How To get your brand new RK3399 to actually boot linux.

jpboard

I tried the how to on flash image page and could not get PC or android tool to see it,
but found the how to on boot mode page http://en.t-firefly.com/doc/product/info/265.html
was different and worked to put board into loader mode and then PC saw it and android tool
worked to install to emmc

mcdane

Hi guys

You finally saved my day! I flashed my RK3399 with latest ubuntu from the boards offical google drive repo:

https://drive.google.com/drive/f ... ewKCmYIH-vU_tSjEKvL

However, I just realize that for example Youtube videos are lagging and even normal websites with text and images are loading not as fast as it did on Android as inital setup when I got the board running the first time. Everything just loads a bit slower and seems to be laggy.

Do I have to install any drivers or enable something to have the whole hardware capacity?
It cannot be that such a powerful board is not able to handle all that stuff, right?

rpk.firefly

Hi mcdane,

I haven't logged in for a while, and just saw your post.

Although it's on my list, I haven't messed with compiling ubuntu or the kernel yet. In looking at the FireFly Ubuntu build destructions, I don't see any mention of the 'extras' that appear to be in the FireFly Ubuntu image, so I would assume devices/drivers will be missing for the framebufer and hardware codecs.
I have a feeling there should be more drivers somewhere. In my /dev/dri/ from the FireFly image, I see:

card0
controlD64
renderD128

but they could just be a default for a Linux install, I'm not sure.

[ edit, I just checked on the Ubuntu install on my older Mac Mini, which has card0 and renderD128, so yes they're part of the standard install ].

I do see /dev/mali0 on the FireFly though, which would be RockChip. It's possible that's part of the debian default installer for Arm processors, afraid I don't know for sure.

I bet that without proper framebuffer support a regular Linux install will be slow as the defaults won't utilize hardware acceleration.

Speaking of which, I never could get ffmpeg compiled to use the hardware accellerators, I probably need another package installed or compiled. I bet it needs to be in /dev/dri. I also messed with gstreamer a little (it's in /opt in FireFly's ubuntu image) and found it to be a convoluted mess in true Linux fashion, however I was able to use the decoder chip for playback.

btw. I found rkflashtool to be sort of flakey sometimes. I've found 'upgrade_tool' to be pretty good for installs. It just needs that config.ini file which is missing from one of the FireFly images.

I just tried your google drive link, but it throws an error for me, no doubt because I block many google domains due to them being low-life, bottom-feeding scum when it comes to user privacy. I personally avoid any google products (or FaceF*ck etc.) because I don't find them to be trustworthy companies.

[edit - I forgot to mention that there are 2 ubuntu images I found via the FireFly site, the 'xubuntu' one is older and I only loaded it once, anyway here's the names of the downloaded files (I'll try a search and update if I locate the links again):

Firefly-RK3399_xubuntu16.04_20180412.7z

Firefly-RK3399-ubuntu16.04-20180416112819.tgz

]

enrogued

Regarding the graphics acceleration - I think you might also see errors for missing rockchip_dri.so on the console like I do. The rockchip/teechip trees have the mali drm driver included but are missing the component needed for full accelerated X

On the subject of building your kernel - I have successfully built my own kernel with KVM enabled (work project) & it appears to run fine - I'll need to do it again to enable everything needed for LXD, so I'll report back again on the results

I used a previous version of the instructions that required you to grab their precompiled build tools & the only thing missing from the instructions then was the requirement to point at the correct path

I'm now investigating an issue where the pcie controller doesn't seem to be on (nothing from lspci) whether there is an M.2 card plugged in or not - I've read elsewhere that it may be a device tree thing, so I guess I'll be digging in to which dts file it's using

If anyone has experience with bringing up an M.2 card I'd appreciate any pointers you may have

phi

Hi Rpk and All

Well, I am hitting the same wall, bought this board with linux in mind (ubuntu is fine), don't care about android and my host is an ubuntu 16.04 with a valid cu(1) connection to the senial usb (dunno if I need that)

I can't find what image to download for ubuntu I did grab that
https://drive.google.com/drive/f ... gAqAdXBsaG9NMEl5bm8

This is an ubuntu image unable to say if it is an update image or a partition image.

I don't really know how to proceed from there, the RK3399 page seems to say  

You can download firmwares on [compiled update.img], uncompress them after download.
with [complied update.img] pointing to http://en.t-firefly.com/en/firenow/Firefly_RK3399/download/
But it goes cockoo and redirect to some marketing things.

So basically I am stuck there, still browsing the net to find out how to install ubuntu on this board.

Any pointers appreciated

Cheers,
Phi

phi

Hi All,

I succeeded to load ubuntu from RPK receipe

Got the kernel here
https://drive.google.com/drive/f ... gAqAdXBsaG9NMEl5bm8

update_tool with symlink didn't worked for me so ran it with the real name
sudo ./upgrade_tool uf ../Firefly-RK3399-ubuntu16.04-20180416112819.img

Then the USB type C I used my samsung T5 cable for that, and did the recov/reset sequence.

So from there I can work.

Cheers,
Phi

robodan65

This work for me.  Thanks!

I got kernel 4.4.77 #329.  It doesn't appear as a linux-image package or seem to have any modules built for it.

I see there is a 4.15.0 version of linux-image available as a package.  Can I install a packaged linux, or to I have to stick to the pre-installed kernel?

Dan

enrogued

The packaged linux image from ubuntu won't work, you can either use the firefly/rockchip kernel (4.4.77) - you can recompile & extra modules for that, or you can try & go down the route of building a stock upstream kernel (someone has posted a method for 4.16 here https://github.com/VenKamikaze/f ... rking-4.16-rockchip )

kimkk

rpk.firefly Posted at 5/15/2018 15:31
Sorry to hear about not getting into a loader mode.

Were you able to initially boot and it came ...

Thanks for your care.
The boards were initially booted with Android well.

I send back boards and get them fixed.
After that, I successfully flashed ubuntu images out with instructions as you provided.

It might be problem of board themselves.

If someone experience similar problem, it would be better to send back problematic board to firefly and get them fixed it.
Cheers !!

Pschae

Hello rpk.firefly
Great tutorial: it lead me straightforward into Linux.
Thanks a lot for sharing.