supply

Disfunctional display when BL31.bin is compiled with SUNXI_SETUP_REGULATORS=0

The The Arm-Trusted-Firmware's BL31 is responsible for PMIC initialization that should be correctly printed in serial console as:

 U-Boot SPL 2024.01 (Jan 18 2024 - 19:32:49 +0100)
 DRAM: 2048 MiB
 Trying to boot from MMC1
 NOTICE:  BL31: v2.10.0	(debug):
 NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 01:25:38, Dec  4 2023
 NOTICE:  BL31: Detected Allwinner A64/H64/R18 SoC (1689)
 NOTICE:  BL31: Found U-Boot DTB at 0x20a2d98, model: Olimex A64 Teres-I
 INFO:    ARM GICv2 driver initialized
 INFO:    Configuring SPC Controller
 INFO:    PMIC: Probing AXP803 on RSB
 INFO:    PMIC: aldo1 voltage: 2.800V
 INFO:    PMIC: dcdc1 voltage: 3.300V
 INFO:    PMIC: dcdc5 voltage: 1.500V
 INFO:    PMIC: dcdc6 voltage: 1.100V
 INFO:    PMIC: dldo1 voltage: 3.300V
 INFO:    PMIC: dldo2 voltage: 2.500V
 INFO:    PMIC: dldo3 voltage: 1.200V
 INFO:    PMIC: dldo4 voltage: 3.300V
 INFO:    PMIC: fldo1 voltage: 1.200V
 INFO:    PMIC: Enabling DC SW
 INFO:    BL31: Platform setup done
 INFO:    BL31: Initializing runtime services
 INFO:    BL31: cortex_a53: CPU workaround for erratum 843419 was applied
 INFO:    BL31: cortex_a53: CPU workaround for erratum 855873 was applied
 INFO:    BL31: cortex_a53: CPU workaround for erratum 1530924 was applied
 INFO:    PSCI: Suspend is unavailable
 INFO:    BL31: Preparing for EL3 exit to normal world
 INFO:    Entry point address = 0x4a000000
 INFO:    SPSR = 0x3c9

If your U-Boot initializes with:

 U-Boot SPL 2024.01 (Jan 20 2024 - 10:52:04 +0000)
 DRAM: 2048 MiB
 Trying to boot from MMC1
 NOTICE:  BL31: lts-v2.8.14(release):
 NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 10:47:18, Jan 20 2024
 NOTICE:  BL31: Detected Allwinner A64/H64/R18 SoC (1689)
 NOTICE:  BL31: Found U-Boot DTB at 0x20a2d98, model: Olimex A64 Teres-I

Then you likely need to review your BL31.bin's compilation logs for the presence of 'SUNXI_SETUP_REGULATORS=0 such as https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/merge_requests/59249/diffs#082488b14c7615f24feec8cd5916dfbd77c6a78d_41_41.

This issue affected alpine's u-boot <=2024.01-r2 and was addressed in:

Troubleshooting

..

See also