Bring up Linux on Optimus Board (Allwinner A80)
a project by a_faerber
Updated almost 8 years ago. No love.

The Allwinner Tech Optimus Board by Merrii is the evaluation board for the Allwinner A80 SoC with big.LITTLE Cortex-A15/-A7 configuration (32-bit ARMv7).

The sources leaked from Allwinner contain GPL violations in U-Boot and Linux kernel and therefore won't easily build with openSUSE's armhf gcc (binaries seem to be softfp).

Initial mainline kernel support is being prepared for v3.19. I succeeded in booting via USB-loaded binary downstream U-Boot, but neither SD nor USB nor Ethernet were enabled yet, so no rootfs.

I have prepared a draft patch for adding MMC/SD nodes to the device tree a week before Hackweek Interstellar, which likely depends on forward-porting pinctrl drivers first.

Upstream U-Boot would be another area that A80 support could be contributed to, for native device tree support.

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Looking for hackers with the skills:

arm

This project is part of:

Hack Week 11

Activity

  • about 10 years ago: a_faerber started this project.
  • about 10 years ago: a_faerber added keyword "arm" to this project.
  • about 10 years ago: a_faerber originated this project.


    • Comments

    • a_faerber
      about 10 years ago by a_faerber | Reply

      As a workaround transferring a full rootfs as initramfs (suggestion algraf) had failed with libusb errors from the fel tool.

    • a_faerber
      about 10 years ago by a_faerber | Reply

      Upstream work by others enabled USB, allowing me to successfully boot into an openSUSE armv7hl rootfs on a USB hard drive. SD is still not working.

    • a_faerber
      about 10 years ago by a_faerber | Reply

      U-Boot work-in-progress

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