<peterm6881>
can you see if Marcels kernel defconfig has any clues
<Xogium>
hm I need to see the device tree, not the defconfig but sure
<peterm6881>
the board he designed for me was based on it, and it had debug and serial gps, both of which worked
<peterm6881>
lol kernel dts
<peterm6881>
his readme points to his documentation for mainlining
<Xogium>
looks like it has one single uart, uart0. Also both i2c0 and i2c1 are enabled at the same time
<Xogium>
so go figure
<peterm6881>
hmm...guess i didnt realised what a mistake it was nuking that shitty old repo
<Xogium>
neither did I
<peterm6881>
looks like we're sunk. we would need sipeeds input and they are typical in that they might reply to 1 email in 10, if you are very very lucky
<peterm6881>
well, I knew it worked, I just didnt know what an omni-shambles it would be getting it to work again. At least we know wht the Lichee Zero never took off
<peterm6881>
why
<peterm6881>
if you cant figure it out how to get something as simple as a serial port working, nobody can
<Xogium>
its confusing as hell must admit
<peterm6881>
i have some information from the datasheet
<peterm6881>
let me know if any of this helps
<peterm6881>
uart0 is pins PB8 / PB9, and also PF2 / PF4
<peterm6881>
uart1 is pins PE21 / PE22
<peterm6881>
uart2 is pins PB0 / PB1
<peterm6881>
memory mapping as follows
<Xogium>
is the uart1 pins changing if pb8 and pb9 are used ?
<Xogium>
is uart1 available
<peterm6881>
uart0 0x01C2 8000---0X01C2 83FF
<peterm6881>
uart1 0x01C2 8400---0X01C2 87FF
<peterm6881>
uart2 0x01C2 8800---0X01C2 8BFF
<peterm6881>
im not sure what you mean
<peterm6881>
ahh wait
<peterm6881>
i get you
<Xogium>
well going by the v3 device tree, they use pg8 and pg9 for the uart1
<peterm6881>
wait
<Xogium>
but pe1 nad pe22 are used on v3s
<Xogium>
do this pins change, depending on which multiplexing mode things are set as ?
<Xogium>
I'm just trying to determine if not having uart1 is an oversight
<peterm6881>
looking at the multiplexing functions raises more questions than it answers
<peterm6881>
ready?
<Xogium>
yeah, go on
<peterm6881>
uart0 on pb8/9 and pf2/4 are both under multiplexing Function column
<peterm6881>
uart1 on pe21/pe22 is under Function 4 column
<peterm6881>
uart2 on PB0/1 is under Function 2 column
<peterm6881>
which is worrying. This suggests, to me, you can only ever have 1 uart connection
<Xogium>
that would indeed explain why the lichee has only 1 uart..
<peterm6881>
uart0 on pb8/9 and pf2/4 are both under multiplexing Function column 3
<peterm6881>
sorry i missed out the most important part lol
<Xogium>
so about pb8 and 9, that means pe1 pe22 are inactive ? Same for uart 2 ?
<peterm6881>
my assumption about multiplexing is you choose your function and thats it
<peterm6881>
so, yeah, that would be my guess
<peterm6881>
there is no function that has 2 uarts in it
<peterm6881>
the most bizarre thing is that uart0 is on PB8/9 and PF2/4 simultaneously with multiplexing Function 3
<Xogium>
then how the fuck did that guy ever gave you something with both uarts active ?
<Xogium>
or was it.. Oh
<Xogium>
what if, by doing this you can use uart0 twice ?
<Xogium>
and its how you got a board that had both debug and gps over serial
<Xogium>
but nah, under linux that would be the same tty
<Xogium>
that can't possibly work
<peterm6881>
perhaps I was mistaken, I know it got a fix and worked , but I wouldnt have been doing a lot of debug at that time. Pierre would have sent me an image and id have tested it. Its possible I didnt connect a bridge at the same time. This was while I was at my last job, so its around 5 years ago now!
<Xogium>
ah
<Xogium>
maybe you could only debug through serial console over usb gadget ?
