Short intro to start your HiKey with serial console

All working as described. Do you by any chance know how to get past the root login that is being forced when restarting the board afterwards. I think im missing something here.

Fixed it. The above procedure is correct. I was stupid.

How do i get access to the serial console? I have the UART connected to my pc, but when I run the command using minicom as mentioned in the comments, nothing happens.

Are you using a 96boards-uart adapter or something else? If you are using the 96boards-uart adapter how did you configure the jumpers? Do any LEDs flash briefly on the adapter when you type into minicom (the LED is a TX light… if shows us that the PC is talking correctly to the adapter board)?

I’m using this https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01ANGB6EO?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_yo_pop_mb_pd_t2
.Interface development board 96 boards . I have connected and the led s are Turning on , but can anyone suggest the steps step by step so that I can follow.

When I do a minicom I get the following result
root@susmitha:/home/susmitha# minicom
Device /dev/tty8 is locked.

Also for some reason , my device PC, doesnt identify the serial ports.

sudo setserial -g /dev/ttyS[01234567]
/dev/ttyS0, UART: unknown, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4
/dev/ttyS1, UART: unknown, Port: 0x02f8, IRQ: 3
/dev/ttyS2, UART: unknown, Port: 0x03e8, IRQ: 4
/dev/ttyS3, UART: unknown, Port: 0x02e8, IRQ: 3
/dev/ttyS4, UART: unknown, Port: 0x0000, IRQ: 0
/dev/ttyS5, UART: unknown, Port: 0x0000, IRQ: 0
/dev/ttyS6, UART: unknown, Port: 0x0000, IRQ: 0
/dev/ttyS7, UART: unknown, Port: 0x0000, IRQ: 0

What do you mean by a TX light ? I have my jumpers as On, OFF, OFF i,e normal boor mode.

Maybe something else is using this tty (other minicom instance) or did not correctly released the tty, you can try to remove the corresponding lock in /var/lock/ and retry.

You are listing ttySX, so how ttyUSB0 can be listed?

On the UART/Serial mezzanine itself, you should see TX and RX leds.

There is an LED on the UART boards labelled TX (short for transmit). It lights up momentarily whenever a character is send from the UART adaptor to the board. It allows you to check that minicom is sending characters to the adaptor.

Sorry, I was talking about the jumpers on the UART adapter. These allow you to switch between LS-UART0 (both jumpers on the UART0 side) and LS-UART1 (both jumpers on the UART1 side).


PS Why are you running minicom with no arguments, that’s not what Akira suggested.

Well I have tried every option i,e under dev I have tried ls |grep ttyUSB . The main thing here is it does not recognize any USB options.

I initially tried using the minicom with parameters, but since nothing is showing up I have tried just the normal minicom.

Regarding the jumpers, are those the three pins which look like spokes , i,e
The one beside the push button.

96boards-uarts-seed4.

If so , then how do I configure the jumpers.?

Right… and when you are looking at nothing what happens to the TX light when you press keys on the keyboard?

To be honest it might also be useful to have a screenshot of what “nothing” looks like (do you mean a completely blank screen? a blank screen with a black status bar across that bottom?).

Yes.

See p5 of the user guide: UART Serial - 96Boards

What the correct position is depends on your baseboard but setting them for UART1 is by far the most common so try that first.

For some reason It detects my UART when I changed the wire

Now that I have both detected

/dev$ ls |grep ttyU
ttyUSB0
ttyUSB1

And When I run minicom with those parameters I get the following screen

Welcome to minicom 2.7

OPTIONS: I18n
Compiled on Feb 7 2016, 13:37:27.
Port /dev/ttyUSB1, 09:17:33

Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys
I have followed the steps of changing the settings of hardware flow to off, software flow to on and so on and have exited. But no screen flashes .Its just in the same screen

Also my UART jumpers are set to UART one, and no LED turns on except the Power LED.

The diagnostic that is suggested is that you watch the TX light whilst you also press keys on the keyboard. The TX light will only light up for a very short time when the key first goes down (it does not say on if you hold the key down… although it might start flashing when keyboard auto-repeat happens).

Additionally software flow control should be set to off.

Is this the correct configuration ?

Welcome to minicom 2.7

OPTI±----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Comp| A - Serial Device : /dev/ttyUSB1 |
Port| B - Lockfile Location : /var/lock |
| C - Callin Program : |
Pres| D - Callout Program : |
| E - Bps/Par/Bits : 115200 8N1 |
| F - Hardware Flow Control : No |
| G - Software Flow Control : No |
| |
| Change which setting? |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Screen and keyboard |
| Save setup as dfl |
| Save setup as… |
| Exit |
±-------------------------+

But I get the to same screen like in the above post. Am I doing anything wrong?

Do I need to have UEFI set up before I actually minicom to the board ?

Is this the correct configuration ?

Welcome to minicom 2.7

OPTI±----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Comp> A - Serial Device : /dev/ttyUSB1 |
Port> B - Lockfile Location : /var/lock |
> C - Callin Program : |
Pres> D - Callout Program : |
> E - Bps/Par/Bits : 115200 8N1 |
> F - Hardware Flow Control : No |
> G - Software Flow Control : No |
> >
> Change which setting? |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Screen and keyboard |
> Save setup as dfl |
> Save setup as… |
> Exit |
±-------------------------+

Yes, this looks ok (assuming you know from your dmesg traces that /dev/ttyUSB1
is your UART adapter).

But I get the to same screen like in the above post. Am I doing anything wrong?

No idea, I’m not sure what you expect to happen (aren’t you trying to
unbrick your board? it so right now it might not be saying anything).
At the moment all we are trying to do is confirm you have minicom setup
correctly.

The diagnostic that is suggested is that you watch the TX light
whilst you also press keys on the keyboard. The TX light will only
light up for a very short time when the key first goes down (it
does not say on if you hold the key down… although it might start
flashing when keyboard auto-repeat happens).

You have not yet replied to say what happens when you press keys on the
keyboard (e.g. sending keystrokes to minicom) whilst watching the TX
light. So far you have only said that it is off by default (which is
expected).

When I press something I cannot see the lights . but when I use a different application like picocom (a similar application like minicom ) I can see the lights on the TX LED as you have suggested.

I’m trying to install Linux on the board and I’m trying to see the boot process or the error messages on the serial console.

Here is the link of the issue which I have been working

When I press something I cannot see the lights . but when I use a
different application like picocom (a similar application like
minicom) I can see the lights on the TX LED as you have suggested.

Ok, great. Actually I use picocom for everything too… much easier
to launch from scripts.

I’m trying to install Linux on the board and I’m trying to see the
boot process or the error messages on the serial console.

The problem with “nothing happens” is that we can’t tell where nothing
is happening. However with your setup now showing the TX LED correctly
we can be pretty confident that the UART is setup correctly and if you
see nothing it’s because the hikey960 sent nothing.

Doesn’t sound like much, but it matters!

Here is the link of the issue which I have been working:
Installing Linux on Hikey960

Looking like the UART side of things is working now, so I’m gla
to hear this is sorted, and I’ll leave you with @Loic for the Linux
stuff. Have fun!

Thank you for the help regarding the UART side. :slight_smile: