[Dragonboard820c] [DB820c] Linaro Debian Release - Boot Issue

General
#1

Hi,

I am using the Dragonboard820c (DB820c) P1 HW Revision. I am having trouble booting the Linaro Debian Release #22 obtained from http://builds.96boards.org/snapshots/dragonboard820c/linaro/debian/22/.

Here are the boot logs for the same: http://pastebin.com/DXmeFKcc

From the boot logs, I am not able to get the point of failure.

For Getting Started on the Linaro Debian Release, I am referring to this link: https://github.com/96boards/documentation/wiki/DragonBoard-820c-Getting-Started-With-Linux

and tried all the options to flash the rootfs to “userdata” and “system” partition and changed the cmdline arguments. But the kernel is not reaching to the init process itself.

Then, I downloaded the Android Release Binaries from Code Aurora Codebase having the CAF Tag: LA.HB.1.3.2-03800-8x96.0.
The above mentioned CAF Android Binaries are working fine.

So I am not suspecting any HW issues.

It would be great if you can please help me out for the same, if I am missing anything.

Thanks,
Sunny

#2

hi,

first of all, thanks for the very good report, it really helps us when we get all the information we need :wink:

As you know, there is no set of bootloader for the board, publicly available. So like you, we are using ‘internal’ android releases for proprietary blobs. The release you are using is slightly older than the one we use…

anyways, when we moved to a recent release a couple of months ago, we noticed that support for splash screen was enabled in LK (in Android builds), so that you can see the snapdragon logo very early in the boot.

The splash screen support creates issues with the linux kernel, as we don’t have proper handoff of resources between LK and kernel yet. I suspect this might the be issue you are seeing, so let’s try to disable it, put the board into fastboot mode and run

fastboot oem select-display-panel none

it should be set to ‘hdmi’ by default, and you should be able to revert to hdmi with

> fastboot oem select-display-panel hdmi

after you set it to none, please power off/reboot and try booting linux again.

#3

Hi @anon91830841,

Thank you for your quick reply. This really helped us.

For reference to others, below are the steps:

sudo fastboot erase userdata
sudo fastboot flash userdata linaro-stretch-*.img
abootimg -u boot-linaro-stretch-qcom-snapdragon-arm64-*.img -c "cmdline=root=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/userdata rw rootwait console=tty0 console=ttyMSM0,115200n8"
sudo fastboot erase boot
sudo fastboot flash boot boot-linaro-stretch-qcom-snapdragon-arm64-*.img
sudo fastboot reboot

If by doing the above, the kernel goes to SBL abruptly, then follow the below (as suggested by @anon91830841 in the above thread) :

fastboot oem select-display-panel none

Now power cycle board and it will work.

@anon91830841 We need further information on the Linaro Linux Release on DB820c:

  1. Is there a expected ETA for the Linux release on DB820c platform ?
  2. Can you please let us know the android release that you have used (CAF Tag or any other link) ?
  3. Do you have Release Notes for the Release Candidates available on http://builds.96boards.org/snapshots/dragonboard820c/linaro/debian/

Awaiting your reply.

Thanks,
Sunny

#4

hi @bhayanisunny,

thanks for reporting back!

I will add the missing instructions on the wiki shortly.

About your questions:

  • the first ‘official’ Linux release for the DB820c will be done when the board is officially launched… we are not planning to start releases until the board is generally available to public. We have daily/weekly builds in place in the mean time. We are not using a ‘stable’ kernel branch for these builds, and we will keep moving with newer kernel. e.g. we are going to switch to 4.11 based branch soon’ish.
  • The Android tag we used for our testing is LA.HB.1.3.2-19600-8x96.0.
  • there is no release notes for the daily builds available. i agree it’s not ideal, i will try to add a section to the getting start wiki page with the current state of the kernel. In the upcoming 4.11 branch , i expect the following high level features to work: USB3, UFS, PCie, Ethernet, WLAN, display (including 4K), hardware accelerated video playback (including 4K), and maybe HDMI audio
[DB820c] Hardware Encoder and Decoder Support
#5

Hi @anon91830841,

Really appreciate for your time.

One last question:
The 4.11 release really has lot of features and I am looking forward for this. So is there a timeframe planned that we can look forward to get this new 4.11 kernel release ?

Thanks,
Sunny

#6

hi, @bhayanisunny, i would say around the end of March.

#7

Thanks a lot @anon91830841 for your time.

Closing this thread here.

Thanks,
Sunny