Next Thing Co. CHIP (ntc-chip)

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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
Original version ? (Linux 4.4)
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
This device is marked as not booting.
Status: Kernel compiles and boots, u-boot needs to be packaged


Contributors

  • Symmetrist

Maintainer(s)

  • Symmetrist

Status

At the moment it is possible to build a pmOS image using the commands explained below.

However to boot this image we need to change u-boot configuration, and unfortunately the procedure explained below does not work on all the version of u-boot for CHIP around.

The next step is to package and compile u-boot to provide a uniform bootloader for pmOS.

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:

  • Print the current value of the bootcmd, save it in case you want to restore it later.
> printenv bootcmd
  • Change the bootcmd value
> printenv bootcmd
> 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
$ fastboot erase UBI
$ fastboot flash UBI ubi/ubi.img.sparse
$ fastboot reboot

See also

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