arm64 set-top-box based workstation
Tronsmart has a Rockchip rk3368 based set-top-box [1].
I want to use it as a arm64 based workstation running openSUSE. The first steps are done and a v4.4-rc1 based kernel boots. The only thing needed right now is the crtc module, which uses some different register mappings (and hopefully nothing else).
Things to do: 1. get the kernel booted from sd-card or usb-stick 2. get a JeOS image building and booting 3. get iommu with arm64 working 4. check if the initial implementation of crtc is working 5. do some nice patches for mainline
I'm based in Barcelona, so it will be difficult to multiplex my board with others. Anyway if someone wants to help, we can find a way. (e.g. looking on the JeOS build, searching for the iommu kernel patches etc).
[1] http://www.tronsmart.com/products/tronsmart-orion-r68-pro
This project is part of:
Hack Week 13 Hack Week 14
Activity
Comments
Similar Projects
Investigate non-booting Forlinx OKMX8MX-C board (aarch64) by a_faerber
Description
In the context of a SUSE customer inquiry last year, a Forlinx OKMX8MX-C arm64 board had been relayed to me from China that a customer was not successful booting SUSE Linux Micro on. Typically this happens when the vendor's bootloader (e.g., U-Boot) is not configured properly (e.g., U-Boot's distro boot) to be compliant with Arm SystemReady Devicetree (formerly IR) band. Unfortunately I could not immediately get it to emit any output, to even diagnose why it wasn't working. There was no public documentation on the vendor's website to even confirm I was checking the right UARTs.
Earlier this year (2024) I happened to meet the ODM/OEM, Forlinx, at Embedded World 2024 in Nuremberg and again the Monday before Hackweek 24 at Electronica 2024 in Munich. The big puzzle was that the PCB print "OKMX8MX-C" does not match any current Forlinx product, there being OKMX8MM-C and OKMX8MP-C products with the Mini and Plus variants of NXP i.MX 8M family instead. One suggestion from Forlinx staff was to double-check the DIP switches on the board for boot mode selection.
Goals
Double-check the board name and investigate further what may be wrong with this board.
Resources
none
Progress
- The board name is indeed as spelled above, not matching any product on forlinx.net.
- The DIP switches were set to boot from microSD.
- Changing the DIP switches to eMMC boot did result in UART1 RS-232 output! (although at times garbled with the cable supplied and USB adapter used)
- As feared, it did not automatically load our GRUB from USB.
- Booting our GRUB manually from USB (via eMMC U-Boot commands fatload+bootefi) was unsuccessful, with partially Chinese error messages.
- This confirmed the initial suspicion, already shared with Forlinx at Embedded World 2024, that the Forlinx System-on-Module's boot firmware was not Arm SystemReady Devicetree compliant and that a firmware update would be necessary to remedy that.
- The microSD card turned out not to contain a bootable image but to only include Chinese-language board documentation (dated 20220507) and BSP files. They used a diverging name of OKMX8MQ-C.
Create openSUSE images for Arm/RISC-V boards by avicenzi
Project Description
Create openSUSE images (or test generic EFI images) for Arm and/or RISC-V boards that are not yet supported.
Goal for this Hackweek
Create bootable images of Tumbleweed for SBCs that currently have no images available or are untested.
Consider generic EFI images where possible, as some boards can hold a bootloader.
Document in the openSUSE Wiki how to flash and use the image for a given board.
Boards that I have around and there are no images:
- Rock 3B
- Nano PC T3 Plus
- Lichee RV D1
- StartFive VisionFive (has some image needs testing)
Hack Week 22
Hack Week 21
Resources
Modernize ocfs2 by goldwynr
Ocfs2 has gone into a stage of neglect and disrepair. Modernize the code to generate enough interest.
Goals: * Change the mount sequence to use fscontext * Move from using bufferhead to bio/folios * Use iomap * Run it through xfstests
Improve various phones kernel mainline support (Qualcomm, Exynos, MediaTek) by pvorel
Similar to previous hackweeks ( https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/improve-qualcomm-soc-msm8994-slash-msm8992-kernel-mainline-support, https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/test-mainline-kernel-on-an-older-qualcomm-soc-msm89xx-explore-mainline-kernel-qualcomm-mainlining) try to improve kernel mainline support of various phones.
Model checking the BPF verifier by shunghsiyu
Project Description
BPF verifier plays a crucial role in securing the system (though less so now that unprivileged BPF is disabled by default in both upstream and SLES), and bugs in the verifier has lead to privilege escalation vulnerabilities in the past (e.g. CVE-2021-3490).
One way to check whether the verifer has bugs to use model checking (a formal verification technique), in other words, build a abstract model of how the verifier operates, and then see if certain condition can occur (e.g. incorrect calculation during value tracking of registers) by giving both the model and condition to a solver.
For the solver I will be using the Z3 SMT solver to do the checking since it provide a Python binding that's relatively easy to use.
Goal for this Hackweek
Learn how to use the Z3 Python binding (i.e. Z3Py) to build a model of (part of) the BPF verifier, probably the part that's related to value tracking using tristate numbers (aka tnum), and then check that the algorithm work as intended.
Resources
- Formal Methods for the Informal Engineer: Tutorial #1 - The Z3 Theorem Prover and its accompanying notebook is a great introduction into Z3
- Has a section specifically on model checking
- Software Verification and Analysis Using Z3 a great example of using Z3 for model checking
- Sound, Precise, and Fast Abstract Interpretation with Tristate Numbers - existing work that use formal verification to prove that the multiplication helper used for value tracking work as intended
- [PATCH v5 net-next 00/12] bpf: rewrite value tracking in verifier - initial patch set that adds tristate number to the verifier
Hacking on sched_ext by flonnegren
Description
Sched_ext upstream has some interesting issues open for grabs:
Goals
Send patches to sched_ext upstream
Also set up perfetto to trace some of the example schedulers.
Resources
https://github.com/sched-ext/scx
FizzBuzz OS by mssola
Project Description
FizzBuzz OS (or just fbos) is an idea I've had in order to better grasp the fundamentals of the low level of a RISC-V machine. In practice, I'd like to build a small Operating System kernel that is able to launch three processes: one that simply prints "Fizz", another that prints "Buzz", and the third which prints "FizzBuzz". These processes are unaware of each other and it's up to the kernel to schedule them by using the timer interrupts as given on openSBI (fizz on % 3 seconds, buzz on % 5 seconds, and fizzbuzz on % 15 seconds).
This kernel provides just one system call, write, which allows any program to pass the string to be written into stdout.
This project is free software and you can find it here.
Goal for this Hackweek
- Better understand the RISC-V SBI interface.
- Better understand RISC-V in privileged mode.
- Have fun.
Resources
Results
The project was a resounding success 
Lots of learning, and the initial target was met.