<peterm6881>
in other words, a very fucking long time ago lol
<peterm6881>
yeah thats possible
<Xogium>
wellp
<peterm6881>
thats very possible
<Xogium>
sounds like we're a bit fucked
<peterm6881>
we've discovered the SoC is quite a bit shitter than we gave it credit for
<Xogium>
worse is, we could have avoided even buying this and wasting time on it, if only we had known this before
<peterm6881>
whats the fucking point of claiming it supports 3 uart connections if you can only ever use 1
<Xogium>
that is.. unless you can set a pin muxing mode for each pins
<peterm6881>
yeah i should have checked the datasheet earlier for the multiplexing options
<Xogium>
like, set uart0 in mode 3, and uart1 in mode 4
<peterm6881>
yes exactly, you'd need to multiplex on the fly. Fuck that
<peterm6881>
I have to say, once again, and in this case with uart, OPi0 wins out
<peterm6881>
the dedicated debug pins, laid out separately to the main headers, you knew exactly wehere you stood
<Xogium>
heh
<peterm6881>
so, the question becomes, can we use uart0, and only debug on Gadget Serial? Or are we totally fucked because uart0 is in use?
<Xogium>
well, the issue is, if we rely only on gadget, if there's a kernel issue or a bootloader problem, or if I have to interact with the blootloader for any reason, I won't be able to do this
<Xogium>
*bootloadr
<peterm6881>
bootloader even ;)
<Xogium>
yea
<Xogium>
can't type
<peterm6881>
i cant type, wors
<peterm6881>
i wonder that the purpose of PF2/4 is
<peterm6881>
meh, it doesnt matter
<Xogium>
gadget won,t give you a dedicated debug port, if linux doesn't boot up you just won't even get a tty device to show up on your pc
<peterm6881>
yeah i know its not a proper debug, it only kicks in when USB does
<Xogium>
yup, which is much too late because by this point linux has almost finished booting
<peterm6881>
so you cant even get putty ready
<peterm6881>
we dont have much luck Xogium !
<peterm6881>
:)
<Xogium>
would have been nice to not waste time on it
<Xogium>
and not get very sick
<Xogium>
but heh, what's done is done
<peterm6881>
its utterly bananas you cant have 2 uarts simultaneously
<peterm6881>
at least we wasted far less time than the mangopi
<Xogium>
true that
<peterm6881>
the moral of THIS story this time is check the function chart first
<peterm6881>
let me double check it.
<peterm6881>
nope all checks out
<Xogium>
what do you mean ?
<peterm6881>
I think the Lichee Zero is a fraud, because any idiot looking at would think "Awesome, I have 3 uart interfaces to play with, clearly labelled"
<peterm6881>
I think thats probably why a small bunch of people got excited about it, at the start, and then comprehensively walked away
<peterm6881>
I doubled checked the information I sent you about uart pinout was correct
<Xogium>
right
<peterm6881>
in case i made a mistake, or missed a sneaky uart hiding in a Function 2, 3 or 4 column
<peterm6881>
but no, its as bad as we thought
<peterm6881>
well, thats why the Lichee Zero didnt take off, inho
<peterm6881>
imho
<Xogium>
no idea
<Xogium>
but could be
<Xogium>
I much prefer the stm32mp1, I can tell you that lol
<Xogium>
at least there is no shortage of doc on that chip
<peterm6881>
my instinct is its not an exciting SoC becuase of this limitation, that you cant even have one uart device plus full debug
<Xogium>
yeah, it could be related
<peterm6881>
i mean its not exciting for us
<peterm6881>
as a development platform
<Xogium>
nop, and it could be same for people wanting to use something over uart
<peterm6881>
precisely, its like a bad joke. Its very poor design
<Xogium>
the thing is I think all of these SoC have a common point, the v3, v3s, the f1c100s and 200s
<peterm6881>
they probably made it for some very clever box, for people who didnt care about anything but their own use case.
<Xogium>
they are all SoC originally designed to run in low end tv boxes from china
<peterm6881>
yeah
<peterm6881>
we're in no win territory
<Xogium>
the SoC the raspberry pi use was originally designed as a SoC meant to run in cellphones
<peterm6881>
language Xogium !
