SD Image

[biothundernxt]

Do we have any SD card images for the board?
I have my board, but I have not found any system images, only some info on making the system manually, which is fine, though a pre-made sd image would be nice to get things going quicker.
Thanks.

[akrog]

Hello biothundernxt,

prebuilt kernel images as well as Buildroot rootfs (and link to Ubuntu’s rootfs) can be found on Tech Spec page under Software table at the bottom of the page.

[biothundernxt]

Thanks for the help, but I am still having issues.
After figuring out that I needed to also download the kernel, and put it into boot, I managed to get things together, and all the files are where they should be, but now when I try to boot, I get:

run bootmmc                                  
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
** File not found var/Image **
** File not found var/armada-3720-community.dtb **
Bad Linux ARM64 Image magic!

And then when running ext4ls, I get

Marvell>> ext4ls mmc 0:1
<DIR>       4096 .
<DIR>       4096 ..
<DIR>      16384 lost+found
<DIR>          0 media
<DIR>       4096 bin
<DIR>       4096 proc
<DIR>          0 tmp
<DIR>         36 dev
<DIR>       4096 sys
<DIR>          0 lib
<DIR>       4096 var
<DIR>        663 root
<DIR>        653 etc
<DIR>          0 boot
<DIR>          0 usr
<DIR>       4096 mnt
<DIR>       4096 srv
<DIR>       4096 run
<DIR>       4096 opt
<DIR>       4096 sbin
<DIR>       4096 home

Which does not match the guide, because the numbers are different…
And running this…;

ext4ls mmc 0:1 boot

Returns nothing, as though it was empty.
I know there are files in there though, browsing to that directory on my desktop finds the files… I am very confused.

[biothundernxt]

I am starting to think that my board may be faulty in some way…
I didn’t really think about it before, but I can also only reliably get a connection over the USB to serial if the 12v barrel jack is plugged in.
The LED turns on with just usb, but it is much dimmer, and while I detect the serial adapter, I cannot get in.
Plugging in the barrel jack instantly causes the device to boot.

Removing power also causes the LED to very slowly dim over time rather than immediately turn off as I would expect it to.

[akrog]

Hello biothundernxt,

It does seem strange how the file system has extracted and is recognized whereas the image and dtb in boot/ are not. It would appear the images were not transferred since boot/ is empty. Please make sure to copy them using a Linux machine (acting as root) to the boot/ directory, e.g.:

$ sudo cp /home/user/kernel/4.4.8/arch/arm64/boot/Image boot/
$ sudo cp /home/user/kernel/4.4.8/arch/arm64/boot/dts/marvell/armada-3720-community.dtb boot/

Make sure the files are saved to the SD card before unplugging it from your Linux machine.

Another potential issue is your U-Boot variables which look for the images in var/ directory instead of boot/. Please set them correctly:

Marvell>> setenv image_name boot/Image
Marvell>> setenv fdt_name boot/armada-3720-community.dtb

[biothundernxt]

So now, all I get when I connect to the serial over usb is a terminal that spits out an “E”.

Example;

root@ubuntu:/home/biothundernxt/Documents/Scripts# ls
kermit-usb0
root@ubuntu:/home/biothundernxt/Documents/Scripts# kermit kermit-usb0
Connecting to /dev/ttyUSB0, speed 115200
 Escape character: Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS): enabled
Type the escape character followed by C to get back,
or followed by ? to see other options.
----------------------------------------------------

E
>

typing anything, regardless of what returns another

E
>

so that hitting enter a few times now has the terminal full of this:

>
E
>
E
>
E
>
E
>
E
>
E
>
E
>
E
>

Pressing the reset button while connected produces an additional > character without a newline, like this:

E
>>

such that pressing it multiple times produces many:

E
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[vlad]

I had a similar problem with wrong directory sizes and empty boot directory. Found out that resizing the partition to 3GB helped – the SD card I use is 32GB.

[arthurlutz]

For me, trying to get ubuntu 16.04 to boot, the ext4ls usb 0:1 boot returns the content of bin/ directory.

obviously the boot fails to find the files :

Marvell>> run bootusb
(Re)start USB...
USB0:   Register 2000104 NbrPorts 2
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.00
scanning bus 0 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
       scanning usb for ethernet devices... 0 Ethernet Device(s) found
** File not found boot/Image **
** File not found boot/armada-3720-community.dtb **
Bad Linux ARM64 Image magic!

[Anonymous]

I’ve also had issues with the firmware thinking boot/ is empty. It’s more superstition than science, but following the procedure below fixes it for me when that happens.

sudo mkfs.ext4 -O ^metadata_csum,^64bit /dev/[sd_card_device_partition]
...[extract files to sd card]...
sudo mkdir /path/to/sd_card/boot
sudo cp Image armada-3720-community.dtb /path/to/sd_card/boot
sync

[tanker66]

I was having this exact same issue. Tried a smaller card but that did not work for me. Followed @woodrad ‘s directions and it works wonderfully. Thanks!

[mdframe]

Thanks to this support topic and group I was finally able to get my Ubuntu image to load and execute, however after about a minute the console locked up. I powered off as gracefully as possible with this board now I have the same issue @biothundernxt is reporting with > E, > E.

I am assuming the firmware is now corrupt and their is no way back. Any suggestions?!?!?!?!?

[mdframe]

I was able to get the board out of the > E > E sequence by booting and connecting from a Ubuntu workstation with Kermit. I was using Putty when I was getting the strange behavior. After booting with the Ubuntu workstation I can now use Putty again from Windows and get the Marvell>> command prompt.

[mdframe]

For awareness and I do not know why, but I was able to reproduce the > E > E situation on my Windows workstation with Putty then connected to my Ubuntu workstation with Kermit and it came back to the Marvevll>> command prompt. Now I am fighting with the situation where it locks up in the first minute with running ubuntu 16.04. I read somewhere about setting the governor command so will update once I find that and retry.

[Anonymous]

thank
Regard
https://supportlaptop.com/samsung-sl-m2020-drivers/

[wardrose]

This was my issue as well. I tried using a smaller card, but it didn’t work cookie clicker. It worked since I followed your recommendations. Thanks!

[Author]

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