Bug 7931

Summary: Default configuration for Cubieboard v1 is outdated
Product: buildroot Reporter: mfld.fr
Component: Outdated packageAssignee: unassigned
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: major CC: buildroot, mfld.fr
Priority: P5    
Version: 2015.02   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Linux   
Host: Target:
Build:
Attachments: Change kernel GIT version

Description mfld.fr 2015-03-15 18:02:38 UTC 
The cubieboard_defconfig uses the linux-sunxi kernel v3.0.y, that fails early during boot on a Cubieboard v1 (final revision).

The boot succeeds after switching to linux-sunxi v3.4.y kernel, as recommended by this community on its wiki:
http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_Kernel#Kernel_versions

Change proposal:

BR2_LINUX_KERNEL=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="https://github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi.git"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="9a1cd034181af628d4145202289e1993c1687db6"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_VERSION="9a1cd034181af628d4145202289e1993c1687db6"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_PATCH=""

The commit 9a1cd03 is the latest (2014) of the v3.4.y branch.

I did not try the mainline kernel, because it is explicitly stated by Free Electrons guys that the A10 NAND or multimedia caps are not yet supported.
Comment 1 Thomas Petazzoni 2015-03-15 18:17:58 UTC 
Hum, which version of Buildroot are you using?

I see the following in http://git.buildroot.net/buildroot/tree/configs/cubieboard_defconfig :

# Kernel
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="https://github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi.git"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="274a66a7bfcbaabb88d63e4eba161965383cc416"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_VERSION="sunxi-3.4"
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="sun4i"

Which seems to indicate it's already using a 3.4 kernel.
Comment 2 mfld.fr 2015-03-15 18:39:53 UTC 
Hello Thomas, first I would like to thank you for all the work you did on BuildRoot, because it helped me a lot to run my BBB and now my CB1.

Back to the problem reported here:

I used a fresh new v2015.02, and the commit that was in the defconfig is the following:
https://github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi/commit/274a66a7bfcbaabb88d63e4eba161965383cc416

As you can see, this commit is commented as 'Merge branch 'reference-3.0' into sunxi-3.0', and referenced in the branch 'sunxi-3.0'.

In the serial console, I also saw that the linux kernel version was 3.0.y, not 3.4.y in the very first lines before the panic. This is why I stopped to test that config and updated to latest linux-sunxi v3.4.y branch, that works very well.
Comment 3 mfld.fr 2015-05-08 15:14:40 UTC 
Any news for that defect ?
Comment 4 Thomas Petazzoni 2015-06-03 01:11:41 UTC 
Well, can you submit a patch to update the cubieboard_defconfig file?
Comment 5 mfld.fr 2015-06-07 18:21:50 UTC 
Created attachment 6061 [details]
Change kernel GIT version

This patch just changes the version sourced by BuildRoot to get the right Linux-Sunxi 3.4 (latest commit), not the 3.0.
Comment 6 Thomas Petazzoni 2015-06-08 07:21:40 UTC 
Thanks!

Could you submit that as a patch to the mailing list, by following the submission guidelines at http://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#submitting-patches ?

Thanks a lot!