<peterm6881>
how vulgar...
<peterm6881>
;)
<peterm6881>
multiplexing sucks
<Xogium>
point is, its not because you use a SoC that wasn't meant for the use you intend to do with that it is impossible. But in this case, the fact the focus is clearly on tv boxes means that we're lacking things tv don't care about
<peterm6881>
whoever came up with that led a lot of people up the garden path
<peterm6881>
yeah, allwinner are dumb, they would clean up if they designed a SoC specifically for the third party open source developer community
<Xogium>
yep, but they are not going to do that, because they don't care about open source
<peterm6881>
i think the reason they arent open source at all is because they made chips for a customers specification
<Xogium>
if they did, then they wouldn't constantly violate the gpl licenses of every projects they fork, like linux or u-boot, and they would help in the mainlining effort
<peterm6881>
so they dont have the intellectual property rights
<peterm6881>
i think with their expertise, they could release a killer SoC
<Xogium>
yes
<peterm6881>
but who knows if they ever will
<Xogium>
but releasing a killer SoC and supporting mainline on it, are 2 different things
<Xogium>
they will release a killer SoC, and expect you to use their own board support package, with their kernel that is often ancient, their ancient u-boot, etc. Not mainline
<peterm6881>
like i said, I thnk their hands are often tied because my hunch is that most of their designs have been made to a specific customers specification, not for general sale
<Xogium>
could be, but I doubt that
<Xogium>
if that was the case, and they were still willing to complient with open source, then they wouldn't repeatedly violate the licenses of projects they've had to fork in order to do the work for a specific SoC
<peterm6881>
whats involved in switching to uart0? is that a simple change?
<peterm6881>
changing it away from being debug
<Xogium>
technically, its relatively simple. Wire up the gps on uart0, and just don't spawn a login prompt after boot
<Xogium>
which means that if there's a bug, we will never know it
<peterm6881>
of course we still wouldnt have audio. I have no recollection if Marcels board had audio. For sure his Blueberry Pi has a headphone jack, go figure how.
<Xogium>
yep and not having debug means we couldn't figure audio anymore
<peterm6881>
did I understand correctly, that the way to enable audio that worked for some old kernel, is no longer valid becuase of kernel changes?
<Xogium>
its more that what mainline has doesn't match with what they used, back in 2019
<Xogium>
so I cannot compare the 2 of them
<peterm6881>
yeah sounds like a candidate for the "Too Hard" basket
<peterm6881>
i dont think we have any choice , I think we're stuck with the OPi0
<Xogium>
and stuck with its high price too
<peterm6881>
the 2 issues are its comparatively a lot more expensive, and the form factor
<Xogium>
which I have a feeling will keep going up
<peterm6881>
it doesnt lend itself to a carrier board, because its profile is so tall already, with the ethernet port
<Xogium>
yeah
<Xogium>
you'd tipically stick the ethernet port on the carrier
<Xogium>
like for the odyssey
<peterm6881>
yeah i never like the cube shape, its not ideal for a car dashboard
<peterm6881>
yes absolutely
<peterm6881>
well you live and learn Xogium , dont let it get you down.
<peterm6881>
like the mangopi, we just didnt anticipate these SoC's have fatal flaws
<Xogium>
can't exactly get down now, I received my delayed birthday gift from Simon and I'm speechless. I don't understand why he'd do this for me
<peterm6881>
with F1C200s its slow boot and no eMMC boot support, with V3s its shit support for uart
<Xogium>
he gave me a box today, saying that it only arrived like a day or so ago, and he had to wait till I was distracted so he could wrap it good
<peterm6881>
i think the ublox chip has other interface options, but the lack of uart support still makes the V3s unexciting as a tinker board
<Xogium>
he even went to the trouble of writing a note in braille that said, 'in case your main one has problems one day'. He bought me one of the few remaining tascam dr-100mkiii from ebay, came all the way from the US. The seller he bought from had 5 of them left when he did, and 2 days later, he had none
<peterm6881>
wow
<peterm6881>
Simon thinks the world of you
<Xogium>
I don't even know what I'm meant to do
<peterm6881>
in what way?
<Xogium>
I'm not used to gifts, let alone that such high cost gifts
<peterm6881>
you box it right up and keep it safe
<peterm6881>
i know what you mean, such attention makes you squirm!
<Xogium>
I'm used to people giving me nice stuff but wanting things in exchange. I guess the idea of gift baffles me
<peterm6881>
i think what you do is open your mouth and speak, and the script will take care of itself
<Xogium>
jesus this is brand new, it still smells like brand new stuff does
<Xogium>
not even pre-owned or open box
<Xogium>
I didn't know brand new ws still a thing with that model hehe
<Xogium>
but its interesting to compare mine with this new one, the alluminum body is a bit more rough on the new, also one side of the lcd is deeper in the case than the other tascam lcd is, and my first has a manufacturing defect where one of the release buttons of the xlr connector is slightly closer to the xlr socket than the other
<peterm6881>
strange they are both Mark 3, but have differences
<Xogium>
yeah.. I think its just some slight manufacture defects
<Xogium>
well, if nothing else that means I can't mix them up
<peterm6881>
hehe
<Xogium>
also one of the last ones produced, looks like. It came with the latest firmware already installed, so that means manufactured somewhere in 2020
<Xogium>
possibly 2021
<peterm6881>
are there any hospices where you live?
<Xogium>
y'know, I've no idea
<Xogium>
I should ask the man of the day
<peterm6881>
i think recording memoirs would be a very cool thing for you to do
<Xogium>
but then what do I do with them ? Share them ? Give to the family ?
<peterm6881>
I think family members would pay you to do that. Apparently people are more candid when its a stranger, unrelated to them
<peterm6881>
more honest, warts and all hehe
<peterm6881>
yes its for the family as a whole
<peterm6881>
including the subject
<Xogium>
hmm
<Xogium>
could be nice
<Xogium>
and binaural too, would be very very nice for them I think, they could close their eyes, and picture the person sitting just in front of them
<peterm6881>
over time you could develop a set of questions, but initially just chat and see what people want to talk about. The thing about hospices is there arent that many of them, its very specialised. Such a service wouldnt be appropriate for anywhere except a hospice
<peterm6881>
only there do people accept the end is in sight
<peterm6881>
you're a curious person, and a very natural conversationalist
<peterm6881>
yes the quality of the archive is your unique selling point
<peterm6881>
you could retain copies in your cloud, as part of the service
<peterm6881>
in case of customer data loss
<peterm6881>
just explain the material is retained in your vault indefinitely
<Xogium>
I was considering that, given that people tend to be forgetfull and could accidentally delete de files or lose them, or any number of stuff
<Xogium>
yeah exactly
<peterm6881>
yes people are super bad at having irreplaceable material in 2 places at all times
<sc6502>
greetings and salutations :)
<peterm6881>
hey sc6502 welcome
<peterm6881>
back to the drawing board, or back to the OPi0!
<peterm6881>
can you do something for me, go into your newest Buildroot directory and run make list-defconfigs
<Xogium>
hi Steve
<peterm6881>
La Frite is interesting, 8 GByte eMMC onboard
<peterm6881>
when it was on Kickstarter the 512 MB RAM version was only 10 USD, which was below cost. The 1GB version was 15 USD. Even if its double that now, its still a better choice
<Xogium>
well
<Xogium>
yet another chinese computer
<Xogium>
they also don't seem to say just how many uart or anything
<Xogium>
its not in stock anywhere I can find
<sc6502>
Can you all read open office documents?
<sc6502>
Or libreoffice
<peterm6881>
yes
<peterm6881>
wait im mixing up La Frite with the NanoPi Neo Air LTS in terms of eMMC, grr
<peterm6881>
its a separate module on La Frite
<Xogium>
I was about to say that
<Xogium>
sc6502: I can also read libreoffice.. I think
<sc6502>
What's the purpose of the hardware? Something to run navit, or a general purpose 'Nano' platform to also resell?
<peterm6881>
sc6502, the intention was always to go after the equally huge hobby market as well as devloping our core use case of Speedsaver
<peterm6881>
unfortunately, since I started and because development has been so slow and in fits and starts, meanwhile the market for SBC's has gone bananas, its exploded. So its a huge mess now
<peterm6881>
but the rewards for a properly maintained board I feel are still there, since there is so much absolute shite around, as we have all discovered the hard way
<peterm6881>
there is no stand out candidate, if there was, we'd be using it. We discovered the F1C100/200s cant boot from eMMC, and the V3s is diabolical for uart, so that rules out all those. And we cant get a board designed from scratch for the H2+ / H3, or SC Micro SoC's because its too big a task and those skills barely exist in the UK. So we're stuck scrabbling around for some compromise board we can adapt to our purposes. There is a lot to be said for
<peterm6881>
a versatile, low profile, low cost board that lends itself to a carrier board to make it more user friendly
<sc6502>
The problem with a premium product is people will expect premium support, otherwise they just look at the $ at the end of the listing and make a yes/no decision.
<peterm6881>
i dont want cost to be a barrier to ownership of the product
<peterm6881>
Hence I start by looking at the cheapest option and working my up
<peterm6881>
my way up
<sc6502>
fwiw, I think we need to find something that's good for navit to start with, then see what happens. Even then, the first shipped hardware is unlikely to be the last shipped hardware.
<peterm6881>
by support I just mean we maintain it, by keeping the kernel, u-boot and defconfig up to date as far as possible
<sc6502>
That's why I'm thinking of listing all the features of OPi0 in a spreadsheet with essential/desirable/nice to have next to each one, as the basis of comparing with potential replacements.
<sc6502>
Because spending a few weeks of testing to decide it's broken in some way isn't going to get it done.
<peterm6881>
the reason ive been reluctant to launch with the proven OPI0 is the hike in price, but even more so that its clunky and doesnt lend itself to a carrier board, it needs a HAT, which severely limits making the sape IP accessible
<peterm6881>
spare *
<sc6502>
Prices are hiked across the board aren't they?
<peterm6881>
they are, so price is secondary to that. Its still comparatively good value for the specifications. Still hurts though that are product will be a lot more expensive than it otherwise might have been ;)
<peterm6881>
our
<peterm6881>
cube shape is not ideal for dashboard use
<peterm6881>
i would have preferred something low profile, so the mangopi and the licheepi were better choices in terms of form factor, but each useless in their own way
<peterm6881>
Xunlong make 2 other boards that dont have that problem, but they are End Of Life and not supported in Buildroot defconfigs
<sc6502>
So perhaps armed with a spreadsheet, start at the top and work your way down until you find the cheapest viable option.
<Xogium>
sc6502: sent you a pm by the way
<sc6502>
Rather than cube, how about rectangular side-by-side. The hat(s) and the SBC are connected to a common carrier PCB rather than stacked.
<peterm6881>
we're still stuck with micro SD, everything is a compromise in one way or another lol
<peterm6881>
does anything from that list jump out at you that you may have come across before?
<sc6502>
which list?
<peterm6881>
go into the newest Buildroot directory and run make list-defconfigs
<peterm6881>
thats everything thats currently supported, which is the starting point for choosing hardware
<sc6502>
Oh, the list of supported platforms and whether any of them meet our needs.
<peterm6881>
just thought maybe you would have had experience of some of them
<sc6502>
Gotta go - dad's on the phone with an IT question.
<peterm6881>
eeny meeny miny mo
<peterm6881>
fancy any of those Xogium ?
<Xogium>
there are way way too many to know that, honestly
<Xogium>
its an avalanche of defconfigs
<peterm6881>
lol yes but i mean only the ones you recognise
<peterm6881>
just thought maybe there was a board that was hiding in plain sight
<Xogium>
I don't know a whole ot of them.. I don't have that many dev boards
<Xogium>
before you sent me some, I only had the odroid c2, the espressobin, and the stm32 based one
<peterm6881>
globalscale_espressobin_defconfig
<Xogium>
yep, that's a hardware platform to make a router
<peterm6881>
solidrun_macchiatobin_defconfig
<Xogium>
oh yes that's the big badass brother of the ebin, if you will
<peterm6881>
hehe
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